Winter Garden News

Gardening News:

Our volunteers work hard to keep the garden looking good all year round but winter is a particularly important time to take the time to stop and appreciate the garden for all its winter beauty and interest. The low sunlight always looks amazing across the garden, silhouetting the beautiful coloured stems and trees and highlighting the golden beech hedging, tall grasses and seedheads – all of which help support our insects and birds through winter. As well as what we can see there are scented winter flowering plants to provide much needed nectar for winter pollinators and which we can all enjoy for their highly fragrant flowers at this time of year. Spring bulbs are already peeping up above the soil so in winter there is still much to enjoy in the garden.

Gardens are, as you will know, incredibly good for our health and wellbeing and also increase biodiversity which is essential for human existence. When we make gardens, as with all of ours here in the hospital grounds, there will be a huge rise in the different insects, invertebrates and birds that will arrive due to the diverse mix of plants available for food and shelter. The different shapes and structures in the garden – trees, shrubs and perennials, create those extra vertical spaces important to shelter birds and insects and, combined with low-growing features and plants, provide different interlocking food sources for various forms of wildlife. We hope you can find time to enjoy your garden here at Harefield.

We would like to share future news from the Healing Garden and hope to invite you again. In the meantime we hope you enjoy our winter news and are able to come over to visit the garden when you can.

If you are interested in volunteering in the garden, however much or little you can do, we would love to see you. We are currently in the garden, weather permitting, on Thursdays from 11.00 am to 2.00 pm.