Maintenance is an essential aspect of the garden design and should not be left as an afterthought. Understanding the needs of the users, their time and energy, in conjunction with working with nature to achieve the most productive garden with the least waste and work, will ensure your school garden will be successful in the long term. Gardens can fail because they become overgrown and look unloved, which makes them appear difficult, daunting and time consuming to manage.

As discussed in previous chapters, the design for maintenance should include both the physical garden space and the invisible systems and networks that support it. The more groups that use the garden, the more chance it has to be well looked after, remaining attractive and appealing to teachers and learners. If the energy for maintenance is coming solely from within the school itself, then the position of the garden is most important. In this case, the garden must be close to existing learning activity areas. Placing a garden out of sight or a long way from classrooms will ensure it is rarely used, used only by the faithful or will require an extra playground duty to increase its use. (This is enough to turn any teacher sour on the garden idea).

So start small and close to rooms where the garden can be monitored by children and staff and used in or out of class time. If that is not practical then consider building an outdoor shelter close to the garden. The style of gardenbed construction will greatly influence the ease or difficulty of maintenance. Raised garden beds are easier to maintain than those on the ground that can easily be overrun by grass.

Consider using untreated sleepers, water tank rounds or interlocking blocks. Raised beds provide better drainage. Paved or cement pathways are also easier to maintain than gravel or grass; but surfacing decisions do depend on many parameters such as funding, water availability, heat and reflection issues, the commitment to long term garden strategies and so on. School Gardens will be as diverse as the schools that build them, but they all will need to be maintained. So here are some generic suggestions for garden use and maintenance that will apply in some part to most school garden situations.