THE CHALLENGE OF
GARDENING A pretty garden isn’t just beautiful to look at, there are also many health benefits if you’re prepared to dig in. Rooftop has a Health and Wellbeing team and Mental Health Outreach worker who regularly arrange activities that can be of benefit to our customers, and the Lydney Gardening Project is one of them. benefits from gardening, including reducing depression, loneliness, anxiety and stress. Working on your garden is also an excellent way to get all-round exercise for improving strength, endurance and flexibility, and can reduce the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other medical conditions.
Lydney Gateway is part of our Young People Service and provides accommodation for up to 10 young people who have already faced many challenges in life. The Lydney property has quite a large garden area, which was not going to win any plaudits for its looks.
Rooftop partnered with Marks and Spencer in Monmouth, who provided volunteers and a donation of £500 as part of National Volunteers Week. The young people from Lydney pitched in enthusiastically and at the beginning of June a major transformation began to take shape. It was important that the project was customer led and the residents from Lydney Gateway came up with lots of ideas for the space such as graffiti art (that will be phase two!), a vegetable patch and a wildflower area.
Members of our Gloucester Health and Wellbeing Team came up with the idea of doing a makeover when our Mental Health Outreach worker, Christine Searl sent them details of how gardening can improve your health in a variety of ways. Christine read about the National Gardens Scheme, which has called for doctors to prescribe patients with gardening on the NHS. A report published by The King’s Fund has recognised that there are a variety of health
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