HRH The Duchess of Gloucester has visited Horatio’s Garden Wales – the extraordinary garden for people with spinal injuries at the Welsh Spinal Cord Injury and Neuro Rehabilitation Centre in University Hospital Llandough, Cardiff.
Her Royal Highness spent time with people with spinal injuries and their families, NHS staff as well as meeting Horatio’s Garden founder Dr. Olivia Chapple OBE EMH and the garden team and volunteers. The Duchess toured the garden, observing a gardening session with Head Gardener Owen Griffiths and joined a watercolour arts activity session with artist Carol Bartlett. Her Royal Highness was joined by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant Mrs Morfudd Meredith and the Mayor of the Vale of Glamorgan, Councillor Naomi Marshallsea.
Designed by three-time RHS Chelsea Flower Show gold medal-winning Welsh garden designer Sarah Price, Horatio’s Garden Wales opened in 2022. The garden is inspired by the Welsh countryside and features scented meadows and flower gardens which offer year-round interest. It is one of eight beautiful and accessible Horatio’s Gardens in the heart of NHS spinal injury rehabilitation centres, where people can spend many months and up to a year after a life-changing spinal injury.
Calum Coughlan, who has been rehabilitating at the Welsh Spinal Cord Injury and Neuro Rehabilitation Centre for 10 months said: “It was an honour to meet The Duchess who was kind and caring. I talked to Her Royal Highness about how the garden has been therapeutic to me and somewhere I’ve made new friends, can spend quiet time away from the ward and meet my family too.”
Dr Olivia Chapple OBE EMH, founder of Horatio’s Garden said: “We were honoured to welcome HRH The Duchess of Gloucester to Horatio’s Garden Wales. Her Royal Highness really understood the benefits that gardens can bring to people who are in hospital for such a long time.”
Olivia presented Her Royal Highness with a symbolic plant from the garden, an Aruncus ‘Horatio’.
