Gardening Club at Stratford Bentley Nursing Home with McCarthy Stone

Thanks to the generous funding from the McCarthy Stone Foundation we were able to deliver a gardening club for 12 weeks at Stratford Bentley Nursing Home, on a Friday afternoon, in which residents could reignite their passions for gardening while socialising, getting creative and getting active.

One of the truly great things to come out of the gardening club was discovering that many of the residents used to do gardening earlier in their lives. By propagating alpine plants, growing seeds, creating flower arrangements and making decisions about where to plant bulbs in the communal garden space at the centre of the home, we learned about the ways they have connected with nature in their lives. Having the funding to travel to the nursing home and run the workshops felt particularly empowering and we adapted to doing gardening both indoors and outdoors to accommodate the needs of each individual resident.

Activities coordinator, Naomi, said “Forest of Hearts are really helping to reconnect our residents with gardening”, and it felt really special to be able to do that. Seeing the other activities lined up on the residents’ activity board each week, we were the only gardening club. It was also immediately rewarding to help run the sessions with Naomi who, on week 1, professed that she had very little gardening experience, but who by the end was very confident with propagating plants and planting.

With the two Gardening Club facilitators aged 24 and 30, the intergenerational social interaction that the club brought was highly rewarding for us and the residents. The vibe of the sessions was characterised by laughter, stories, tea breaks and group photos, and each week us and the residents parted with a mutual eagerness for what the next session would bring. In the final session, the residents expressed an interest in us coming back to do more.

The growing collection of flower arrangements to be seen in the activities room each week, shows the impact of the club best. They are testament to the residents’ enthusiasm in getting involved in the activities each week.