Giveaway update: Sunflowers, foxgloves and wildflowers for care boxes

Foxgloves for a woodland, cornfield wildflowers for a school, and sunflowers for 1,000 folk across Scotland. We've been busy!

As a social enterprise, we spend 10% of all our income on running seed giveaways to good causes in Scotland. Thank you to everyone who's recently shopped with us - here's a giveaway update to show you just what a difference you've made.

1,000 sunflower seed sets given out as lockdown learning resource

Back at the beginning of January, as the most recent lockdown got under way, we decided we'd try to help out parents and children in Scotland who might be struggling with home schooling.

We put together wee sunflower sets, made up of a beautiful postcard designed by Marceline Smith, a double-sided colour-in activity card, and a packet of sunflower seeds to sow in April. On the back of the postcard, we included lots of interesting facts about sunflowers - and also created a learning page on our website.

We put out a wee tweet, offering some of these sets for free, and were blown away by the response. We worked out a way we could fund the distribution of 1,000 sets to parents, teachers and childcare providers in Scotland. We've been posting these sets out on a rolling basis ever since!

All 1,000 free sets have now been allocated, and this giveaway is closed to new applications.

Foxglove seeds for Midlothian woodland restoration

Volunteers in Midlothian are in the process of restoring Cohooley Woods - a small two acre community woodland that hasn't been managed in fifty years. The group has so far done a huge amount of work establishing the health of existing trees, planting native saplings, and creating a path to improve accessibility for all.

They asked if we might be able to donate some wildflower seeds, to encourage pollinating insects on the site and support the woodland's biodiversity.

Wild foxgloves are fantastic for bees and other pollinators, self-seed well and thrive in the semi-shade of woodland edges. We're delighted to have been able to donate some packets of our foxglove seeds to this project.

Wildflower seeds for school care boxes

And finally, a lovely heartwarming tale of what children are doing to help others during this difficult period.

At Colquhoun Park Primary School in East Dunbartonshire, children in the hub are working to produce care boxes for folk who they think might be lonely, or just need cheering up. They're sewing rainbows and writing letters and poems of hope.

They asked us whether we might be able to donate some packets of our wildflower mix, so care box recipients also have something to watch grow. We're very happy to be able to help out, and have also popped in some of our 'To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow' postcards.

Next steps...

Here's more information about all the other groups we've worked with since we got started in April 2020.

And finally, to our supporters: These donations aren't down to us. They're down to every single person who has placed an order with us - large or small. Thank you so much for being the difference.