National Garden Scheme offers virtual visits
Melanie May | 1 May 2020 | News
The National Garden Scheme is offering virtual visits to some of its gardens to enable it to continue raising funds for nursing and health charities including Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Hospice UK and The Queen’s Nursing Institute.
3,700 gardens were scheduled to open for the National Garden Scheme this year but the current lockdown means that their gates have been closed for the first time in the charity’s history.
Garden owners, volunteers and head office staff at the National Garden Scheme are compiling virtual garden visits to keep their gardens open and to generate donations for their nursing and health beneficiaries on the front line of the coronavirus outbreak.
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Ulting Wick, Essex. Credit: Marcus Harpur
Almost 20 gardens are now open for virtual visits including The Old Rectory, Farnborough, voted ‘the most beautiful Old Rectory in England’ by Country Life magazine, and celebrating its 50th year with the Scheme, Ulting Wick in Essex with its seasonal display of tulips, and Blackland House in Wiltshire, which also has beautiful tulips.
Blackland House, Wiltshire. Credit: Britt Willoughby Dyer
More gardens will be going live next week. These releases will focus on Gardens and Health – a campaign that the National Garden Scheme has championed since commissioning The Kings Fund Report into Gardens and Health in 2016.
Rachel de Thame, National Garden Scheme ambassador, will introduce the special week and share the importance of her own garden to her health and wellbeing. There will also be films from its beneficiaries highlighting the role that gardens play in health care settings, including: Marie Curie, Horatio’s Garden, Stoke Mandeville, Maggie’s, and Parkinson’s UK.
The Scheme will also visit some of the smaller community gardens that it supports, such as The Therapy Garden in Surrey and the Lindengate Community Garden, Bucks, and will be marking Garden Meditation Day on Sunday 3 May with its own meditation designed to transport people to a restful garden.
The virtual visits are free, with people asked to consider donating to help the Scheme continue supporting charities.
Main image: The Old Rectory Farnborough. Credit: Sussie Bell
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.