{"id":42831,"date":"2025-11-12T11:33:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T11:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pioneerfederation.co.uk\/stmarys\/?p=42831"},"modified":"2025-11-24T11:51:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T11:51:44","slug":"wakehurst-place-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pioneerfederation.co.uk\/stmarys\/wakehurst-place-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Wakehurst Place Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cherry had a wonderful time visiting Wakehurst Place in the sunshine!<\/p>\n

The first thing we did was walk through the beautiful gardens to find the classroom. It was filled with the most fantastic plants and seeds. We spent time thinking about what a seed is and had some very thoughtful answers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Iris: It is part of a plant.<\/p>\n

Charlie C: It has something inside it.<\/p>\n

Skye: Seeds need water to grow into plants.<\/p>\n

Sid: Seeds need sun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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We learned about the very special underground seed bank that is housed at Wakehurst. It has billions of seeds and is treated as precious treasure. The people at Wakehurst take good care of seeds that come from all over the world so if a natural disaster happens and plants get killed, they are able to replace them.<\/p>\n

We were shown the smallest seed but we could only see it under a microscope as it was so small! The largest seed they have is a Coco de Mer. It was bigger than a football! When it starts to germinate it takes 5 to 6 years to grow. In groups we explored a carousel of activities. We studied seeds from all over the world, we learned that we get cotton from the cotton tree, the cocoa seed gives us chocolate and the Coco de Mer floats along rivers.<\/p>\n