Open Air Teaching
Walled & Sensory Gardens
The Walled Garden is an acre in size and is a centre of activity in daily life at Tickwood. Along side the working farm The Walled Garden has equally to work hard all the way through the year. Many food products are grown here and Tickwood’s gardeners tend the plants with all the professional skills and passions associated with such responsibility. The Walled Garden is also central to the development of core projects which will span many years ahead in the Tickwood diary. While general garden duties are repeated annually, from time to time, the garden is used to support the working farm in growing crops for animal feed as well as vegetables for the kitchen and produce to market – very little in the garden ever goes to waste.
In addition to the needs of the estate the garden is also a ‘classroom’ particularly for older students to learn about growing and tending crops, harvesting and preparation for sale – a career in the making. Selecting salad for bags and fruit for pressing into juices being favourite activities.
Our main video of the gardens feature Tutor of Horticulture Andreea Davies, from Severndale Specialist Academy, and Tickwood’s Monica Quagliariello as they find a peaceful couple of hours walking through the gardens on a sunny afternoon. As you will see, garden produce covers artichokes to tomatoes, gooseberries to pears, lettuce to peaches – some of the apple trees are so old we are still trying to identify them.
Close by The Walled Garden is The Sensory Garden. The variety of flowers blazing with colour during spring, summer and autumn, countless hues of green throughout the year. Most of the students take their lunch here, sitting around the ponds and listening to the sounds of the countryside. A small classroom is on hand for horticultural tuition and shelter on showery days, or a space just to sit quietly for those who need some private time.
The gardens are truly places of education and tranquility in equal measure. Meaningful work in sustainable growing cycles, together with sights, sounds, smells and touches, places where communication and teamwork shows through while calming the most energetic personalities.
