We’re really excited to announce that we will be designing a garden for Horatio’s Garden, the charity dedicated to creating and nurturing beautiful, accessible and sustainable gardens in NHS spinal centres, for RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023. The garden is generously sponsored by Project Giving Back.
Our show garden will embody the special qualities found in all Horatio’s Gardens while incorporating influences from the Sheffield region, connecting it to the garden’s future permanent home at the Princess Royal Spinal Cord Injuries Centre in Sheffield. This new garden in Sheffield, also designed by us, will be the eighth Horatio’s Garden and support thousands of patients, relatives and NHS staff for years to come.
The vision for the garden is of a beautiful, immersive, restorative haven – the antithesis of a busy, clinical hospital environment. It is designed to give visitors to Chelsea Flower Show a sense of the hope and transformative effect having access to a Horatio’s Garden can have when coming to terms with a devastating and traumatic spinal injury. We are also collaborating with Mcmullan Studio, as we did for Chelsea 2021, to create an intimate garden building – a place of year-round privacy, warmth and sanctuary, away from the busy ward, which will also be relocated to Sheffield.
In approaching the design, we have collaborated closely with the whole Horatio’s Garden community. We have met and listened to patients, their loved ones, NHS staff, head gardeners and volunteers to understand the needs and aspirations of everyone benefiting from time in a Horatio’s Garden.
Horatio’s Garden Sheffield will be a hopeful, accessible and therapeutic space for everyone affected by spinal injury within the considerable geographical area served by the Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Centre at NHS Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. Horatio’s Garden has launched its capital appeal to raise the vital funds to create the garden. Please watch this special film about Sheffield or visit the Horatio’s Garden website to find out more and donate.