Beauty Bible Loves... The Big Give for gardening!
Today, 2nd December, begins a week where every pound we give to Thrive, the gardening charity, will be doubled by their match funders – The Leisure and Outdoor Furniture Association (LOFA) and The Balcombe Charitable Trust.
As passionate gardeners, we need no persuading of the therapeutic power of planting, pruning, digging and all the rest of it. The joy of seeing seeds come up, the first daffs in the Spring, fat rosebuds blooming into ravishing flowers (scented for us), homegrown vegetables and salads. Growing your own food, by the way, is a surefire way of getting picky kids to eat their greens (and reds, oranges and yellows). Being out in Nature, taking exercise, listening to birdsong and watching wildlife from bees to birds, is a big part of the equation, as research testifies.
We were struck a couple of years ago, too, by psychiatrist Dr Sue Stuart-Smith, author of The Well Gardened Mind, saying she would rather refer patients for Thrive horticultural therapy than give them a prescription for antidepressants. Something that Gardeners World presenter Monty Don, who has talked about his own depression, has long said. And gardening works for everyone, from people with mental health concerns to those in prisons and hospitals, the elderly to little ones, and as Thrive’s Life Changers programme shows, gardening can help people with long term disabling illness.
Thrive’s Big Give fund raising initiative is part of The Big Give Christmas Challenge, the UK’s biggest collaborative fundraising campaign championing charitable organisations with seven days of match funding.
Please join us in giving to Thrive this week.
PS And, at home, put a packet of seeds in every Christmas stocking…
PPS Jo is also supporting The Big Give in aid of The Garden Museum’s Benton End restoration: the beautiful, faded home and garden which belonged to artist Cedric Morris, in Suffolk. Again, every penny of up to £20,000 raised be matched by The Big Give towards this project, which will help spread the love of gardening, turning Benton End into a horticultural and artistic centre of learning. A different type of ‘horticultural therapy’, perhaps – but in our experience, whoever gets their hands in the earth or learns to appreciate nature and its cycles is on the path to greater wellbeing.
To make a pledge towards The Garden Museum’s Benton End project, click here.
