This Friday during VIP Club we finally had the time to bed in our new additions to our sensory garden located in the central courtyard of Kings Copse.
All of the plants, pots and ornaments were kindly bought for the Oasis by Sainsbury's at Hedge End to help us develop the VI sensory garden.
One of our Reg. blind pupils investigating the new plants....this was 'Chocolate Mint' which was a favourite of all the children.
She really enjoyed smelling these plants.
But this was also an afternoon of work....so off we set to plant out our new additions to the garden.
An important element that was missing from our garden were tactile objects. Sainsbury's very kindly agreed to include statues and ornaments in our haul. The children were very interested in the variety of ornaments, large or small, heavy and light.
The silver ceramic sphere was very popular, not for its shiny reflective qualities but because it was hollow and echoed when you talked into it, which is then what each and every pupil then did, with much giggling!!
We learnt about setting up good drainage in our pots so the plants would survive, so in went the stones!
Mr C ably assisted in planting a fantastic 'bottle-brush' plant, a lovely tactile plant with bright red flowers.
More compost please!
The children really enjoyed getting their hands stuck in.
Some intensive bedding in of our very smelly Geraniums and a little bit of Lavender.
This Honeysuckle should give us some lovely fragrances by next summer as will the large Jasmine that was also planted.
Our VI pupils 'posing' in our newly defined VI garden area!
A massive 'Thank You' to Sainsbury's who have given us the starting point to develop this space into a more multi-sensory garden, engaging the children through the smell of plants (herbs) and flowers and with a wider range of tactile experiences.
