PUPILS from Harrowbarrow School got their hands dirty to help Cotehele's head gardener plant flowers for a decorative garland. The pupils from the school's gardening club visited the National Trust property to help head gardener Dave Boucher plant the flowers which are later picked and dried to create a garland that is is hung in the Barn Restaurant. Harrowbarrow was one of four schools in East Cornwall that helped to make the garland — the others were Calstock, St Dominic and St Mellion. The pupils plant their flowers, then in autumn they visit Cotehele again to assemble the picked and dried flowers into a baby garland. The children's garland is a smaller version of Cotehele's popular Christmas garland, which is made every year and hangs in the hall of the house. Gardeners have just picked the first flower for the annual garland, which is made from tens of thousands of flowers all grown and dried at Cotehele, and hung in the house for six festive weeks. Although picking the first flower in the middle of May seems like a long way off Christmas, this year it started later than usual. Head gardener Dave Boucher said: 'Some years we pick the first flower at the beginning of April, but we had to plant the flowers late this year because there were continued threats of frost.' Around six different types of flowers will go into the garland. 'Last year we had 44,000 individual flowers in the garland. My guess is this year we'll struggle to beat that. Ideally we'd like 30,000 and some years we get as low as 20,000. How many is completely down to the summer — we need sunny days and low rainfall. That's the joy of gardening — you've got to love it.' Flowers growing for the garland can be seen in the cut flower garden at Cotehele, and visitors to the estate in the first week of November will be able to watch and help gardeners build the garland. l Pictured is Harrowbarrow School gardening club with teaching assistant Jo Cocking planting a flower border with Cotehele head gardener Dave Boucher. Picture by James Bird