Green-fingered Inverness College UHI staff ‘Lend a Hand’ to earn nursery Eco status

Green-fingered Inverness College UHI’s Longman Nursery has earned its bronze Eco-School award after a series of environmental activities, climaxing in this year’s ‘Lend a Hand Day’ last month.

Longman Nursery has been working solidly over recent months in a bid to secure Eco-School status, with activities including setting up the Eco-School committee, carrying out an environmental review and building a plastic bottle green house with the help of nursery children, parents, nursery staff and the estates team.

The spurt of recent activity culminated in a College-wide ‘Lend a Hand’ Day in the Longman Nursery Garden in a bid to enhance the garden environment, making it a bright and stimulating experience for all children in the nursery’s care.

Now the nursery team are focused on achieving their Silver Flag and have set out a new schedule of activities with a view to achieving the feat, including planting vegetables and flowers, making a compost heap, installing a water butt/hippo and looking into the possibility of planting fruit trees which could produce children’s snacks in years to come.

Also in the pipeline for the nursery is a garden mural designed by one of the parents, which will include graphics, numbers and characters.

Irene McRae, Manager of Longman Nursery, said: “We are obviously very proud to have achieved our bronze Eco-School award and are very much looking forward to beginning to work towards earning our silver award.

“The nursery would like to say a huge thank you to all of our parents, children, the estates department and nursery staff for all their hard work in helping us to achieve this wonderful garden, as well as College staff for their many donations.

“We must also extend our thanks to David Lynch who donated some lovely flowerbed planters to the garden from The Greenhouse in Dingwall.”

Any green-fingered local people keen to get involved in helping the nursery team at Inverness College UHI in achieving their silver award and would like to show the children some gardening skills or donate shrubs should contact the College on 01463 273000.

The Nursery is already planning its next ‘Lend a Hand’ Day and is hoping to make it a twice-annual event.

For further information on all courses available at Inverness College UHI please call 01463 273000 or visit www.inverness.uhi.ac.uk.