Horticultural Therapy

The rain clouds didn’t bode well for the horticultural workshop scheduled for this morning at the Headway Shropshire garden, however it didn’t put anyone off!  Amanda and I had gone along to Headway Shropshire to help Mike Russell, our show garden designer, with a horticultural workshop he was holding for the clients of Headway.  The idea of the workshop was to involve the clients in potting on the vegetable produce and companion plants currently being grown at Headway for inclusion in the show garden.  As gardening is renowned as being very therapeutic, it was also an excellent rehabilitative exercise for the clients. 

The workshop got started at 9.30am, with a gazebo being set up in the garden to shelter us all from the imminent rain, whilst Mike brought along tables and benches for the Headway clients to work at, together with numerous bags of potting compost and spare pots.  Several of the Headway clients then joined us and were soon getting their hands dirty re-potting plants, transferring seedlings, and digging the ground.  I made myself useful by transferring marigolds from their seedling trays into large pots to enable them to grow on, and also made sure I seized the opportunity for plenty of photographs.  Luckily we managed to get the majority of the planting done before the rain started! 

It was clear that the Headway clients thoroughly enjoyed themselves, especially as they came back after lunch to carry on with the gardening after the workshop had finished!