Keep Scotland Beautiful Open Pocket Gardens 2025
A very warm welcome to schools joining in with Scotland’s Gardens Scheme to celebrate your wonderful Pocket Gardens this year! We hope you will have fun sharing your gardens with visitors and raising some funds for your chosen good causes.
Here are some resources and top tips which we hope will help you make your Open Pocket Garden a success. If you have some other good ideas for your Open Pocket Garden event, we’d love to hear from you - contact info@scotlandsgardens.org
Good luck!
Choose your good cause
Scotland’s Gardens Scheme is a charity which helps people to raise funds for other charities and good causes by opening their gardens to visitors. Funds are raised through tickets, refreshments, plant sales and other activities. By joining in, you are taking part in a Scotland-wide tradition that has continued for nearly 100 years!
You can choose which good cause you would like to support: it could be a charity that your group really cares about; it could be a local community cause such as a park or greenspace; or it could be for something you need for your school - maybe your school garden, if you have one. When have chosen your cause, think about why it’s important to you and why you want to support it to encourage your visitors to donate to it.
Top tips to promote your Open Pocket Garden
Invite staff and other pupils to your open day; remind them to bring a donation!
Send an invitation to parents and carers to ask them to come along (see invitation template below). Could you invite a local celebrity?
If you have school social media, share a post about your open day. For example, suggested text could say:
We are opening our Pocket Garden with Scotland’s Gardens Scheme this year to raise funds for (insert your good cause). Come and see us on (date) at (time). We will have refreshments and plants for sale.
Remember to tag Scotland’s Gardens Scheme and Keep Scotland Beautiful and we will share your posts:
Facebook - @scotlandsgardens / @ksbscotland
Instagram - @scotlandgardenscheme / @ksbscotland
X - @scotgardens / @ksbscotlandUse the hashtags #lovescotlandsgardens #pocketgardens
Tell the media! Here is a template press release you can adapt and send to your local media - newspapers, radio/TV.
Tell your story
It’s a good idea to have some ideas prepared so that you can talk to your garden visitors. There are some suggested topics in the document below to get you started.
Open Pocket Gardens Discussion Points
Fundraising & collecting the money
Hopefully people will offer some donations to support your good cause and here are some top tips to help you manage the money:
Have a small cash float so that you can give change. Make someone in charge of collecting any money and giving change.
Use a tin with a lid or shoe box with a slot cut out of it to collect your donations. You might want to decorate it and if you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you could try creating a box with a slot in it, using a net - click here for an example.
Some people prefer to pay with their phone or a card - we can provide a QR code so that you can collect donations online and then we will send you the money after the event. Please get in touch if you’d like to ask about this - email liz@scotlandsgardens.org
Printable Resources
These are useful resources that you can print out and use to support your Open Pocket Garden. Or if you prefer, why not design and create your own using some of the templates to give you idea? For example, you could use the bunting templates to cut out and draw around on recycled paper, magazines or newspapers. The Garden Team badges can be printed, cut out and stuck onto cardboard.
Download
A4 Word Doc poster template
