PUPILS at a Wotton-under-Edge school have designed an award winning garden for their teachers to relax in.

The Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School students have won the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) annual Green Plan It Challenge for the South West region.

The team of five collected their award at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden on November 29.

The garden design competition saw over 70 green-fingered 12 to 14-year-olds across 13 schools work with industry professionals, including garden designers, landscape architects and horticulturists, to design a green space for their school or community.

KLB's winning team, calling themselves the Forest Five, presented their imaginative 3D design for a teachers’ garden to a panel of experts.

Aimed at providing staff with a tranquil space in which to relax, it features willow pod seating, long grasses and living bamboo screens to create a sense of seclusion.

Health and wellbeing proved to be a popular theme with a number of schools opting to design peaceful and relaxing gardens with sensory planting to help them escape the stresses of the classroom.

More than 1,000 school pupils have taken part in the RHS Green Plan It Challenge this year, growing their plant know-how, skills and confidence and battling it out in nine regional competitions.

Katharine Lady Berkeley will now have the chance to apply for £2,000 worth of funding to turn the pupils’ design into reality.

Andrea Van-Sittart, RHS head of community outreach, said: “I’m always amazed at the creative and detailed designs dreamed up by pupils after just ten weeks, with many opting to tackle some of today’s greatest challenges, from food sustainability to wildlife conservation and mental wellbeing.

“I hope the schools have enjoyed honing their project management skills and inspire their peers to get involved in gardening.”

For more information about Green Plan It, which will return in 2019 visit: https://schoolgardening.rhs.org.uk/11-19-years/Green-Plan-It