To see the article - Veterans find peace from horrors of war in charity’s garden - By Annie Brown please follow the link www.dailyrecord.co.uk/veterans

You can check out the article here:

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The contingent consisted of the Brigade Commander, Brigadier Lowder supported by the Commanding Officers, Officers and Soldiers from across the Brigade. The work carried out was in sections 3, 4 and 5 (the unfinished half of Stovehouse) which will allow full access for wheel chairs users. The parties great work was appreciated by our Stovehouse Supervisor Hugh ‘Stevie’ McAulay who has said “Gardening Leave would like to thank the Brigade Commander and his team for the excellent work achieved on their visit. This has saved myself and my small team of volunteers and veterans weeks and weeks worth of  hard work and obviously many monies for the charity we wish you all the best in future operations”

Please check out the slideshow of  what they got up to!

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Our fantastic new shed, which was kindly donated by Tom and Gail McCrorie, has been rebuilt with much appreciated help from Pamela, Jamie and some visiting veterans from Auchincruive, many thanks guys and the greenhouse should be finished this week. The grass has also been sown which will hopefully be a lush green lawn come summer, that will defiantly be one for the gardening books ‘how to garden on tarmac’. Nearly all the raised beds have been planted, crikey! There is never enough space to grow everything you would like, but, I think this is an endemic difficulty all gardeners have. The enthusiasm of the attending veterans has been tremendous and some great teambuilding has been achieved, and a good laugh too. The new rockery has been started, so keep tweeting for updates.

Have a look at woodlandtrust.org.uk to see how spring is progressing throughout the country, and see what you can lookout for in your area, we’ve got suspicions our swallows have returned to nest in the mud built nest in the eaves, keep you posted.

Thank you to all the volunteers who attended training at the beginning of the month, even though health and safety was on the agenda, the scones and sandwiches courtesy of erskine.org.uk which were excellent, many thanks

Our best wishes go to Lil Brooks, we’ll miss you’re support so much, and wish you every success as you move on to a new project,

Brenda

For more photos see gallery for Erskine

Its business as usual however despite the April showers, and the team have been kept busy keeping down the weeds and continuing to get the garden looking fabulous for the summer.  This month has since more planting and one new planting bed created from our railway sleepers for an abundant supply of tomato seedlings. Thank you once again to ISS for the railway sleepers. issworld.com

So the colourful blooms from our tulips and daffodils have faded but that means it’s time for our vegetables to steal the show. We have troughs of cabbages, beetroot, lettuce, curly kale and mixed salad all flourishing on the ladder allotments ladderallotments.com in the rainy weather, and our radishes are literally bursting out of the ground! (Good job they taste delicious, as there are plenty to eat!). Our garlic and onions are coming along beautifully, growing every week, along with the broad beans that have a mass of flowers. We have been busy sowing beans and peas, all to provide a delicious edible cover for the fence around the neighbouring tennis courts, and the next job will be to build frames for them to climb..

The fruit trees and edible hedging are really coming along in leaps and bounds and there are flowers everywhere you look! We are really looking forward to a huge harvest of blueberries, red and black currants, black berries and gooseberries as well as an apricot or apple. Thank you once again to Sue Snell who will be delighted to see the apricot tree has persevered through the snow and the frost and after a very good soaking is now thriving. kenmuir.co.uk

Thank you to Tim Harrington from the Royal Hospital staff this week for taking our first harvest of kale and radishes for the Margaret Thatcher Infirmary In -Patients. We are eagerly awaiting their feedback, and for them to collect some more delicious produce! This is a really exciting development for Gardening Leave Chelsea.

We have begun preparing for our wheelbarrow competition happening during May and have some fantastic winning ideas! (Top secret, of course).Our seedlings are ready and waiting and we even have our wheelbarrow at the ready! Thank you to MiracleGro lovethegarden.com/miraclegro for their very kind donation of compost, plant food and bark chippings. It has helped us to keep the garden flourishing and there will be plenty more photos of the bark chip path once it has been completed!

So April and its showers have been and will hopefully make way for a warmer and drier May. With the excitement that the preparations for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show brings to the hospital , there is a real buzz of activity in the air and time to get the garden looking even more presentable for our Chelsea visitors. So it’s all hands on deck this month!

Happy Gardening

Tara

For photos see gallery for Chelsea

There were some interesting wildlife sightings early in the month; a frog (just one…) spent a day spawning in the tin-bath pond and several bee-flies were seen in Bill’s Bit.  These are furry hover-flies that are parasitic on solitary bees and are not often seen in this area.

The grafted apple trees have taken!  Mark and Paul’s grafts must have been very professionally done as they have leafed out and are looking very healthy.  This is another long-term project but it means that these heritage varieties (Belle de Pontoise, a dessert apple, and Castle Major, a rare cooking apple) will be preserved and perpetuated in a perfect environment.  We hope they will fruit within a couple of years.

The big news, of course, is our opening party, which happened on Wednesday the 25^th April, the Official Opening of Gardening at Rosendael.  The weather was predicted to be awful and the forecasters were not wrong.  The rain did hold off for long enough that guests could have a good look around the garden and see the progress for themselves.  The Rosendael staff deserves a big thank you for hosting the party and everyone enjoyed themselves meeting old friends and making new ones. Jim McColl formally opened the project and spent a lot of time chatting with the veterans; they hugely appreciated his friendly banter and interest in their projects.

So we are officially up and running and we have had a surge in interest from Rosendael’s resident veterans, with several new referrals this month.  Numbers are up and the whole garden is poised to take off when spring happens properly at last and that final frost is past.

Kate and Wilma @ Rosendael

For more photos see gallery for Rosendael

Up in the terrace hardening off continues, and as usual, we are running out of space for the plants.  We have planted out new potatoes ’swift’, some into the ground and others into bags using the multipurpose compost we received from Scott’s Miracle Grow scotts.com.  Leeks and onions have also been transplanted into the vegetable beds, and our over wintered broad beans are in flower.  The poppy collection is thriving and there are several buds on the plants.

The weather was on our side for the birthday party (16^th), and it was well attended.  We would like to say a big thank you to John Johnstone on the bagpipes that kicked off the afternoon.  Lord Lieutenant John Duncan opened the event and thanked people for all their hard work and donations that help to make Gardening Leave what it is.  A special mention to Joe and Willie Balfour for all their dedication and hard work on the stove house and we have named a section after them … Balfour Brothers’ Section.  Lynn Harris who is a garden designer for the Beechgrove Garden was our judge for the designs for this year’s Ayr Flower Show.  We would like to say congratulations to the winner who is Ray Howie who also designed last year’s entry that won us a gold medal.

We held our second HT conference in the stove house the day after the birthday party.  The day went well, and it not only allowed us to discuss best practise in Horticultural Therapy, but also how to tailor our service for the veterans. I would like to say thank you to Brenda (Erskine) for the lovely houseplants she brought down for us and to Kate (Rosendael) for the vine she provided all which look lovely to the stove house.

Towards the end of the month, we took a trip up to GL Erskine (Staff, volunteer and veterans).  The aim of the day was to erect a nearly new shed, which had been kindly donated.  Mission accomplished with much laughter throughout the day, and our veterans and volunteer really appreciated the opportunity to see another garden.  Their garden was looking great and we came away with some ideas for GL Auchincruive!

I would also like to say well done to Kate and Wilma on their official opening at Rosendael.  The afternoon was a success and already there has been a lot of hard work accomplished…  so keep up the good work!

There has been a lot of hard work carried out by veterans, volunteers, and SAC staff at Auchincruive this month and I would like to say a big thanks to you all.

Pamela.

For more photos see gallery for Auchincruive

The garden is located in the grounds of the Scottish Veterans Residences’ (SVR) accommodation in Broughty Ferry. It is Gardening Leave’s fourth site in the UK and marks a major step for the charity as it will now be able to benefit the many veterans who live on Scotland’s East Coast. Gardening Leave has two sites on the West Coast of Scotland, near Ayr and Erskine, and a third at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London.

Gardening Leave aims to improve the mental and physical wellbeing of ex-Service personnel by offering Horticultural Therapy (HT), in walled gardens. It provides peaceful, unpressurised environments where veterans can participate as much or as little as they choose in the life cycle of the garden.

Many of those who attend Gardening Leave’s sites have had difficulties making the transition from military to civilian life and also suffer from combat stress reactions stemming from their military experience. Gardening Leave offers them structure, routine and exercise. Put simply, attendees enjoy being with like-minded people, being outside, and having something constructive to do. They also like the interaction with green, living things; often establishing profound relationships with the plants they grow from seed and nurture to maturity.

Open Monday to Friday, Gardening Leave Rosendael is run by Horticultural Therapist Kate Treharne and Assistant Horticultural Therapist Wilma Landgraf. Around 15 veterans are already attending the project.

The site already boasts a heated greenhouse, polytunnel, ornamental and kitchen gardens, plus some new raised beds donated and built by ISS Facility Services Landscaping. Attending veterans will be helping to grow vegetables for the neighbouring Rosendael kitchen.

Veterans or serving personnel wishing to be referred to the site should, in the first instance, contact Evelyn McGill at Gardening Leave’s head office on 01292 521 444 or on admin@gardeningleave.org.

The new garden was officially opened by Beechgrove Garden presenter Jim McColl and Gardening Leave’s founder Anna Baker Cresswell.

Anna said: “I’m very grateful to Ian Ballantyne from the Scottish Veterans Residences for approaching us. He’d heard about Gardening Leave’s work and thought the garden at Rosendael would be ideal for one of our projects.

“Now Gardening Leave Rosendael is up and running we’re looking forward to working with other Service charities, Community Mental Health Teams and the local Armed Forces community. We’re so grateful to our many supporters and funders who have made this possible.”

Ian Ballantyne, Chief Executive of the Scottish Veterans’ Residences, said: “We firmly believe that Ex-Service charities need to work together to provide the best possible services for our veterans.  Gardening Leave does excellent work and we are delighted that the extensive gardens at Rosendael are being used to help veterans in the area as well as our own residents.”

The Scottish Veteran’s Residences’ accommodation at Rosendael provides high quality, supported accommodation for 45 ex-service men and women of all ages or their spouses.  The rooms are fully furnished with en suite facilities and the service provided includes all meals and laundry, as well as the support of fully trained staff and wardens who are on call 24 hours a day.

SVR was founded in Edinburgh in 1910 and is Scotland’s oldest ex-service charity. Since 1910 SVR has helped 60,000 ex-service men and women or their spouses and last year helped over 300 who would otherwise have been homeless, isolated or living on the streets.

Gardening Leave was started by Anna Baker Cresswell in 2007 and aims to expand Gardening Leave to other walled garden sites in the UK, so that more ex-Service personnel can benefit.

ENDS

For further information please contact Anna Baker Cresswell on 07951 495 272 or Emma Mason, PR for Gardening Leave, on 07762 117433 or by emailing at emma@emmamasonpr.co.uk.

Veteran Andy Harrold from Aberdeen who served 10 years in the RAF was introduced to Gardening Leave through Combat Stress at Hollybush House and has been coming to the gardens for the past 2 years. A keen gardener himself, whenever Andy visits us here he always likes to get stuck into the garden doing whatever jobs are available and has recently constructed a large raised bed which is now being be used by veterans with physical disabilities.

As Andy is from Aberdeen he can’t come to Auchincruive quite as often as he would like. Gardening Leave has recently opened at Broughty Ferry, Dundee within the grounds of the Scottish Veterans Residences. Andy is very happy about this and said “thankfully one slightly closer has opened in Broughty Ferry and I’ve now been there a few times too, all though a Gardening Leave in Aberdeen would be fantastic. Gardening and planning projects for the garden takes my mind off other things and I’m able to focus and complete my tasks, so much so that I’m currently in the process of starting up gardening on my own as a full time business.

Our Founder Anna Baker Cresswell has said ” It makes me so proud that our Andy has taken it upon himself to organise an event such as this the donation was truly amazing, well done Andy”

Big thank you again to Andy and to everyone who contributed to this fantastic event.

As our guests arrived they were greeted by Veteran John Johnstone on the bagpipes and this really started the celebrations off and added to the atmosphere of the day. After our guests were given time to settle in, it was then time for the formalities.

As the guests gathered in front of the Stovehouse, Lord Lieutenant John Duncan opened the proceedings and gave a speech which summed up what Gardening Leave is all about.   Then Chairman Alistair Macmillan then explained how Gardening Leave has evolved over the years and how it will continued to do so, and mostly importantly, thanked everyone in attendance for their continued support. Alistair was then presented with a cheque from South Ayrshire Council Provost Winifred Sloan and also PGM Archie Chalmers of The Freemasons of Ayrshire which he accepted on behalf of Gardening Leave.

Three sections of the Stovehouse have now been completed and are operational. Gardening Leave felt it was appropriate to acknowledge the tremendous amount of work done in the Stovehouse by two of our volunteers Joe and Willie Balfour. A plaque engraved ‘Balfour Brothers’ Section’ has now pride of place on the door leading into section one.  Stevie McAulay, Gardening Leave Stovehouse Supervisor said “Without Joe and Willie’s hard work we would not have managed to completed this work in time for the Birthday Party. It has been and will continue to be a pleasure working along side them”.

A Gardening Leave Birthday Party Tradition is to name the winner of the Ayr Flower Show garden design. It was a very difficult decsion but the winner chosen by Garden Designer Lynn Harris from the Beechgrove Garden was Veteran Ray Howie who also designed last year’s Show Garden built by our veterans which received a Gold Medal. Preparations have now begun for the big weekend in August!

After the birthday cake was cut by Mrs Duncan, everyone enjoyed sandwiches and cake and had an opportunity to chat whilst admiring the newly repaired Ornamental Pond which was generously funded by Poppyscotland.

Gardening Leave wishes to thank veteran John Johnson for playing the bagpipes and everyone who attended the event.  Here’s to the next 5 years of Gardening Leave.