Nelson Clients are Growing Confidence in the Garden

The Nelson Trust Gardening Team have been busy again this year helping out local charitable organisations with gardening projects.

One of the first projects to be completed was the Meningitis Trust Memorial Garden at Stratford Park in Stroud.  A team of eager green fingered Nelson Trust clients helped by digging and preparing the land, planting and installing a bench.   In addition to their volunteer work, our team of gardeners maintain the Nelson Trust’s residential accommodation gardens and grown their own fruit and vegetables.

The gardening team are led by Beanie Cooke, the Nelson Trust’s Horticultural Therapist. The clients have just finished their second course at Rococo Gardens, an 18th Century Kitchen Garden in Painswick and are due to start their third in September 2009. At the end of each course the clients receive a certificate of achievement to add to their training portfolio and take with them when they complete their treatment.

Beanie commented: ‘Gardening is very popular with our clients.  They learn a range of skills such as planting, sowing seeds, weeding, watering and pruning espalier fruit trees, and woodland management - clearing the woodland of brambles, removing tree branches to bring in light, stacking prunings’.  She added ‘It raises people’s confidence and self-esteem when they can see the effect of their hard work.’

Doug Edwards, Tribute Funds Co-ordinator from the Meningitis Trust, said: ‘The garden is very special for our supporters, and particularly those who have lost someone to meningitis and have an oak peg in the garden engraved with a name of their loved one.’ 

‘The garden means a huge amount to us.  It is somewhere else we can go to remember and reflect.  Watching it grow will be a great way to remember’
Meningitis Trust Tribute Fund Holder

‘I find I can leave my troubles behind me when I am concentrating on gardening and learning new things.  I highly recommend it!!!’ 
Nelson Trust Client