Plants & Gardens

A HORTICULTURAL HAVEN

While Shire loves to share public gardens around the patch with you, sometimes a smaller, more intimate green space can have an even bigger impact on people’s lives…

Chances are you may not have heard of the charity Horatio’s Garden, but you will certainly have heard of its public ambassador – one Alan Titchmarsh MBE, the nation’s favourite gardener. Alan recently appeared in a BBC Lifeline Appeal to champion these very special gardens, which are created at hospital sites to offer sanctuary to patients and families. There are five Horatio’s Gardens in England and Scotland, with work in progress to add a sixth, in Wales, and another in Northern Ireland.

The charity’s fourth garden, Horatio’s Midlands, opened at the Midland Centre for Spinal Injuries at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, near Oswestry in 2019 and was designed by well-known Gardeners’ Question Time panellist Bunny Guinness. One of the patients who found it an antidote to her situation was Pip, who spent months at the centre after a riding accident. The garden became a place of solace, where she could spend precious time with her husband, Tony. She said: “I’d not been outside for such a long time. I remember going to the garden for the first time; the sun was just peeking through and it touched some green leaves in front of me. It was the most amazing feeling.”

After Pip’s accident she was left tetraplegic, and shortly after she contracted pneumonia. When she was finally strong enough, she was transferred to the RJAH and it wasn’t long before she became a daily visitor to Horatio’s Garden Midlands. Finding pleasure in the simplicity of the great outdoors, she began attending every workshop she possibly could with head gardener Imogen.

A tranquil space for healing and re-learning

ABOUT HORATIO’S GARDEN

Horatio’s Garden is a national charity that works to improve the lives of all those affected by spinal injury, through creating and nurturing beautiful gardens in NHS spinal injury centres. The team grows communities to support patients and their loved ones as they adjust to what are often life-changing injuries. The environments they create become an integral part of patients’ lives over many months, complementing the clinical care from the centres’ teams.

The charity employs a head gardener and an admin assistant to care for each garden alongside volunteers, and to support the many activities organised by the charity. These include garden therapy, art therapy, book and poetry clubs, craft groups, concerts and teas.

The charity is named after Horatio Chapple, a volunteer at the Salisbury centre who had the idea for a garden and researched its design, before his untimely death age 17. www.horatiosgarden.org.uk

Long journey

At first, Pip worked with an occupational therapist, who sowed seeds as she chose them in her horticultural therapy sessions.

With the seasons shifting and her confidence growing, she began flower arranging, directing

Imogen how and where to cut each stem and where to place it in Pip with one of her creations the display. Another project involved designing

“Seeing and planting up a miniature garden, with a the sun touch the tiny hand-painted house. Fully absorbed, it was only in hindsight that Pip realised how skilfully the ventures had supported her rehabilitation, leaves was giving her the opportunity to practise directing an amazing the people helping her – a vital skill that would feeling” make her return home just a little easier. Pip said: “Everyone at Horatio’s Garden, especially Imogen, made a huge difference to my stay and recovery, just as the garden, garden room, craft and films have too. I can’t thank you enough for creating this beautiful place.”

Regarding the appeal, Alan Titchmarsh said: “This is a chance to demonstrate what I’ve always believed: that gardens are great healers.

The charity truly deserves the support of every one of us.”

New year,

new garden project

It may be chilly and wet outside, but January and February are ideal months for planning your borders and vegetable beds and preparing for the arrival of spring

Now is the time to order seeds and plants, so spend those extra hours indoors leafing through catalogues, checking out suppliers and drawing up border and vegetable plot plans. It pays dividends to order fruit trees and the crowns and tubers of perennial vegetables such as asparagus, rhubarb and artichokes early, as you can get ahead as soon as weather conditions allow. Browsing through the latest collections can also make spring seem that much nearer!

There are also plenty of jobs to do outside on calmer, drier days. Here Lis Morris, lecturer in horticulture and sustainable technologies at University Centre Reaseheath in Cheshire, shares some tips:

• Get ready to sow and grow by cleaning your pots, tools and canes.

Give sheds a good sweep-out and tidy up leftover bags of compost and fertiliser. Check stakes, supports and ties and replace any damaged in bad weather.

• Plant out bare-root roses, chit first early potatoes and start off sweet peas on a warm windowsill indoors.

• Regularly harvest sprouting broccoli and

Brussels and lift leeks, parsnips, swedes and turnips while still tender. • Prune deciduous shrubs and fruit trees, removing anything dead, diseased or damaged to encourage new growth. Dead-head winter pansies to stop them going to seed.

• Remove snow from cold frames and brush off conifers to prevent branches snapping.

• If you can’t “treecycle” your Christmas tree (see Tip), shred it into your compost.

Only add a bit at a time though, or you might reduce the nitrate levels.

• Regularly put out food and water for hungry birds and leave parts of your garden untidy until spring to provide shelter for small mammals and insects.

Order seeds in good time Have fun planning your dream garden

TOP TIP Shropshire Council “treecycling” is in aid of West Shropshire Talking Newspaper this year. So recycle!

See www.reaseheath.ac.uk/horticulture (for diplomas and RHS courses), www.ucreaseheath.ac.uk/courses (for degrees) and www. reaseheath.ac.uk/horticulture-courses-adult-learners (adults)

FEED THE BIRDS

Teasels

Make room in the garden for one or two of these plants to keep our feathery pals nourished through winter

Pyracantha

This garden favourite is often called firethorn because the orange berries look like flames. It can be grown as a shrub or trained as a climber. Birds adore the tasty berries and perch on the branches among the evergreen foliage.

Rowan

Sorbus (commonly known as rowan) is another berry-bearing plant beloved of birds. After flat clusters of white flowers in late spring, the leaves turn yellow in autumn, with orange-red berries on the stems adding some vibrancy to the shrub. The common teasel, also known as Dipsacus fullonum, is often associated with wild areas, but the shapely seedheads are great for structure in any style of garden. It’s a native plant and beloved of goldfinches, which have a fine beak for getting out the seeds.

Honeysuckle

Winter-flowering honeysuckle smells amazing and is perfect for covering walls and fences. In the depths of winter it produces flowers filled with nectar, attracting plenty of tasty insects for the birds.

Holly

Holly bushes are great for evergreen colour and produce red berries in winter that the birds love. The famous spiky leaves give protection from predators, meaning they will often roost among the branches.