A green fingered team of our patients and colleagues at Pendleview in Blackburn have worked together to develop and grow a beautiful flourish garden over the last few months.
The benefits of being outdoors and growing plants, fruit and vegetables can help to improve mental wellbeing and can aid recovery.
Our Restart and Recovery Team is made up of occupational therapists who support our inpatients across our wards with recovery, identifying what support is required both on the wards and once discharged.
Occupational Therapy Assistant Daniel Ashworth said:
“It’s great to work together to develop the garden. We cut the grass ourselves, so together we had a blank canvas to work from. We collaborated with colleagues who kindly saved pallets left by delivery drivers, so we’re using them as planters.
Several stages later, we now have a working polytunnel where we are growing vegetables for our cooking groups with patients. By working closely with service users, we now have picnic benches for outdoor activities and a relaxing space for colleagues and patients who can even dine outside. We’ve started restoring old, donated garden furniture by either fixing it or giving it a makeover and we are aiming to create a nice quiet reading corner somewhere. We have seating areas to soak up any sun and watch the bees do their work in our planters.
It’s really engaged our patients, we’ve had some on discharge that have bought little shrubs and trees to plant because they wanted to leave their own mark and show their growth, recovery and appreciation for their garden area.
It will be an ever-changing project over the years with several colleagues and patients contributing different ideas, so the area will hopefully provide a wonderful space to do activities while also being a nice quiet place to relax.”
The team have more plans to develop a wildflower garden on unused land at the Royal Blackburn Hospital site, hoping to attract more bees, butterflies and birds for inpatients to view from bedroom areas.
