Young Gardener of the Year Award

A green-fingered youngster from Fife in Scotland has been named as this year’s Royal Horticultural Society’s Young Gardener of the Year in an awards ceremony at RHS Garden Wisley.

Young Gardener of the Year

Ten-year-old Fraser White, who attends Dairsie Primary School near St Andrews, was nominated for the award by his teacher and won the prize ahead of hundreds of youngsters from across the UK.

The judges remarked on his huge commitment to the school’s community garden. “Fraser clearly loves coming into school to work in the garden and has dedicated himself to sharing his enthusiasm with the rest of the school and the wider community,” said judge and TV gardener Frances Tophill.

Other awards in the RHS School Gardening competition went to David Nicol, a science teacher at a secure unit for young people in Glasgow, who was named School Gardening Champion; and the School Gardening Team of the Year went to a 31-strong group of secondary school pupils from Hammersmith in London, who turned a grey area of the school grounds into a thriving garden.

We love to encourage school gardening here at the garden centre in Pickering, so if you know a deserving school garden or a green-fingered youngster drop in and take a look at our child-friendly ideas to get them started.

Budding wildlife gardeners will love our bug safari kits, bee hotels and bird feeders to encourage lots of interesting creatures large and small to visit. We’ve also come up with a great range of seeds in child-friendly starter kits so they can experience the joy of watching seedlings appear as if by magic. Finish off by kitting them out in child-sized gardening gear, so they can enjoy gardening in comfort, from wellies and gloves to miniature spades, forks, wheelbarrows and watering cans. They’ll never want to come indoors again!