Cardiff
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Watch our brand new Horatio’s Garden Wales Appeal Video by clicking ‘Play’ on the photo to the right.
The Welsh Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Centre is one of 11 designated spinal centres in the UK. Patients are admitted from south and mid-Wales, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, although priority is given to Welsh patients.
Whilst the centre is currently situated at Rookwood Hospital, it is going to be moved to a new, purpose-built Spinal and Neurological Centre at the University Hospital, Llandough. This is due to open in 2021 and as part of the redevelopment, Horatio’s Garden has been invited to create a new garden for patients.
The project is in collaboration with Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, with the cost of the ground and enabling works being covered by Cardiff & Vale Health Charity. The new centre will provide both specialist spinal and neuro-rehabilitation services for patients. It will have an independent living facility for patients preparing to go home. It will have a total of 50 beds.
“I firmly believe that the Garden will bring immense benefit to our patients both physically and psychologically. I am also convinced that our staff, who do such wonderful work to care for their patients, will also gain considerably from the environment that the Garden will provide. We at Cardiff & Vale University Health Board are looking forward with great anticipation to the opening of Horatio’s Garden at Llandough in due course”. – Professor Charles Janczewski, Chair of Cardiff & Vale University Health Board
We launched our Welsh Appeal in the autumn of 2019, with the aim of raising the required £920,000 within a year. Incredibly, various supporters have already helped us to raise the vast majority of the money needed for the project, but we will be continuing to fundraise in a variety of ways for the small outstanding amount. At the request of the hospital, the designs and budget for the garden include an area for patients in the neurological rehabilitation ward. There will be no access between the two gardens due to the very different user needs of patients. The Cardiff and Vale University Health Board have pledged to pay the proportion of the capital costs required for the neurological garden and for the ongoing running costs.
Thanks to all your incredible support, work began on the garden in February 2021. Now that the build is underway, we hope that the garden will be open for patients and their loved ones to enjoy by this coming spring 2022.
“When I heard Wales was going to have a purpose-built Horatio’s Garden at Llandough Hospital, something went through me which is hard to explain. I know from my own experience what it meant to be able to go outside to feel the fresh air. To be with your family away from the clinical environment helped no end with my rehabilitation. To have a bespoke garden with all of the small details considered to make it easily accessible for people with low mobility will be tremendous”. – Rhian, previous patient of the Welsh Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Centre
To read more about our capital appeal for Horatio’s Garden Wales click the following link: Cardiff Appeal Leaflet
To support the appeal, please donate by clicking the button in the top right hand corner of this page. Alternatively you can donate by post to the registered office address: 2 Throope Down Office, Blandford Road, Coombe Bissett, Salisbury, SP5 4LN, or phone 01722 326834 to donate by credit card.
If you feel you could help us with fundraising, or would like to volunteer, please contact us by emailing info@horatiosgarden.org.uk, or ring 01722 326834.
Thank you to everyone who has supported our sixth Horatio’s Garden so far.
Sarah Price
Sarah Price is an award-winning Welsh garden designer who has had a prestigious career. She is renowned for her artistic, naturalistic planting style in such projects as the Olympic Park and a garden at Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery.
Sarah has created a beautiful garden sanctuary for patients and has collaborated with 6a architects to create the garden pavilion. From the outset, Sarah was passionate about incorporating as many elements of the winsome Welsh landscape into her designs as possible, despite the space being the smallest of our gardens to date.
She has thus devoted different spaces to different sources of horticultural inspiration, meaning that Horatio’s Garden Wales will be home to a moss garden, shed garden, scented garden, meadow garden, vegetable garden, flower garden and the ‘orchard hall’, which will be home to many multi-stemmed crab trees and amelanchier.
Meanwhile, the pavilion will be homely, with a kitchen area and plenty of seating both inside and on the terrace.
The Design
The garden will be easily accessible from the spinal injury centre through automatic doors so that patients in hospital beds and wheelchairs can use the space with their friends and family or as a place of sanctuary.
Cloud hedging will create a green threshold that will signal an immediate transition of environment from the ward. Fully wheelchair accessible, flat paths of patterned concrete panels will meander through a gently undulating landscape of diaphanous planting and clear-stemmed shrubs and trees.
A reflective, raised water pool and green oak seating will offer intimate and beautiful places of repose to everyone visiting the garden. Warmth, shelter and opportunities for socialising will be provided by a garden pavilion enabling the garden to be used all year round. The internal space will feel like home and be designed for comfort, flexibility and accessibility with a kitchen area and propagation table both designed for ease of use.
The pavilion will be the hub of growing in the garden and a place for garden therapy. The planting will provide year-round interest and biodiversity. Bird feeders and nesting boxes will encourage wild birds to the garden. There will also be a roof terrace garden very close to the ward especially for high dependency patients to use in their hospital beds.
The charity will take a lease with the NHS Trust for the land and once the garden is open Horatio’s Garden will commit to funding the team required to care for the garden and organise events and activities to offer the gentle side of rehabilitation for patients who spend months in hospital.
Owen Griffiths
Owen became the Head Gardener of Horatio’s Garden Wales having worked most recently as a Horticultural Therapist at the Rural Activities Garden Centre, Hillingdon. He has a wealth of varied experience in the Social and Therapeutic Horticulture sector, as well as in teaching and music, whilst he has also been pursuing specialist horticultural training at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 2018 to 2021.
With the help of our brilliant volunteer team, Owen will be taking care of the garden, supporting the physical and mental rehabilitation of patients and their loved ones, as well as warmly welcoming everyone who comes to spend time in our sixth stunning sanctuary.
As Owen is passionate about forest gardening and believes it to be an effective strategy for adapting to and mitigating climate change, this is likely to be something featuring in the garden’s vibrant programme of workshops and activities. It’s also something that will ensure patients are constantly sowing, growing and enjoying fresh fruits and vegetables; as Owen says, “the most incredible plants are those than can be enjoyed both visually as well as on the dinner plate!”
Click below to hear more from our Head Gardeners about how to get the best out of your gardens all year round!
Building work for Horatio's Garden Wales has now begun. If you would like to know more, please ring the office on 01722 326834 or email info@horatiosgarden.org.uk.
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