Chorleywood Primary School gardening team led by Horticultural Teacher and Gardening Co-ordinator, Claire Davies, (above right), travelled to East Molesey today to set up a scarecrow at Hampton Court Palace ready for the RHS Flower Show which opens tomorrow (Tues 30 June).
CWPS had been invited to enter the competition and 35 scarecrows were chosen out of 15,000 RHS school members. The brief was to make a substantial scarecrow from scratch, including an element of plant material and preferably some recycled material.
This year’s theme ‘Celebration of History’ was selected to acknowledge the 25th anniversary of the Flower Show.
“We wanted to choose a historical character that influenced us.” says Claire , “We decided on Albert Einstein because he was amazing – super bright and also a peace maker. We made his body and head from chicken wire scrunched around a central pole. The Peace Hospice Shop gave us his suit and we made patchwork letters of his equation e=mc2 on the knees!
We carried Einstein from the car park and spent about an hour setting him up against his pole. He has a ‘living’ head of willow, moss and elephant leaves interspersed with felt facial feathers covering the base of oasis with eyebrows and a moustache of moss and we made all this on site. He was a little bit tricky to get into position but we finally did it with much wire and bending while the children assembled his hair which was added last. The scarecrow area had a 7m high RHS ‘time traveller’ scarecrow as a centrepiece – He was a real feat of engineering!
When we finished making him we sat under the trees in the shade and ate our pack lunches and observed all the chaos around us.
The RHS created a trail we could follow around the whole exhibition, it was great fun. The children loved the maze with mist, steam and water fountains appearing from nowhere. African dancers performed for us, we had private tours around gardens of all shapes and sizes including one that represented DNA and chromosomes. There was a giant 25th birthday cake made from flowers, cacti growing in sculptural masterpieces and Alice in Wonderland figures to discover, all in a matter of a couple of hours. We spotted a few celebrity presenters too!
It was an amazing experience to be part of the RHS institution- we were privileged to be there. The children were so well behaved, it was a day not to be forgotten.
Judging will be done throughout the show – people vote by by putting pennies into Perspex boxes. The competition is tough but I believe Chorleywood Primary is the most original!”
Hampton Court Flower Show, Tue 30 June – Sun 4 July, KT8 9AU
10am – 7.30pm except Sunday when it closes at 5.30pm. (Plant sell off 4.30pm)
Early Preparations at school
