Prize-winning garden donated to NHS workers and mental health patients in Lancashire
A £30,000, prize-winning garden has been donated to mental health patients and NHS colleagues in Lancashire to benefit their wellbeing and recovery.
The 1804 Garden was designed by 2023 Tatton Flower Show Best In Show winners and garden designers, Carolyn Hardern and Jon Jarvis.
The garden headlined at last year’s Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) event, scooping a silver medal. Now a scaled-down version has been rebuilt and gifted for use as a wellbeing garden to Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (LSCft), for patients and colleagues at The Harbour Hospital in Blackpool.
LSCft Chief Executive, Chris Oliver said: “The addition of the garden at the Harbour will prove to be invaluable for our mental health inpatients, their families, carers and our colleagues. As a mental health Trust, we know the role that being outdoors and connecting with nature has on wellbeing – from reducing stress to improving mood and aiding rehabilitation. The garden will strengthen our sense of community, something we are extremely passionate about, by providing a therapeutic environment for social connection for patients and colleagues alike.
“Our thanks go to Carolyn and Jon for their work on this project and for choosing us to host their design. We’re honoured to welcome it to Lancashire.”
In 2022, Jon and Carolyn designed the winning Constructing Minds Garden at Tatton, which won the Best in Show title and was themed around mental health and raising awareness of suicide. They donated it to Clatterbridge Hospital on Merseyside.
Designer Carolyn said: “Myself and Jon with friend Alan are founders of not-for-profit organisation Constructing Minds with Nature, with the aim of providing wellbeing gardens to public organisations, because the connection to nature in reducing stress and anxiety is well documented.
“The design, which we couldn’t do without our donors and sponsors, consists of three large steel planters made by Lux Unique that are three metres across and almost two and-a-half metres long and are filled with perennials. The beautiful central pond they donated is three and a half metres in diameter and with a ringed sculpture by Foxes Bench. Our crushed gravel was donated by Breedon Special Aggregates and the slate paving was gifted by Talasey.”
In time, now in its permanent home, the prize-winning garden will be renamed by patients at The Harbour Hospital. The garden design has four large, curved benches under Acer trees and more than 500 plants and flowers around the central water feature, which during the rebuild in Blackpool, was filled by colleagues and firefighters from Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service.
Jon added: “The hundreds of perennials have been kindly looked after, watered and nurtured for free by Steve at K&S Nursery who brought them over to the Harbour during the build. We really do hope the patients and NHS workers in Blackpool will enjoy spending time in the relaxing wellbeing garden which they can name themselves.”