This month we’re getting Summer off to a colourful start with our Perth & Kinross Community Mental Health Wellbeing Fund sponsored gardening sessions. Everyone was keen to get their hands on planting up flowering plants including : sunflowers, chrysanthemums, lilies and delightful annuals to refresh pots and tubs around the Isla Court garden.
Both the Alzheimer Scotland Perth Brain Health & Dementia Resource Centre and Isla Court sheltered housing complex groups were also absorbed by the smell and taste of the variety of culinary herbs available to them. Planting up containers to take away and grow sparked a flurry of conversation and swapping of favourite recipes revealing a love of potatoes – boiled with mint, roasted with rosemary or as a salad with chopped chives!
The Salvation Army Skinnergate Lifehouse Allotment gardening group are enjoying the flowering of the long ornamental border – their, weeding watering and planting out last month has been well worth it as the plants put on growth and a colourful show. Their dedication to watering the raised bed vegetable plot has paid dividends. The strawberries, courgettes, tomatoes, dwarf green beans and potatoes are all flourishing thanks to their enthusiasm and hard work.
Our specially developed mental health wellbeing survey, completed before and after each session, consistently shows that participants feel happier as a result of taking part in the sessions, in addition to enjoying increased levels of:
social connection, physical activity, engagement and immersion in the natural world, opportunities to learn, demonstrate skills as well as to share and be kind.
‘I’ve had a lovely afternoon, a lot, a lot of laughs’
‘I’m happy 😊’