The landscape of war has been transformed into a garden of peace by children at a Hampshire special school - and won them a silver medal at this week’s Chelsea flower show.
“Peace is special” is the theme of the garden chosen by 13 boys and one girl from Oak Lodge school for pupils aged 11 to 16 with a wide range of special needs. Their garden was designed by Jennifer Hirsch, who was trained at Kew, and is described as minimalist. It has an urban feel with barbed tape transforming into trellis and rifle-shot metal being used as sculpture.
Children at the school in Dibden Purlieu school helped pot up to 1,200 plants and wrote the peace poetry engraved on paving stones.
The garden was sponsored by Xchanging, a business processing services company, which is now looking to forge links with other special schools to establish work-experience schemes for pupils.
