Community Show Gardens

Their garden is called “One Day at a Time – A Garden for Wellbeing, Connection and Belonging.” This garden has been designed, created, and arranged by service users, volunteers, and community members, making it a true reflection of the people and communities we support. The inspiration comes from lived experiences of resilience, recovery, migration, belonging, and the importance of early intervention and prevention in supporting mental health and wellbeing. Rather than a professionally designed space, this garden is community-led, with individuals contributing their own ideas, planting arrangements, handmade artwork, painted stones, cultural crafts, messages of hope, and personal creative touches. Every feature tells a story and represents the strength that comes when people feel safe, valued, and connected. Visitors will see a colourful, welcoming space filled with vibrant planting, sensory elements, recycled materials, community-made art, and multilingual wellbeing messages. Seating areas invite conversation and reflection, while interactive features encourage visitors to pause, connect, and share positive thoughts. As people walk through the garden, they will experience not just plants and flowers, but a living example of how creativity, community, culture, and nature can bring people together, reduce isolation, build confidence, and support wellbeing—one day at a time.

Our garden was devised, designed and developed by members of our therapeutic horticulture group for adults with stroke and brain injury. The group wanted to convey some of the beauty and restorative nature of the walled garden. Following a couple of initial brainstorming sessions, when the design was settled on, we’ve spent every week working on a different part of the garden design. Like the walled garden itself, our design is a secret. If you want to know what it is, you’ll have to come along and see for yourself!

We’ve never participated in a garden show before. Having brought the walled garden back to life from an abandoned field surrounded by brambles, we’ve never had time to think about making gardens elsewhere! However, it’s been lovely to be part of a community of other projects, groups and charities all working towards something, and we feel proud to be part of the display. We hope this becomes a regular feature at the Palm House.

A Litterpic-nic : A litterpicker’s memory of July 2020 lockdown picnics, where The Friends of Sefton Park volunteers gathered in our bubbles among the park’s natural tapestry lawn, sharing food, music, care and space in the city’s most loved park. During lockdown in July 2020, areas of Sefton Park were left unmown and, almost quietly, a tapestry lawn began to create itself. Tiny grass flowers and wild plants emerged from the park’s underground seedbank, weaving a softer, richer landscape full of texture, colour and life. Naturally colonised, the space became a vital feeding ground for solitary bees, bumblebees, honey bees and other pollinators. It revealed the resilience hidden in the soil and the abundance that can appear when land is given time to breathe. In protecting soil structure and supporting wildlife, this symbiosis transformed the park into a more beautiful, generous and nature-rich place. This garden is about resilience in people, plants and place. Sefton Park is a safe refuge for life to grow and bloom.

It explores the diversity of the children’s interests and passions and celebrates the unique contributions they each make.

Inspired by local wise women, collectors and biodiversity around Rochdale the beds here give you an insight into the exciting designs to come at Touchstones Rochdale. The team have been inspired by the story of local wise woman, midwife and medical botanist Ellen Wallace, also known as Nell Racker. Born in 1836 Ellen Wallace cared for people in Rochdale by prescribing herbal medicines and ointments, growing plants from her garden and collecting common weeds from around Blackstone Edge to help people in their illnesses and pains. At the heart of this project is the idea of care, for the participants and volunteers working hard to design a beautiful space; for the people who came before us who used their curiosity and interest in the natural world to learn more about botany; and for the garden space itself which we hope will be a space for connection, inspiration and learning, for everybody to enjoy.