Garden Update

Lots of things are happening in the Retns outdoor spaces at the moment.

The worms have been very busy in the wormery making lovely fresh compost for our beds. Ciara has been taking care of these lovely RETNS pets and feeding them with food scraps to make sure they are happy.

Dennis has been very busy as usual doing all sorts of jobs….the list is endless! But the Green Team are very thankful to him for his latest garden work. He is installing a rainwater harvesting butt beside our veg garden so we can water the veg this spring and summer and SAY NO TO THE HOSE! As most of you RETNS garden helpers know we often end up relying on the hose as our old rainwater butt was in the yard very far away from the veg. So a big thank you to the wonderful and ever ingenious Dennis!

Another RETNS Green Hero is Niamh Kelly, mother of Liam, Maeve and Eoin. She has done an amazing job helping to clear the veg beds and get them ready for the spring planting season. Thank you Niamh!

The veg garden and teaching area is looking really fantastic thanks to the hard work of Leo Mulholland and his team of builders. The new seating and extended gravelled teaching area has just transformed our garden.

The first class have been out enjoying this space with their teacher Aileen and often our resident RETNS robin comes to say hi to the human visitors. First Class planted daffodils in November and these are starting to bloom now.

And of course our incredible Wildlife Garden is looking really magical with spring flowers bursting into colour and the buds on our ash, oak, hazell and birch about to burst into life. Soon it will be a sea of fresh green leaves.

Some 4th Class Students along with Una took willow cuttings in October and re-planted the willow structure before Christmas. These cuttings are now sprouting! They also put some willow cuttings in a bucket and these have also sprouted. 4th class will plant them once they are back in school.