inspiring and promoting learning about nature, the environment and sustainable living
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Opening times for Easter Holidays 2026
We’ll be closed for the Easter bank holidays, but apart from Monday 13th and Friday 17th April, the garden will be open on weekdays from 10am–4pm. See our socials for more information.
Click on the link to find out more about our upcoming Whittling Workshop for anyone with a Level 3 Forest School qualification or who is training or has trained with us at Level 1 or Level 3
Scotswood Garden staff past and present
Photographed as part of our 30th Year celebrations in 2025
We're a great place for a work meeting or an away day. We have ample parking on site and we are only five minutes from the A1/A69 roundabout. Our beautiful garden space makes a refreshing backdrop to any event, plus we have indoor space too. In choosing to run your event at our place, you'll also be supporting our work with nature and our local community. Please get in touch to find out more.
Corporate days
Do you and your team really need to take some time out of the office? Why not visit us for the day? You'll be out in the fresh air, either working on regular maintenance of the garden or tackling a specific project. Our indoor space means that you can also have some meeting time. Lunch can be provided. We offer a limited number of slots for corporate away days each year. The cost of a corporate away day starts at £350. Please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Venue hire
Contact us to hire either a small space for a meeting or to use the whole garden and hub for a large event. Catering can be provided. Please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Alongside our regular school visits programme, we also offer sessions for school groups based on the ethos of the Schools of Sanctuary (SOS) network. These sessions are ideal for schools who are in the process of applying for the SOS award, or those schools who are already members of the SOS network.
During the sessions at Scotswood Garden, children explore the concept of 'Welcome' in our beautiful, natural setting. The sessions include activities such as:
learning welcoming phrases in different languages,
creating welcoming decorations using natural materials
fostering teamwork, empathy and kindness.
Thanks to the generous support of the Wellesley Fund and the Curtin PARP fund, we're able to provide these sessions free of charge (with only a small admin fee of £15). The sessions can be either a half or full-day and can be tailored to accommodate specific year groups, school councils, or designated groups of 'Sanctuary Friends'. We aim for a maximum of 15 children per session.
To book a session or to find out more, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Comments from Teachers about our SOS sessions
"This was a lovely sessions and was easy for pupils with varying fluency in English to understand and participate in."
"This was a super session, very well organised, well prepared and resourced."
"Linked well with our work as a School of Sanctuary."
"It strengthened their teamwork skills and relationships with each other."
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
NEW FOR 2026 – Forest School Whittling Workshop
Date: Tuesday 21st April 2026
Time: 16.15 – 18.15
Venue: Scotswood Garden
Cost: £40
Please note: This course is open to anyone who holds a Level 3 Forest School leadership qualification, or who has trained (or is training) with us at Level 1 or Level 3. This course is not accredited.
October 2025 - Update on our Watery West End in Bloom Competition
We have now announced the winners of our Watery West End in Bloom Competition. We were overwhelmed by the number of entries we received so A huge THANK YOU for all your designs.
The winners are:
St Joseph’s Primary School
St Teresa’s Primary School
Caius Nesbit
First Leamington Scouts - Beavers section
Nightshades Youth Group from Scotswood Garden
St Teresa's with their prizes First Lemington Scouts - Beavers section receiving their certificate.
Rain Gardens
As our climate is changing and we are getting more heavy rain showers, many school grounds and gardens are suffering from flooding and waterlogging. At Scotswood Garden, we are on a mission to help schools and local communities to develop rain gardens and plant up areas with water loving plants to help remedy the problem.
Rain gardens are a wonderful sustainable solution to flooding from rainwater runoff from hard surfaces such as school roofs or playgrounds.
Rain gardens are essentially a hollow in the ground planted up with water tolerant, wildlife friendly plants and designed to take up as much of the excess rainwater runoff from a building or hard surface as possible.
Quite often the runoff will be from the roof of a building via a down pipe. The rain garden captures the water that would otherwise go straight down the drain or flood an area and make it unusable.
Rain gardens also filter the water as it slowly drains through them, taking out pollutants that would otherwise end up in our waterways. Rain gardens are different from a pond or a bog in that water is allowed to slowly drain away through the soil. This means that when the weather is dry the rain garden is dry, and when there is lots of rain, the rain garden will be wet.
This excellent video explains it really well and is great for children. With thanks to the students from Northumbria University.
A group of children from the Nightshades Youth Group at Scotswood Garden spent a session planting up a rain garden in a green space in the John Marley Centre which had been prepared by a group of local adult volunteers from Scotswood Garden. The area where the rain garden was developed suffered from frequent flooding during heavy downpours, rendering the space unusable for significant amounts of the year. Now the rain garden is in place, rainfall that enters the rain garden from a downpipe which collects water from the roof of a building, can slowly soak down through the rain garden thus preventing the rest of the area from flooding. The children prepared the base of the rain garden with a mix of gravel and sand and forked it in. This improved the soil for water absorption. Then they planted the site up with water-loving plants which has also provided a wildlife friendly area and an enjoyable space for people to sit in. See the rain garden in action below!
MSc Construction Management students from Northumbria University
We have been very fortunate to work with an excellent team of MSc Construction Management students with BIM from Northumbria University. As part of their MSc, they have to do an Advanced Practice Live Project. In their case, this was not only designing a rain garden for one of the outdoor spaces at the John Marley Centre, but also making some brilliant videos, like the one on this page. To view the rest of these videos, have a look at the Watery West End Project Playlist on our YouTube channel see here: Scotswood Garden Playlists
At the close out meeting, the students presented us with a model rain garden planter for us to use in our work with local schools. Sincere thanks to the whole team for their amazing work on this project: Sobia Showkat, http://linkedin.com/in/sobia-bukhari; Chandra Mouliswar Reddy Basireddy, www.linkedin.com/in/chandra-basireddy-698056282; Akshay GT; and Jenny Paulas G.
Schools
Learning about rain gardens in schools offers great curriculum links to soils, rocks, the water cycle, mini beasts, pollinators, water usage and much more! These are all topics that we can cover in the educational sessions that we run here at Scotswood Garden.
If your school suffers from flooding, or you would like to look into ways of capturing the rainwater from your school roof or playground into a rain garden, then please do get in contact as we are currently looking for local schools to join our Growing the Future - Watery West End project from September 2025. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
With thanks to our funders: the Branch Out Fund at Northumbria Water; the Community Foundation North East; St Nicholas Educational Trust, the MacRobert Trust and The Lawrence Campbell Community First Fund.
Nature Rescue Task Ideas and Resources for Schools and Families
This page contains follow up activities for teachers and school children who have attended one of our school visit sessions (and their parents), but the resources here are, of course, open to everyone!
Firstly, thank you for visiting us at Scotswood Garden. As a follow up to all visits, we offer every class the opportunity to take action to help nature once back at school. This could be something the children do individually at home, or something you do as a class or even as a whole school. We do have a small amount of money available to support this work.
Below you’ll find some suggestions for Nature Rescue Tasks, along with links to other organisations and their resources where applicable. You may already have decided what to do, but feel free to browse the ideas below and use them either now or in the future.
We’d also love to hear about how you get on, you can tag us in to any social media posts (@scotswoodgarden) or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to let us know what you’ve been up to. This kind of evidence is really helpful to us when applying for future funding (virtually all our work is funded by grants), so thank you in advance for your support. Photos - please only send us photos of children who have the relevant photo permissions.
A word to PARENTS: If you’re reading this as a parent, first of all, thank you for your interest. Lots of the ideas below are actions you could take with your child to help nature. Most of them don’t require a lot of resources. Also some of the links to other organisations will take you to lots of other ideas too. Good luck. Again feel free to let us know about your successes!
If you have any queries or suggestions about anything on this page, please do email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Good luck - we can’t wait to see how it goes!
Here are some links to other organisations who have great resources:
Activities | Wildlife Watch - this is the young persons wing of the Wildlife Trust. Scroll down the page to see their excellent "how to" instruction sheets and id sheets too.
Nature Activities for Kids | Fun & Learning - The RSPB On this page, you'll find links to activities you can do to help nature (Ways to get Wild), but also at the bottom of the page links to the teachers' section. Here you'll find information on their Wild Challenge which includes lots of activities you can do at school. There are lots of other resources too!
Free Trees for Schools and Communities - Woodland Trust If you're thinking about planting trees to help nature, this is the site you need. The Woodland Trust offer free trees to schools. Browse the different packs. If you want advice on planting trees, let us know.
Ideas for Nature Rescue Tasks
Plant Pollinator Friendly Flowers
Good for - pollinators and anything which depends on them
How to - You can either grow these from seed, scatter seeds, buy plants (or get them from us!) This is a good activity for the children to do themselves. They can take the plants home or plant them in school. See our instruction page below in links.
Why not have a sunflower growing competition? Or a bean growing contest? They can link in with maths and english as well as the science aspects of pollination and the life cycle of plants. For older children you could take a more technical approach and work out the rate of growth of plants; compare plants treated differently (e.g. with or without water, with or without plant food etc)
Do some insect id to see how many species you attract. Keep a record, make a chart. Use insect colours in art (colour mixing, looking at shape and form)
Make a mini meadow (see separate entry).
Grow herbs and make potions (both fun and great for pollinators)! Also cooking with herbs is great fun too.
Resources - Seeds, compost, plant pots or better still recycled plastic containers.
Make Seed Bombs
Good for - pollinators and anything which relies on pollinators.
How to - Mix the seeds with some compost. Take a piece of clay, roll it out and then sprinkle the seed/compost mix. Roll sections of the clay into small balls. Then the best bit is throwing them where you would like them to grow!
Links - There's a great instruction sheet on the wildlife trust website Activities | Wildlife Watch click the "grow" option until the title "Activities". They use powdered clay and water, but the pictures give you the idea!
Further action - Monitor them, see what grows! Count the species which visit the flowers. Maybe make seed bombs at other times of the year too! If the children take them home, ask for reports and photos from home.
Resources - seeds (anything you want to grow, or seeds collected from the garden), compost, clay (use natural clay without polymers) Possibly a tiny (really tiny) amount of water.
Make bird feeders
Good for - birds (and maybe the odd squirrel!)
How to - See our own instructions below. You can use peanut butter instead of lard, but please check for allergies first. We also use trex (a white vegetable fat) instead of lard when working with Muslim children. At home - you can do this at home too!
Put your feeders somewhere where the children can monitor them without disturbing the birds. Keep a list of birds which visit the feeders (you can do some data handling with this).
Why not add a nest box? (See separate entry)
Birds are great for art work. You could make model birds using mixed materials, do colour mixing.
Listen to bird song (this could be for id or for a peaceful nature connected moment)
Experiment with different types of feeders.
Add a water station for birds when the weather is dry.
Resources - Lard, trex or peanut butter, bird seed, mealworms, pine cones (dried out so that they open out) string.
Build a mini pond
Good for - insects, pondlife, birds
How to - This is not quite at hard as it sounds! This version uses an old washing up bowl which you can sink into the ground. See the instructions in our leaflet.
As above, if you get some regular visitors to your pond, you can monitor and count them. Things like dragonflies and damselflies are wonderful to watch.
If you're lucky, you may get frogs or newts using your pond. Then you'll open up a whole new world of life cycles for the children to learn about first hand.
Resources - Old washing up bowl, rocks, gravel, wood, a spade/trowel
Make a bee bath
Good for - bees and other pollinators
How to - A bee bath is a place for bees to rest and collect water. It's usually no more than a shallow dish with rocks and water where bees can rest. Use a mixture of small rocks and smooth pebbles - anything which is big enough for bees to land on. Then add water but don't submerge the rocks.
Links - Watch this video from the Royal Parks
Further action - You'll need to top the saucer up with water regularly, and in warm weather every day. If this is at school, this could be someone's job. This is also a great activity for children to do at home.
Resources - Large plant saucers or any other wide, shallow container; pebbles, small rocks.
Grow vegetables
Good for - pollinators, bugs, and humans!
How to - Plant seeds in pots. Things like beans are fast growers, also radishes, herbs like chives. Plant out into a veg plot once the plants grow larger. At home - start with something simple and most importantly something you like! You don't need a garden for this, you could grow some herbs or salad leaves in a pot too.
Further action - There are lots of great links to literacy, science (parts of a plant, what plants need to grow, maths (measuring), also cooking and tasting of course!
Resources - Compost, recycled yogurt pots for plant pots (clear ones are great if you want to look at the roots), seeds. You can also use newspaper to make plant pots.
Make a bug hotel
Good for - any bugs which like to hibernate over winter
How to - this depends on how big you want to make it! Children can make individual ones using plastic bottles or you can make a big one as a whole class - great for team building, communication etc.!
Further action - It might need a bit of maintenance, such as adding more dried grass and sticks.
Resources - For a large bug hotel: bricks, different sized sticks, dried grass, pine cones, old roof tiles, slabs of wood.
For individual bug hotels: two-litre plastic bottles, string, a range of different sized sticks, dried grass, pine cones.
Organise a litter pick
Good for - all wild creatures. Litter is a big threat to creatures such as hedgehogs, birds, foxes.
How to - this depends on how big you want to make it! Teachers - you could do this as a class or as a whole school. Maybe you could involve parents too? We have a certain number of litter pickers which we are happy to lend out for litter picking. You'll need a risk assessment too, but we have one which you could use as a starting point for your own. Parents - this is something you could do with your children. Best to buy a litter picker, if you can and please wear gloves.
Litter picking could lead into discussions about plastics and sea pollution, the three R's etc. The children could do research into this and prepare a presentation on it. One great activity if you have supportive parents, is to ask the children to collect all the plastic their family throws away in a week (or maybe a couple of days). This would be a great task for data handling too!
Resources - Litter pickers (which teachers can borrow from us), bin bags, gloves, risk assessment.
Make a meadow
Good for - pollinators and anything which eats or relies on pollinators (including us)
How to - the simplest way to do this at school is not to mow. If you are lucky enough to have a decent sized playing field, cordon off a corner and make some signs so that it doesn’t get mowed when the grass cutting team comes around. You’ll be amazed what you find there.
Parents - Leave a little bit of lawn to grow wild, maybe the front lawn if you have one?
Further action - You could survey what plants are there to begin with and what grows once it is left. You could also survey the numbers of insects. Great for id work too. You could make seed bombs or scatter wild flower seed to enrich the area. If the area is big enough, you could mow a path through it, so that the children can get in and really explore.
Resources - Signs and maybe some rope or tape to cordon off the area.
Our education and youth programmes for young people cover a huge variety of themes and activities including pond dipping, environmental arts, forest schools, Duke of Edinburgh and more...
We're a great place for a work meeting or an away day. We have ample parking on site and we are only five minutes from the A1/A69 roundabout. Our beautiful garden space makes a refreshing backdrop to any event, plus we have indoor space too. In choosing to run your event at our place, you'll also be supporting our work with nature and our local community. Please get in touch to find out more.
There's a great instruction sheet on the wildlife trust website 
