The buzz around Garden Day UK was fantastic this year, with plenty of people joining in online and The English Garden magazine sharing a little bit more about why Sunday 9th May was an important date that most certainly deserved to be in everyone’s calendar.
Garden Day UK is simply about sitting back, donning a flower crown and spending time in your garden celebrating your garden! Everyone’s invited, whether you have a balcony full of pots, an abundance of house plants, a treasured allotment or a carefully considered back garden, with the purpose of the event being to highlight the vital benefits that gardens hold for our health and wellbeing.
With government guidelines easing, this year’s occasion was the perfect opportunity for people across the country to gather with their family, friends and neighbours, meaning plenty of floral fun was had and even more awareness raised regarding the power of plants.
Naturally, Horatio’s Garden lent its support to the event, alongside floral designer and Garden Day UK ambassador, Hazel Gardiner, and psychiatrist and author of The Well Gardened Mind, Sue Stuart-Smith. Whilst Hazel focussed on discussing her garden as a place of sanctuary, Sue articulately and intriguingly explained exactly what it is about gardens that are good for us.
As for our contribution, we joined the momentum behind the movement by sharing some insights from each of our garden projects across the UK and by embracing a few flower crowns of our own!
Throughout the period prior to and during the event, our brilliant Head Gardeners and volunteers were running flower crown workshops with patients in our gardens, which were a great deal of fun and enjoyed by everyone immensely.
We also joined in with the revelry online, as both the charity’s patron, The Countess of Radnor, and Dr Olivia Chapple were recently captured wearing signature Garden Day UK flower crowns in a selection of stunning images taken by photographer Lucy Shergold, with the crowns themselves beautifully crafted by talented local florist and long-time supporter of Horatio’s Garden, Toria Britten.
It was a pleasure to see everyone’s kind, positive reactions to the photographs and messages we shared and a real delight to be part of such a wonderful, happy event. We sincerely hope that you joined in with the flower crown festivities wherever you are and if you didn’t quite have the time this weekend, there’s always next year!
