Mount Vernon Cancer Treatment centre Garden makeover

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We are honoured to be part of an incredible and innovative collaborative garden design project! Sunnyside Rural Trust will be working with Matthew Biggs and a team of fantastic designers and gardeners to grow plants for his Hospital Garden at Mount Vernon.

 

This special project is led and inspired by the amazing garden writer and broadcaster Matthew Biggs, who is one of Britain’s most celebrated gardening broadcasters and authors with a passion for all things horticulture. While undergoing chemotherapy and spending some time in the current gardens at Mount Vernon hospital, Matt had the idea to improve the space as ‘it lacked plants and despite the best efforts of volunteers, offered little inspiration as a healing garden’. He has made it his mission to turn the outdoor space into a healing garden which will bring patients, staff, volunteers and members of the local community together.

“I’d read that Tom Stuart Smith and his wife Sue Stuart Smith, a psychotherapist and author of The Well Gardened Mind, were running a community interest company called The Serge Hill Project for Gardening Creativity and Health, and as part of this are working with Sunnyside Rural Trust, a social enterprise that works with young people and adults with learning disabilities which is also based in Hertfordshire. And then the thought suddenly came to me, wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could get this garden improved? The Sunnyside trainees could grow the plants and plant them for the people who are having cancer treatment.”

 
We are delighted that the following garden experts will be involved:
 
Interlock Surveys, under George Davenport MRICS, have already undertaken a detailed drone survey of the site.
 
Millie Souter from Tom Stuart-Smith Studio and Head Gardener at The Serge Hill Project (Tom Stuart Smith is an internationally renowned Garden designer; his wife, Sue, a highly respected psychologist and author of the best-selling book ‘The Well Gardened Mind’, linking gardens to health and wellbeing.)
 
The Garden will be constructed by Landform Consultants, led by CEO Mark Gregory. Landform is are multiple-gold medal and ‘Best in Show’ winner at the Chelsea Flower Show.
 
Plants will be grown, planted and maintained by us, a local charity and social enterprise working with young people and adults with learning disabilities. We are showcasing what people can do with opportunity.
 
Any donation received will help us create the garden to make the best possible environment for local people having cancer treatment, as well as creating tranquil spaces for staff and visiting families.
 
It has been scientifically proven that gardens are vital for health and wellbeing, so please donate and help us to meet our fundraising target so we can create a beautiful space for all to enjoy. Thank you so much.
 
We are inspired by Matthew’s creativity and heart and look forward to documenting this garden journey. Donate here to support this incredible project.
 

If you want to read more about the progress of this project, which includes a generous anonymous donation, please go to Gardens Illustrated.