Chelsea call-up for two seven-year-olds
THE GREATEST flower show on Earth welcomed two sevenyear-old Hinckley schoolboys who were invited to share some horticultural science with the gardening elite.
Year 2 pupils Harvey Allsopp and Caleb Lambert from Battling Brook Community Primary School were invited to join the Miracle-Gro stand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London after carrying out crop growing experiments with their school gardening club.
The show, run by the Royal Horticultural Society and attended by royalty and top growers from around the globe, receives international media coverage and is visited by tens of thousands of passionate gardeners, many of whom were keen to find out about the boys’ trials.
They were accompanied by class teacher Katie Pickering, who runs the school gardening club wth green-fingered grandparent governor John Welford, and fellow teacher Yvonne Daniels.
Mrs Pickering said: “We were one of the lucky few schools to be picked to attend the Chelsea Flower Show after entering a gardening competition run by Miracle-Gro.
“The boys carried out a science experiment to grow cabbages and carrots.
“The experiment, run nationally by Miracle-Gro, was to plant and record the findings of seeds that had been grown in different growing media.
“The reward was not only to eat the produce grown but the opportunity to present their findings at Chelsea.”
Harvey and Caleb sowed their seeds back in November and monitored and recorded their development from seedling to crop.
Just weeks before the show opened, they heard that they had been selected to present their findings on the MiracleGro stand and to discuss them with the visiting public.
Dubbed Little Ant and Dec by the Miracle-Gro team, the pair were interviewed by the Urban School Project stand sponsors and by representatives from their biggest buyers, Homebase.
They took a two-hour stint on the mouth-watering, silver-gilt medal-winning edible stand, planted with crops from strawberries to salads, in eye-catching and innovative ways, meeting visitors, including some of the famous Chelsea pensioners, and discussing their experiment.
Each was given a certificate to record their involvement.
Mrs Pickering said: “Both the children and the adults went away feeling very excited and full of ideas for their own fabulous school garden and hope to recreate the edible salad slide next spring.”