The Kirstenbosch Outreach Greening Programme has been helping schools to design and grow indigenous gardens for more than ten years. You can contact the Gold Fields Environmental Education Centre at Kirstenbosch to ask for a copy of Greening South African Schools, a manual that can help you to design your own indigenous garden.

Ms Wilana van der Merwe from Groote Schuur Primary School set her Grade 7s a project to design and grow a mini-garden that is only about one square metre in size. You could do this too!

• Look at gardening books, magazines and gardens in your neighbourhood to get ideas to help you design your mini-garden.

• Visit a plant nursery to find out about growing plants.

• Find or build a container for your garden.

• Decide what plants you will use and plan where you will put them.

• Sow seeds, make cuttings or find small plants.

• Plant and look after your mini-garden for about three months.

• Keep notes on what happens to your garden.

• Write a report on how your garden grew.