Donoughmore NS Limerick and St Audoen’s NS Dublin have been announced as the overall winners of this year’s Woodie’s Budding Gardeners competition. Now in its third year, the Woodie’s Budding Gardeners Competition encourages primary school children across the nation to flex their green fingers by taking on a garden project for their school.
For 2023, Woodie’s introduced two categories with a Junior and Senior group with St Audoen’s NS Dublin fighting off stiff competition to take home the Junior Cycle title and Donoughmore NS Limerick winning over judges to win the Senior Cycle category in the Budding Gardeners Competition. Each winning school now have a €2,000 cash prize for their schools Dublin and Limerick.
The Woodie’s Budding Gardeners initiative saw almost 1,000 schools participate from across Ireland take part in the innovative and fun competition. Each school was tasked with taking on a garden project – no bigger than 1.5 metres x 1.5 metres – where they had to complete three easy stages of Sow It, Grow It and Show It, between February and June.
Woodie’s gardening expert, Super Garden TV judge and Bord Bia Bloom multi-medallist, Brian Burke judged the participating schools Budding Gardeners projects during the Show It phase where he was impressed by the high-standard and bright floral gardens from Ireland’s young Budding Gardeners. After much deliberation judge Brian announced St Audoen’s NS as the Junior category Budding Gardeners winner and Donoughmore NS as the Senior category Budding Gardeners winner. Congratulating the winning schools, Brian said:
“Huge congratulations to both St Audoen’s NS and Donoughmore NS on winning this year’s Woodie’s Budding Gardeners Competition. Junior winners, Ms Eleanor Clarke's second class at St Audoen’s NS, clearly worked together and had great fun throughout the process, using the schedule well with a great range of opinions on favourite bits - from pulling weeds to sweeping to making a trellis. The Senior category winners of Budding Gardeners, Ms Fidelma Hennessey's fourth-class at Donoughmore NS, were incredibly resourceful and creative which made their work stand out! A really beautiful, bright, colourful and unique project."
"It’s amazing to see schools and students across Ireland take such pride their work and the standard of mini gardens have been phenomenal. Each year I’m so impressed with the high standard from pupils and it’s really evident how much the children embraced the challenge. Well done to all the schools and pupils who took part.”
Adding to this Rachael Williams, Brand & Communications Manager at Woodie’s said:
“Congratulations to our two 2023 Woodie’s Budding Gardeners winners! Woodie’s Budding Gardeners is all about encouraging children to discover the joy of gardening and we have been thrilled to see the competition grow over the last three years. It’s amazing to see children discovering the joy of gardening and creating something special.
“This year we saw loads of innovative ideas from bright flowerpots grouped together, vegetable patches given new life and recycled containers growing herbs in school classrooms. A big thank you to all the schools, pupils, and teachers from across the country who took part in Woodie’s Budding Gardeners this year. We are already looking forward to 2024.”
For plenty of gardening tips and all the tools you'll need for your next gardening job, visit one of Woodie's 35 stores nationwide or see www.woodies.ie.
