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Our show garden paves the way to gold

Green-fingered service users and staff from our trust are celebrating their success at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show, after their show garden scooped a gold medal.

Weeks of hard work have paid off for the team from Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust’s Recovery and Wellbeing Programme, including 21 service users, who contributed to all aspects of their award-winning cottage garden.

Today judges from the Royal Horticultural Society heaped praise on our Recovery and Wellbeing garden, one of just two to be awarded a prestigious gold medal.

Dougal Philip, chairman of Shows Advisory Committee, said: “This garden was just perfect, we could find no fault with it at all, and the attention to detail was awe-inspiring. It was so convincing, it looked like it had been there some time, there was no hint it was just built for the show.”

The Recovery and Wellbeing Garden - which features a vegetable patch and chickens living in a reclaimed chicken coop - will be on display during the four-day show at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern, Worcestershire, which opened today (May 6).

The trust’s garden, designed to promote its allotment project, also features a central path paved with 150 terracotta tiles, handmade by service users which makes it both original and unique.

Our show garden is one of 16 judged by the Royal Horticultural Society, who last year awarded Park Lane Garden Centre’s team a silver medal for their Hazy Days garden at Gardeners’ World Live at Birmingham NEC.

Sue Turner, our chief executive, said: “To win a gold medal at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show is a real achievement at such a prestigious event but it’s not just a show garden, it’s an example of what our staff and service users can achieve together.

“The emphasis of our Recovery and Wellbeing Programme is on maintaining and improving mental and physical wellbeing through development of skills, to enable service users to reach their maximum potential.

“Gardening projects across the programme offer excellent training facilities that could ultimately lead to employment opportunities, plus physical work like digging and planting can also boost mental wellbeing and confidence.”

Our trust works hard to support and improve the mental health of people across Birmingham and Solihull through a range of locally-based inpatient, community and social inclusion services. This means service users can continue to lead active lives while receiving the support they need to promote their mental wellbeing.

For inspiration and appreciation of their hard work, visit the Recovery and Wellbeing Garden at stand OS906 at the Three Counties Showground, in Malvern, from May 6 to 9.