Community collaboration sees garden project flourish at The Vinery in Banff
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A collaborative project at The Vinery in Banff has seen new bug hotels built.
They are to be situated in the community hub's Kindness Garden to encourage biodiversity.
To help with the project it enlisted the assistance of Banff Primary School pupils to design the bug hotels and Banff Day Opportunities went on to build them.
Aberdeen Foyer project lead at The Vinery Clare Bancroft said: "We really wanted to involve the local primary school and ask them if they could get their pupils to design our bug hotels.
"We thought it would be an amazing learning experience for the children to be able to research why biodiversity is needed within the environment, how it can help the environment and Banff Primary School agreed to get their pupils to create the designs.
"They sent us them through and as they were so good it was hard to choose a winner, so we had to have two.
"There was two absolute incredible designs by Mason and Suri so we chose them both because they really went into great detail about the different animals that they could encourage to come in and use the bug hotels and they were just really great designs.
"We then thought who could we ask to actually make the bug hotels so we involved Banff Day Opportunities who have a woodworking group.
"They were happy to agree to make the bug hotels so we gave them the designs and we told them about the different materials we'd like to use and they went away and built them.
"We then involved the volunteers here at The Vinery and we've been out foraging different materials that we wanted to fill the bug hotels with including acorns, leaves and canes that will really encourage different animals to come and use them.
"We've given them a living roof as well which have herbs growing and we could not be any more delighted with the outcome.
"They are going to take pride of place now in our Kindness Garden, which is down on the north wall beside the turret.
"We have a large bed there for the garden and we've more plans in the future to involve the local primary school and Banff Day Opportunities and work with them again.
"It's really important to continue the collaboration with the local community. It's worked really well and we are just so grateful and thankful to them."
The Vinery gave wildflower seeds to Banff Day Opportunites for them to plant as a thank you for their help with the project.
The pupils received a whole growing kit which has seeds, pots and everything that they need to go ahead and start growing plants at home.
