RHS Chelsea PR

Local people with rare forms of dementia to benefit from award-winning show garden now open to visitors at Exbury Gardens in Hampshire

Local people with rare forms of dementia to benefit from award-winning show garden now open to visitors at Exbury Gardens in Hampshire

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•    Free access for local Rare Dementia Support members, funds being raised on the garden for The National Brain Appeal, who fund the service

A triple award-winning show garden, which will benefit local people diagnosed with rare dementias and their families, has been officially opened at Exbury Gardens.

The National Brain Appeal’s  beautiful ‘Rare Space’ garden, designed by Charlie Hawkes (pictured below) and now sited opposite the Five Arrows Gallery at the famous New Forest visitor attraction, was opened by Helena Clarke who lives with the condition posterior cortical atrophy (PCA). Also at the launch was Peter Jones from Fareham who has been diagnosed too with PCA. This affects the area of the brain that deals with visual processing.

Designer Charlie Hawkes on the Rare Space Garden at Exbury Gardens – photo credit Cathryn Baldock

Local families who are members of Rare Dementia Support are being given free access to the garden at Exbury. A digital donation point at the garden allows money to be raised for The National Brain Appeal, which funds the service; and information boards and leaflets give more details about rare dementias and advice on how to seek support. Staff at Exbury Gardens have also undertaken dementia awareness training.

The Project Giving Back-funded Rare Space Garden won three awards at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, including a gold, and is designed for those living with rare dementias, particularly visual and spacial forms of the disease. It will eventually be located at the world’s first Rare DementiaSupport Centre in London but, whilst The National Brain Appeal raises the estimated £7m needed to create this Centre – expected to open in 2024/25 – the garden has been temporarily located in Hampshire for Exbury’s visitors to enjoy, and to raise awareness of these life-changing neurological conditions, which are often misdiagnosed.

RDS supports people living with seven forms of rare dementia; these can strike at a young age, may be directly inherited, and often affect skills other than memory, such as vision, language, behaviour and movement. It is thought that around 47,000-142,000 people in the UK are living with a less common form of dementia but reliable statistics are hard to find due to frequent misdiagnoses. The new Centre will be a state-of-the-art home for the service, bringing people affected by these conditions together with experienced healthcare professionals.

Following diagnosis, many find that existing health, social and voluntary services do not cater adequately for their individual needs, and established dementia support groups are not particularly relevant to their situation. Members of these groups can often be significantly different to them in terms of age, life situation and symptoms. 30% of people living with a rare dementia initially receive an incorrect diagnosis and there is a widespread lack of understanding and a shortage of dedicated resources to support those affected.

Theresa Dauncey, chief executive of The National Brain Appeal, said: “It is wonderful to see The National Brain Appeal’s Rare Space Garden in its new home at Exbury Gardens and looking as splendid as it did at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. We are incredibly grateful to Marcus Agius and everyone at Exbury Gardens for hosting our garden, giving so many more people the opportunity to see it and to learn more about rare dementias, and, of course, to Project Giving Back for making all of this possible.”

Exbury Gardens’ chairman Marcus Agius said: “One of the purposes of the Rare Dementia Support Centre will be to educate people about these unusual conditions, not just sufferers and their families and carers, but also members of the medical profession. As such, the Rare Space Garden fits well with the educational objects of the Exbury Gardens charitable trust. We are simply delighted to be hosting it until the new centre is built.”

The Rare Space Garden was created with the input and collaboration of those affected by visual-led dementias, and was designed as a space to foster autonomy and hope. It offers a balance between exploration and calm navigation. Subtly coloured planting has been chosen to minimise sensory disruption. A level, wide path weaves simply through the garden, offering brightly coloured, easily found seating areas and sheltered spaces along the way, for independent wayfinding. Interpretation boards outline the significance of key features within the space and explain how those with rare dementias and their families can seek support.

Helena Clarke officially opens the Rare Space Garden with husband David (centre front). Back from left to right – Hattie Ghaui (Project Giving Back), Professor Nick Fox (Rare Dementia Support), Theresa Dauncey (The National Brain Appeal), Charlie Hawkes (designer) and Marcus Agius (Exbury Gardens). Photo credit © Britt Willoughby Dyer

ENDS

For further information or images, contact PR Emma Mason on 07762 117433 emma@emmamasonpr.co.uk or Veronica Chrisp on 023 8024 5754 veronica.chrisp@exbury.co.uk

The National Brain Appeal – PR Manager, Marie Mangan – 07812 124092 marie.mangan@nhs.net

Notes for editors

  • Exbury Gardens, spread over 200 acres, is a calm and beautiful oasis with tranquil ponds surrounded by rare plants, trees and shrubs. It was created by Lionel de Rothschild in 1919, a passionate collector of plants and a keen supporter and sponsor of the early 20th century plant hunters, and has grown to become a stunning garden paradise. It boasts over 20 miles of pathways and trails and is located in the New Forest about 15 minutes from the M27. Over recent years the Hampshire garden, famed for its spring colour, has been expanded for all-season interest with areas designed to show off summer and autumn blooms, as well as an extension of its 1 ½-mile Rhododendron Line steam railway. Exbury Gardens, located in the New Forest near Southampton, is open daily 10am – 5.30pm. Arrival time slots must be booked online in advance at www.exbury.co.uk
  • About The National Brain Appeal (registered charity number 290173) – Dedicated to improving the lives of people affected by neurological conditions, The National Brain Appeal funds pioneering research, innovative treatments and world-class facilities at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and the UCL Institute of Neurology in Queen Square, London. The hospital is the UK’s leading centre of excellence for treating diseases of the brain, spine and the nervous system − such as brain tumours, epilepsy, stroke, dementias, MS, Parkinson’s disease and motor neurone disease. nationalbrainappeal.org

The charity funds Rare Dementia Support (RDS), a service that provides information, advice and support to people and their families living with raredementias and is currently fundraising for the world’s first Rare Dementia Support Centre, part of the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, to provide guidance, support and education, as well as being a space for research, artistic and cultural activities. raredementiasupport.org

  • Charlie Hawkes is an award-winning landscape designer based in the UK who won a gold medal at the 2022 Chelsea Flower Show for his Wilderness Foundation UK Garden, as well as a gold at the 2023 show. He has a master’s in landscape architecture from the Edinburgh College of Art. His experience includes working in Japan at Dan Pearson’s Tokachi Millennium Forest, an estate placement at the iconic Lutyens-build house, Great Dixter and a season working at luxury hotel, Gravetye Manor in West Sussex. As a result of his knowledge of design and gardening, he strives to create places that have an atmosphere that reflects the unique nature of each landscape.
  • Project Giving Back (PGB) is a unique grant-making charity that provides funding for gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. PGB was launched in May 2021 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its devastating effect on UK charitable fundraising. PGB has funded a total of 15 gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2023 and intends to fund up to 42 gardens at the show from 2022 – 2024. It was established with funding from two private individuals who are RHS Life Members and keen gardeners. They wish to remain anonymous. PGB will help UK-based good causes recover from the unprecedented effects of the global pandemic by giving them an opportunity to raise awareness of their work for people, plants and the planet at the high-profile RHS Chelsea Flower Show. www.givingback.org.uk

 

 

The RSPCA Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show: a call for UK gardeners to help stop wildlife decline

The RSPCA Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show: a call for UK gardeners to help stop wildlife decline

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‘We owe it to our children to ensure they still get to enjoy British wildlife,’ says Steve Backshall

The RSPCA is teaming up at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show with award-winning designer, Martyn Wilson, to create a stylish sanctuary for wildlife and people alike – and it has a very important ‘take-home’ message.

The RSPCA Garden designed by Martyn Wilson

A contemporary interpretation of a wildlife garden, The RSPCA Garden highlights the public’s vital role in protecting wild animals and birds. As well as looking beautiful, it is packed with ideas you can easily recreate at home, whatever space you have, and is designed to challenge the view that wildlife gardens are untidy or unfashionable.

RSPCA vice president Steve Backshall said we owe it to future generations to take action now.

The TV wildlife host said: “We owe it to our children to ensure they still get to enjoy British wildlife like previous generations before them. But the rapid decline of some of our most loved species like hedgehogs, red squirrels and some butterflies means some of our favourite British animals may soon only exist in zoos. This is terrifying, and should spur every single one of us into taking action.

“We are reaching a critical turning point but we can take positive actions now to help create the future we want for our children, our wildlife and our planet.

“Everyone can join the RSPCA to be a Wildlife Friend volunteer, picking up litter to prevent an animal getting injured, putting down a saucer of water for thirsty birds or making a simple bug hotel to give bees somewhere to rest.

“These tiny acts of kindness can collectively make a huge difference for the wildlife we share our communities with, and which we rely on for our survival.”

The RSPCA is hoping the Chelsea project inspires people to carry out small acts of kindness for wildlife they share their neighbourhoods with, as part of their Wildlife Friends scheme.

A raised wildlife-watching ‘hide’ made from UK-grown Douglas fir and larch, with a green roof and wall-mounted bee hotels, is designed to be a refuge in nature for an RSPCA volunteer after a busy shift. Elsewhere in the garden, natural stone feature walls house contemporary bird nesting boxes; while a modern corten steel interpretation of a ‘dead hedge‘, with hidden hedgehog houses, creates habitats for birds, mammals and insects, whilst also recycling garden materials.

A central water feature formed from recycled plastic waste is a nod to the RSPCA rescuing almost 4,000 animals trapped in or injured by litter last year (2022). Providing movement, sound and a drink for wildlife, it symbolises the rescue-rehabilitate-release cycle of care given to thousands of animals at the charity’s four specialist wildlife centres.

Enclosed by hedging and a canopy of native trees and shrubs vital for birds and wildlife, planting is in a multi-layered naturalistic style in shades of green, whites and tones of blue with pollinator-friendly plants. A bronze sculpture of two otters, by Simon Gudgeon, is inspired by otters in the charity’s care.

The project is being generously funded by Project Giving Back, and the garden will be relocated at the end of the event to RSPCA Stapeley Grange, the charity’s wildlife rehabilitation and education centre in Cheshire, in time for the charity’s 200th anniversary celebrations in 2024.

It will continue to provide sanctuary for wildlife, but also for visitors – including young people, families and vulnerable adults, who already visit the centre for support with emotional wellbeing and resilience. The space will bring essential animal welfare education to communities who have fewer opportunities to get out and about in nature.

There are about 23 million gardens in the UK. The area of all the gardens in England together is more than four times the amount of land in nature reserves*, so gardens are the secret weapon in saving our much-loved British wildlife from this devastating decline.

Filming on The RSPCA Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Designer Martyn visited an RSPCA specialist wildlife centre and took inspiration from its dedicated rehabilitation work in the design of his garden. He said: “The RSPCA Garden is modern and stylish and shows that wildlife gardens don’t necessarily have to be untidy. I really hope people will be inspired to create their own wildlife sanctuary at home.”

Ends

 Notes to editors:

Media Contacts:

Catherine Peerless, RSPCA head of media 07817 550270 catherine.peerless@rspca.org.uk

Lucy Cooper, RSPCA national press officer 07990 717074 lucy.cooper@rspca.org.uk

Emma Mason, Emma Mason PR (for Wilson Associates Garden Design) 07762 117433 emma@emmamasonpr.co.uk

 

A soil-themed garden in partnership with Blue Peter

Juliet Sargeant designs new RHS garden in partnership with Blue Peter

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  • The New Blue Peter Garden: Discover Soil to have a permanent home at RHS Garden Bridgewater from the autumn with a preview showing at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 
  • 2022 new Blue Peter garden designed by Juliet Sargeant – fun and interactive soil science, journey through soil in a subterranean rhizotron, dodge ‘rain’ showers, listen to a compost heap, and explore a spring barley field, wildflower meadow with orchids, native woodland or veg patc

A new soil-themed garden, in partnership with CBBC’s Blue Peter, is to open to visitors at RHS Garden Bridgewater in Salford in the autumn – with a guest appearance first at this month’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Designed by award-winning designer Juliet Sargeant, it will champion the very modern-day topic of soil’s central role in supporting life and its potential to lock-in carbon. Aimed at engaging children and adults to discover the importance of soil in their own back gardens, balconies, or communities, it will explain why we need to protect it and how. The new garden will first preview as a Main Avenue show garden at RHS Chelsea later this month, before being relocated to its permanent home at RHS Garden Bridgewater for public access.

A beautiful mini wildflower meadow featuring British orchids; tiny ‘field’ planted with spring barley, a RHS Chelsea first; veg patch and native woodland, will demonstrate how soil supports our natural landscape, food crops and gardens.  To access the immersive garden, visitors at RHS Garden Bridgewater will be able to hop over stepping stones and then crawl into dank fern-planted cavities to dig the earth, listen to the sounds of a compost heap, and even dodge a playful rain shower, a reminder of how water forms and also degrades soil.

The brightly planted garden will take you down into the ground and bring the soil up from beneath your feet, to see, touch and hear, and to draw you into the amazing underground world of mini-beasts and microbes. The earthy adventure continues with a semi-subterranean, theatrical rhizotron chamber where a soil animation by Polish artist Zuzanna Kolodziej will play, with tree roots growing above.

Juliet Sargeant said: “Soil supports most of the life on our planet, without soil there is nothing. Down-trodden and neglected, it is the ‘forgotten climate solution’ beneath our feet. Healthy soils not only feed most of life on earth, but also act as an essential carbon sink for damaging greenhouse gases. My aim with this garden is to invite people to look more closely at soil and the subtleties of its complex ecosystem. We raise it up to eye level and say, ‘Look at this!”

Citizen art on the garden includes ‘creepy crawlies’ painted by Year 5 children from Salford and soil de-crustation artworks by German artist Anneli Ketterer in collaboration with Salford residents. Sculptor Teresa Wells has cast a bespoke bronze of 4-year-old, Arthur, discovering a worm for the garden. In Compost Corner you can listen to the sounds of a healthy soil, recorded by the Zurich University Sounding Soil project. Tiles of Stow have created bespoke cracked clay paving tiles, to remind us of the devastation of drought, but the brightly coloured planting and field of barley illustrate the abundance that a healthy soil sustains.

There will be blue and orange-hued plants nurtured by Roger Platts Garden Design and Nurseries of Edenbridge.

Blue Peter has a proud history of garden design with the show’s original Blue Peter garden being designed by Percy Thrower in 1974. It was relocated from Television Centre to Media City in 2012, with the Italian-style sunken ornamental pond and statue of the first ever Blue Peter dog, Petra. The garden features regularly on the show and is open for the public to visit at Media City UK in Salford Quays.

The New Blue Peter Garden: Discover Soil is one of 12 gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year being funded by Project Giving Back (PGB). PGB is a new charity, established in response to the pandemic, that offers good causes in the UK the opportunity to exhibit a show garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, to promote their work for people, plants and the planet. All gardens supported by PGB will be relocated to permanent homes after the show so their legacy will live on for generations to come.

Five easy tips for helping your soil by Juliet Sargeant

  • Know your soil – The soil in your garden is an amazing micro-environment, teaming with life and the potential to grow. The character of the soil, its texture and chemical make-up is unique to your site. This is what gives your garden its individuality and what will affect the plants you can grow. Get to know your soil by observing its colour and texture and also by testing its acidity with a kit from the garden centre.
  • Feed your soil – The mini-beasts and micro-organisms that inhabit your soil need feeding. Their complex life cycles are what sustains the health of the soil. Starting a compost heap to recycle your food scraps and garden waste is the best thing you can do to feed your soil. Turn your waste into compost and use it to feed your soil.
  • Protect your soil – Soil is always there, beneath our feet; so, it is easy to overlook how fragile it is. Your soil needs protection from wind, rain and also compaction. The best way to protect soil is to plant it – leaves form a natural, protective blanket over the soil surface. However, digging the soil can damage its delicate structure, so why not try the ‘No-Dig Method’ of mulching your soil with peat-free compost to suppress the weeds. When you are watering, try to avoid flooding the soil and compacting it.
  • Plant your soil – The best way to support the natural life cycle of your soil is to grow plants. Trees in particular are invaluable to a garden’s ecosystem and to the protection and stabilisation of soil. Planting trees is great. However, given the many years it takes for a tree to grow, it is also important to protect established trees and only fell them when absolutely necessary.
  • Let your soil breathe….it’s alive – In this age of the car many of us need extra parking space. As more and more of us pave over our gardens, the soil beneath is dying; it is suffocating. This sealing of the soil, also prevents rainwater draining away and exacerbates local flooding. Fortunately, there are permeable paving solutions which you can choose for your driveway or patio.

 ENDS

For further press information contact: Emma Mason emma@emmamasonpr.co.uk 07762 117433

or

Designer: Juliet Sargeant – Office: 01273 834 083

www.julietsargeant.com www.sussexgardenschool.com

Twitter: @julietsargeant Instagram: julietsargeant Facebook: @sussexgardenschool

Juliet Sargeant – is a Sussex-based garden designer who loves to use gardens to tell stories and get us thinking. In 2016, she was awarded a CFS Gold Medal and The People’s Choice Award for her ‘Modern Slavery Garden’.

Having trained initially as a medical doctor, in this garden, she explores the interface between art and science. Juliet has long advocated the importance of gardens for health and in her private practice, she uses gardens to help connect people to landscape and nature. At her ‘Sussex Garden School’ she runs courses to de-mystify gardening and help people to get to know their gardens better.

Previously, Chair of The Society of Garden Designers, Juliet is now on the RHS (Royal Horticultural Soc) selection panel for show gardens and acts as a judge. She has won awards from the SGD in 2012 and 2015, for sustainability and hard landscaping design. In 2017 Juliet was made a Fellow of the SGD for her contribution to garden design & horticulture and in 2019 she was made Fellow of The Landscape Institute. In 2016 Juliet was celebrated for her role as a change-maker and role model in the BAME community at the GG2 Leadership Awards. She was also one of the Evening Standard’s Progress 100 influential people. In 2018 she was named as one of the BBC 100 Women.

Blue Peter – is the longest running kids TV show in the world featuring Adam, Mwaksy, Richie and Henry the dog. Blue Peter is packed full of challenges, celebrities, and things to do. Every week on CBBC and BBC iPlayer, Blue Peter encourages kids to join in, earn their badge, enter a competition, be creative and adventurous. bbc.co.uk/bluepeter

Project Giving Back (PGB) – is a unique grant-making charity that provides funding for gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. PGB was launched in May 2021, with funding from two private individuals who wish to remain anonymous, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its effect on UK charitable fundraising. It will fund gardens inspired by a range of good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Applications for gardens in 2023 are now closed. Find out more at www.givingback.org.uk