HRH The Duchess of Cambridge talks to students at RHS It's Your Neighbourhood group King Henry's Walk Garden in Islington. The visit comes as it was announced the Duchess will design the RHS garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show with landscape architects Davies White. copyright RHS, credit RHS/Suzanne Plunkett
Devon Partnership NHS Trust Dewnans Centre has won a national competition to win the RHS Back to Nature Garden from the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The competition is part of the NHS and RHS partnership to raise awareness of gardening for good mental health.
The news comes as a Mori Poll shows that nearly 80% of people who garden say gardening has a positive impact on their mental health*. This year some 23 Trusts entered the competition to try and win the RHS Garden, demonstrating the strong appreciation of green spaces, gardens and gardening for mental health.
As part of its Greening Great Britain Campaign for health and the environment, the RHS will relocate plants and landscaping from the 2019 RHS Back to Nature Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show to The Dewnans Centre in Dawlish to create a beautiful green space for patients and hospital staff to enjoy.
The Dewnans Centre is a 60 bed medium secure Hospital on a site with an additional 54 beds in other buildings. It supports the recovery of some of the most socially disenfranchised people who often have no access to natural habitats.
The RHS Back to Nature Garden, co-designed by HRH The Ducjess of Cambridge and award-winning landscape architects Andree Davies and Adam White. Copyright and image credit Richard Carman.
In its completion entry form The Dewnans Centre said that the garden would provide; a sanctuary, a spiritual and peaceful space for patients, staff and carers to enjoy. The garden would offer a chance to bring the outside in, especially important for people who will always have limited access to green spaces. For patients it would mean ownership, a chance to put something back, as well as giving opportunities for co-production through joint work with staff, experts, community and family members.
The Devon Partnership NHS Trust also said: Past experience has shown us that, when nothing else works, the garden can.
Sue Biggs, RHS Director General said: “This partnership with the NHS is really so important to the RHS. There is thankfully a growing realisation that gardening can and does make an immensely positive difference to our health and wellbeing, and we’re committed to continuing to do more and more to raise awareness of this and to help more people have access to gardens, green spaces and growing plants.”
National Clinical Director for Mental Health, NHS England, Tim Kendall said: “This amazing gift from the RHS has the potential to really touch the lives of staff, patients, and their families at the trust, offering people with the most severe and complex mental health difficulties hope, purpose and sanctuary.”
Landscape Architects Andree Davis and Adam White, co-designers of the RHS Back to Nature Garden, will be designing and creating the garden for The Devon Partnership Trust after the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
