“Access to gardens can enhance focus and attention, as well as reducing anxiety and boosting self-confidence. Additionally, the garden can be considered a dynamic environment offering diverse opportunities for learning.” –[‘Green Spaces – Outdoor Environments for Adults with Autism’ by Katie Gaudion and Chris McGinley.]

At Apple House care homes we know that our outdoor spaces are as vital as indoor space for those who reside at our services.  For many years we have actively encouraged residents to take ownership of their garden space, to use it in a way meaningful to them. Perhaps this year, even more than previously, we value our outdoor spaces, fresh air and the gentle exercise of gardening.

At Apple House care home, residents enjoy 100ft of garden and actively shop for plants, tend seasonal blooms, help with garden maintenance and enjoy sitting out with a cuppa to admire the results.  Redcroft, Little Amberwood and Summerwood care homes also rear and nurture their own hens, with Summerwood residents even designing and building a hen house.  Growing vegetables is the norm here: eating home grown organic veg and free range eggs is tremendously rewarding in itself as well as nutritiously beneficial.  

Results-based activities such as these also foster a sense of ownership and achievement.

Sensory gardens incorporate textures, actions and movement, sounds, smells, colour.  At Summerwood care home in Hampshire, our registered manager, John, and residents created a sensory garden that blends all of the above.  We also offer garden space that is restful and calming, without additional sensory stimulation.

All of our services now have log cabins in their grounds. Redcroft care home, in Bournemouth, has a fabulous activities cabin nestled beside the hen house. Instead of slicing a path through the lawn to reach it, residents and staff planted a sensory path including lavenders, herbs such as thyme, rosemary and mint. Imagine the scents released as fingertips brush along the heads of the blooms and leaves as you walk to and from the cabin which again is fragrant with the scent of pine wood.  Texture is as import as scent and so there are fleshy, course foliage and soft silken leaves and tickly grasses.

While seasons and nature will continually change garden space, it’s important to us that we facilitate enjoyment of what is a wonderful commodity all year round.  The cabin enables residents to connect with their garden and to feel part of their outdoor space even in the winter.

We are ready for Spring, are you?

What are bug houses?

Insects are so beneficial for our gardens, or at least some are!  Lurking in the lupins and hiding in the hyacinths are a plethora of absolute pests such as aphids, mealybugs and other nasty leaf-chompers.

We don’t like pesticides.  We love our gardens and our vegetable patches.  The natural solution is to attract the ‘right’ kind of bugs to battle pests and to ensure the eco-balance of our beautiful outdoor spaces.

This is why the latest additions to our garden at Redcroft care home are Bug Houses!  These little boxes of corrugated tubes are proven to attract insects and ours will nestle in our flower and veggie beds from the spring onwards.  Not only do they further enhance what is fast becoming an ‘eco garden,’ we are actually looking forward to studying the bugs that we collect.

There have been many studies that highlight the many benefits of accessible gardening.  This means that a garden, and gardening, is designed in such a way as to not form barriers to those with a wish to garden or to touch and enjoy the many sensory delights that a garden can yield.

Our homes each have large and varied gardens:  Apple House has one hundred feet of lawn, of blooms and fruit trees that produce apples for baking.  Summerwood is in the process of further developing its sensory garden which is one of two quite distinct gardens private to the home, the second being more conventional with a hen house and free ranging chickens, a lawn and flower beds and a place to sit and relax.  At Redcroft, the garden is vast, again with chickens and now guinea pigs, with many trees offering leafy shade, and now with raised beds (as seen above).

The two raised beds will be planted with vegetables and have been hand built to our specifications to facilitate access by wheelchair users, at a useful height, with level access. The satisfaction of choosing, planting and nurturing one’s own plants can be a special experience.  To harvest vegetables and to prepare and cook them is even better!

• We look at activities that are achievable and person centred but that also have an aim and purpose.
• We like to have fun but realise that life is not only about enjoying ourselves. Having freedom to choose what we do every day is a right but along with it comes our responsibility – to ourselves and those around us. Sometimes doing daily chores can be challenging but they are essential to keeping us fit and healthy.

So how do we put this ethos into practice?

Summer is definitely set up to be full of fun but also very productive