IN THE
Garden this Term
TOM HEAD GARDENER
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Hello, I’m Tom, the Head Gardener at Truro School. I joined Truro in 2018. I first got into gardening after moving to Cornwall. I enjoy working at the school site as it is on the edge of an AONB (area of outstanding natural beauty) part of the Fal River estuary. We often see rare plants, animals and many migrating birds pass over the sports fields using the Fal River as a stop-off feeding ground. With as many of our projects as possible we try to be environmentally friendly and sustainable. For example, we take cuttings from our own plants on site and grow them in our greenhouses; just this summer we took 120 cuttings of the osteospermum, which we plan to plant on the front terraces next spring. We also like to encourage wildlife on site, and have just had a barn owl and tawny owl box made up, which we plan to put up soon.
The start of autumn this year was really mild as far as gardening is concerned, so everything was flowering longer and we saw butterflies including red admirals, small tortoiseshells and speckled woods still flying in October. By November it became very wet, so digging became a problem, and a few projects, such as the Rose Garden, have been put on hold whilst we wait for the better weather to return. We are pleased that our apprentice has been able to move onto his next steps, although this has left us a man down for the last few weeks, but we are looking forward to welcoming a new member to the team in the new year.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from myself and the rest of the grounds team.
