Horatio’s Garden creates and cares for beautiful accessible gardens in NHS spinal injury centres.
Horatio’s Garden is one of the National Garden Scheme’s gardens and health charities – receiving funding for work which promotes the physical and mental health benefits of gardens and gardening. The National Garden Scheme has been supporting Horatio’s Garden since 2015 and have donated over £670,000 to-date to help the charity create and care for beautiful accessible gardens in NHS regional spinal injury centres. In spring 2019, the National Garden Scheme committed funding for the completion of all eleven gardens across the country and in 2024 donated a further £90,000.
Our commitment to Horatio’s Garden
With support from the National Garden Scheme, three more gardens have opened to patients in Buckinghamshire, Shropshire and London. The garden at the National Spinal Injuries Centre, Stoke Mandeville was opened in September 2018 and was designed by BBC Gardeners’ World presenter and RHS Gold Medal Winner, Joe Swift.
In September 2019, the charity’s fourth garden, Horatio’s Garden Midlands, opened at the Midland Centre for Spinal Injuries in Oswestry. It has been designed by well-known Gardeners’ Question Time panelist Bunny Guinness.
The fifth Horatio’s Garden has been designed by internationally renowned, Tom Stuart-Smith, who has a total of eight Chelsea Flower Show gold medals to his name. Works began in January 2020 and were completed in September 2020. The garden is at The London Spinal Cord Injury Centre, located at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore.
You can read Curtis’ story here
Maggie’s offer the best possible support free to anyone with cancer and their families who walk through their doors.
For each centre, architects and interior and landscape designers work closely together to ensure a strong connection between the outside and inside space.
In 2024 the National Garden Scheme made a donation of £122,227 towards Maggie’s gardens. The National Garden Scheme is aiming to donate £1 million over the next ten years to support people with cancer.
Creating welcoming spaces
Past funding has enabled Maggie’s to enhance the gardens in Swansea, Cheltenham and Newcastle and build new gardens in Yorkshire, Southampton and Oxford. All of these gardens have been enjoyed by thousands of service users in 2023. In Oxford, there have been more than 7,000 visitors to the centre. Maggie’s Southampton opened to visitors in 2021 and now supports 20,000 visits a year from people needing tailored emotional, practical and social support in the Southampton area.
In November 2022 it was confirmed that the National Garden Scheme was committing to support Maggie’s for a further five years.
Read more and watch a video about designer Dan Pearson’s involvement with Maggie’s here
£500,000
£450,000
£450,000
£450,000
£350,000
£350,000
£122,227
£90,000
£80,000
£302,000
£232,000
