Plants nurtured by service users in our garden centre have won the team an unexpected Gold award at BBC Gardeners’ World Live.
More than 50 people who access our services – vocational opportunities for people with a variety of mental health needs – helped cultivate hundreds of bedding plants that were planted in ‘The Nostalgia Garden’ at Gardeners' World Live 2017.
On display at Birmingham NEC last week (and featured on BBC Two’s Gardeners’ World television programme*), The Nostalgia Garden was just one of nine gardens at the event which won Gold. Designed by landscape designer Paul Stone, the garden embraced the look and feel of the ‘60s, featuring a period garage, fuel pumps and even a classic 1960’s Mini Cooper.
Workbridge Service Manager, Chloe Dowell commented: “We weren’t actually expecting there to be any award given to this garden as it wasn’t part of the competition. However, my understanding having spoken to Paul is that it was still awarded a gold anyway – which was a real surprise to him as well – because the judges wanted to reflect the hard work that had gone into it and to celebrate the fact that it is a fantastic garden.
"So it’s even better, showing all of our service users, that this is what your hard work was for – creating this amazing show garden – and even better than that, it’s a gold-winning show garden."
