The sensory garden outside the front of the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital is a vital space for patients and staff.
The space is used by lots of children, families and staff from the hospital and whilst it can provide a much-needed break from being on a ward, we felt there was so much more we could do with the space to support children and families.
As part of our Wellbeing Service, we have transformed the garden into an area where we can provide nature-based wellbeing activities for families spending time in hospital, as well as it being a space where patients, families and staff can relax, enjoy fresh air and have fun.
Along with a range of new, more sensory planting, there will also be apple trees, raised beds and a new shed to accommodate outdoor toys and activities that hospital staff can access.
So recently, members of the Rockinghorse team, along with Jess Linton, Manager of the Wellbeing Service and some staff from the hospital came along to help clear the bedding areas, plant lots of herbs and grasses and fill some new raised beds within the garden.
Sam Ford, art teacher and founder of Udso, a Newhaven based community arts organisation, created a design for the site to include a lot of sensory plants and herbs.
Sam said, “We’ve tried to make the planting drought tolerant and Mediterranean, with plants flowering at different times throughout the year. We have also tried to include some nice colour and smells by including a lot of herbs along with the grasses and plants.”
One of the volunteers was Anna Frendo, teacher at The Alex, who was really looking forward to using the space more as part of her work.
She said, “It will be amazing for families here – a lovely outside space. We’ll use it for the school for children to come out and interact with, plant vegetables or even just come and write. It will make a huge difference to the education we can provide.”
Many of the plants, trees and herbs needed for the garden were kindly donated by some local garden centres including Paradise Park, Goldcliff Garden Centre and Staverton Garden Centre.
We also had scaffolding planks and carpentry provided by ACE Scaffolding and Mark Lawrence Carpentry and help to remove rubbish from the site from S&C Waste Removal.
Help like this always proves vital in ensuring that we can do the best job possible in transforming a space like the sensory garden. This area is incredibly important for so many people using or visiting the hospital.
Jess said, “It’s fantastic to be able to transform the space to make it more appealing and accessible for everyone, including NHS staff. Before the changes, it was used by a few teams in the hospital, but we felt it could be accessed and used by more people
“It’s now a very therapeutic, calm space to come and sit in. Along with the wellbeing service we will also be able to have open sessions here for inpatient families; we’ve already had families come down and say what a really nice place it will be to come to whilst they’re in hospital
“A huge thank you to everyone who came along and helped and to the wonderful local businesses that have donated their time and skills to help us update this space.”
To find out more about our Wellbeing Service, just click here.
