ENJOYING WINTER

Winter with SPACE 2 GROW.  We have enjoyed marking the winter season with craft and therapeutic horticultural activities at hospices and residential care homes across Oxfordshire.

SPACE 2 GROW  has also been busy designing outdoor spaces and improving existing garden space provision for older people. We look forward to completion in spring of 2013.

Getting Fruity

SPACE 2 GROW  has  been getting fruity in therapeutic gardens. Autumn is a good time to introduce fruit to the garden space. The pleasure of eating freshly plucked fruit or the benefit of turning it into jams and juices for sale or personal enjoyment is immense. Garden spaces can be so much more than just a visual aesthetic. Adding a small fruit tree such as a trained specimen – espalier, cordon,fan, or a small rootstock tree such as an M9 or M27 together with a mixture of soft fruits will hugely increase the diversity of the garden while producing a fruity crop that will bring financial reward.

Accessible Gardening

SPACE 2 GROW  has  been developing edible landscapes and sensory gardens in raised beds at a number of residential care home locations throughout Oxfordshire. Raised beds offer opportunities for accessible gardening while offering a connection to garden activities where previously none existed. Outdoor spaces have been enriched and enlivened as a result and significantly more people engage with them now.

Developing Garden Spaces with SPACE 2 GROW

SPACE 2 GROW  has been working with Sobell House Hospice to develop the garden space. This summer the space is developing nicely into a vibrant outdoor area that attracts a wide range of visitors who dip in and out of activities there. Flowers and vegetables are regularly harvested and taken home by those attending the Hospice.

Social and therapeutic horticulture and palliative care

SPACE 2 GROW  has been delivering regular sessions of social and therapeutic horticulture to both Sobell House Hospice in Oxford and Katharine House Hospice in Adderbury. Both hospices offer specialist palliative care for those with life limiting illnesses where SPACE 2 GROW  has increased the breadth of creative therapies available. Therapeutic horticulture provides opportunities to sow, grow and nurture for the future reminding us of the cycles of life and reconnecting us with nature. Enhancing the interaction between outside and inside and making improvements to outdoor spaces has been key to this process.

BUSY CHRISTMAS SESSIONS IN 2011

A busy programme of seasonal sessions with a Christmas theme saw great craft and horticultural activity at over 10 residential homes/nursing homes/day centres and hospices in Oxfordshire. Over 50 people participated in a number of creative projects resulting in some amazing outcomes with a sprinkling of seasonal therapeutic horticulture.