Big Bee Challenge winner announced - see the garden designs from all the finalists
It has been announced that Izabella, aged 10 from Hampshire, is the winner of Radio 2’s Big Bee Challenge competition to design a bee-friendly garden.
Izabella will see her new garden, built for the NHS, unveiled at an outside broadcast of The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show coming live from Doncaster on Friday 20th August (6.30-9.30am), where guests will include Adam Frost, Dr Bee – aka biologist Professor Dave Goulson - with music from Ella Henderson.
See Izabella's winning design below.
π Izabella, aged 10
In submitting her entry, Izabella said she likes drawing, gardening, playing the piano and cooking. She really likes designing spaces for people and buildings. She loves to watch Garden Rescue and watching Murder She Wrote on TV.
Her favourite animal is a woodpecker – because they’re really colourful and they like peanuts! "I wanted my garden to be calming and relaxing and an exciting thing to explore," she says.
Of Izabella's winning entry, Zoe Ball says: “Huge congratulations to Izabella – her garden design is simply gorgeous, packed full of beautiful bee-loving plants, a wildlife pond and even a seating area. I can’t wait to see her reaction when she sees her garden in real-life tomorrow morning at a special outside broadcast of The Breakfast Show in Doncaster!”
Izabella, meanwhile, says: "I really enjoyed designing the garden for the competition as it combined my love of drawing and nature. I was amazed to hear I was one of the 20 finalists and I am so happy that my design has been chosen to be created. I cannot wait to see it in real life!"
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Listen to the Big Bee Challenge winner reveal
Zoe revealed the winner of Radio 2βs Big Bee Challenge competition.
See the designs from all the finalists in our Big Bee Challenge garden design competition below.
A huge thank you to the thousands of children who sent us your glorious garden designs for the bees, our judges absolutely loved looking through them all.
π Luke, aged 8
Luke is a big fan of reading, drawing and anything to do with Antarctica and his favourite animal is a dolphin and the Colossus Squid. He loves eating cucumber and is very glad that the bees help pollinate those.
He says: "I discovered that bees don’t like flowers with lots of layers like a rose, as they can get stuck inside. And that they need water to drink."
π Alice, aged 8
Alice loves to design things, and loves to draw animals and 3D shapes. She enjoys horse-riding, swimming and climbing. Her favourite colour is purple and she loves hanging out on the allotment, helping her Dad. Alice loves the fact that bees do a waggle dance to let the others know where the pollen is.
"I wanted to take part because I love bees and wanted to help them."
π Harry, aged 8
Harry loves to explore and likes science and being outdoors. He also enjoys Taekwondo and goes to cubs. He likes designing in Minecraft , building with Lego and Harry Potter. He thought it would be fun to try and design a garden.
He says "I love the fact that some bees have different sized tongues depending on the size of the bee."
π Alexandra, aged 7
Alexandra likes swimming, riding her bike and playing football, she also enjoys playing the cello and violin, her favourite song to play at the moment is ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’.
Her design is based on her own garden and she says, "I wanted to help support the life of bees and for the bees to have a nice place to live. I also wanted to give the people a path to walk on so they wouldn’t squash the flowers."
π Emily, aged 12
Emily was listening to the radio when she heard about the competition. She thought it would be great challenge to do because she likes gardening and would love to be a garden designer one day. She likes being outdoors, enjoys scouts, and has her own greenhouse, because she kept filling up her Mum’s!
"One of my favourite bee facts is that Bees ‘break wind’ because they have a digestive system!"
π Maisie, aged 9
Maisie Likes playing football, the piano and violin and loves animals. She also enjoys reading long stories and hopes to get some Guinea Pigs one day. She thought about the children who might be using the garden when drawing her design and made a picnic spot.
She says, "I wanted to put in a sand put and a shallow pond so the children can splash in it as well as the bees getting a drink."
Her favourite bee fact is that they like to nest in Dry Stone Walls.
π Isabel, aged 12
Isabel likes reading stories set in the past, enjoys a spot of skate boarding and swimming in the sea and is currently doing a life guard course. Her favourite animal is an otter because they are always happy, cuddly and love sunbathing and swimming.
Isabel took inspiration from her Gran’s garden, "I also wanted to make a place where all bees can come together, making it accessible for all and to make it feel like a community."
π Charlotte, aged 8
Charlotte loves drawing anything, but especially animals that look like desserts (like a cat with a unicorn horn that looks like an ice cream cone!). She enjoys designing things in Minecraft and doing gymnastics.
She says, "I think everyone should be happy and smiling so I wanted to do the garden as it’s a nice thing to do."
She likes the fact that bees pollinate fruit and veg, she says "without them we wouldn’t have any food."
π Harry, aged (just turned) 10
Harry likes to build things with Lego and make things out of cardboard boxes. He likes to go to the beach exploring, collecting sea glass. He has two Guinea Pigs called Splodge and Stripe. He likes drawing, designing and creating things so thought he would like to enter, just for fun. He enjoyed doing it, as it was all of his favourite things combined in one project.
"I love that bees love purple and they see in Hexagons."
π Orna, aged 11
Orna loves to swim, and is part of a swim club. She also enjoys baking and her favourite cake is chocolate and caramel. She loved learning about all the flowers and plants. She researched open flowers and was really interested in how the bees get into the single petalled flowers to get the pollen.
She has lots of bees in her garden and says "I liked spotting them and liked seeing bees with pollen sacks."
π Lyra, aged 10
Lyra likes designing things and doing flower arranging, some of her favourite flowers are Bluebells, Forget-Me-Nots and Lavender. She became interested after watching ‘Your Garden Made Perfect’ on TV. She also likes playing computer games.
When she heard about the Big Bee Challenge competition on the radio, she says she had too many ideas and couldn’t fit them all on the page! She wants people to know that bees are in decline and says "I like the fact that the taste of the honey will be affected by what flower the bees have been visiting."
π William, aged 10
William loves walking his big fluffy Bearded Collie called Dougal, designing comics and making films with lego mini figures.
He also enjoys painting rocks and leaving them for people to find (he’s part of the Lincoln Art Ninja’s).
When he heard about the competition he thought, "Why don’t I enter, it sounds exciting and interesting. I love the Bee Benches and the rainbow raised beds as they help with wellbeing when people are feeling sad."
π Phoebe, aged 9
Phoebe loves making dens and learned how to kayak and paddle board on holiday in America.
She started a club called Protect Our Planet Club, which does litter picking and organises litter picking events. She has three guinea pigs called Whisper, Rocky and Oreo. Her Grandad keeps bees and calls them all Eric (because he can’t tell them apart).
After taking part, "I learned more about bees, I never knew bees got pollen from herbs or that ivy helped them in winter."
π Lucy, aged 11
Lucy loves writing and reading, the ‘Wings of Fire’ books are her favourite. She loves dragons, when she was little her Mum told them empty crab shells found on the beach had been eaten by dragons! She has a twin sister called Clarissa and is a big football fan, a Liverpool supporter and plays in midfield. She has two guinea pigs called Nibble and Fudge and a dog called Bibi.
"I look closer at bees and nature now - and flowers. We plant more bee-friendly flowers in the garden."
π Arthur, aged 8
Arthur loves to draw flags, play football and golf. Has a twin brother called Ted and two Guinea pigs Nibbles , Humphrey and 27 fish. He likes bees, especially the sound they make and loves being in the garden.
He says, "I want to help bees because without them we wouldn’t have food to eat."
He has a tree in his garden called the Arthur Turner variety.
πAnnabelle, aged 12
Annabelle loves to read a lot and enjoys athletics, ice skating and dance. She also likes acting. She loved doing her design and thought it would be amazing to be responsible for saving the bees. She liked learning about the variety of plants bees like and all the things that they do for us.
"It’s more than honey, they just help loads and no-one notices that and they’re such a big part of our lives."
π Donya, aged 9
Donya loves drawing and wants to be an architect one day. She also loves going on walks and playing with her sister and watching her four pet crabs Spicy, King, Rainbow and Goldie.
She says, "When I heard about the competition i thought I know I will spell Bee in letters in my garden. I thought that was a nice idea."
Donya loves that bees see the colour purple better than other colours, so that’s why she chose lavender for her garden.
π Georgia, aged 10
Georgia loves to crochet and do origami especially tulips, rabbits and lilies. She enjoys ballet, golf and cricket and likes reading Harry Potter books. Her favourite flowers are Fuchsias and Cosmos.
"I love that bees pollinate plants especially Tomatoes which are my favourite food -I also likes Apple Pie"
She was really interested in the life cycle of the bee.
π Leah, aged 10
Leah loves baking cakes especially cupcakes and macaroons. She also loves painting and astronomy. Neptune is her favourite planet because its core is made of diamonds. One day, she hopes to get a telescope, and would love a pet fish like a goldfish or a bluefish.
She says, "I found it interesting to learn about how bees pollinate the plants and that’s how we get fruit."
She likes spending time in the garden and as bees are in decline, she wanted to do something about that.
π Listen to more on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Sounds
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