Hospice gardens to feature in RHS Flower Show Tatton Park 2023

Wigan & Leigh Hospice feature in BBC North West Tonight’s Northern Star Garden ahead of RHS Flower Show Tatton Park

We are proud to announce that Wigan & Leigh Hospice is one of the five community groups who will be taking part in BBC North West Tonight’s Northern Star Garden, ahead of the RHS Flower Show Tatton Park on Wednesday 19th to Sunday 23rd July.

This year, the RHS and North West Tonight have come together to design and produce a horticultural community hub, with each community working to build their own uniquely designed garden. Within the design, each garden will convey their own district message representative of that community.

The community gardens will include blue-themed sculptures and a custom hand-built blue chevron bench at the center, to help represent the North Western coast and skies. The aim of the finished products is to show how horticulture can empower local communities and bring people together.

Our gardener, Jim, recently visited RHS Bridgewater Garden with a some volunteers, to take part in the North West Community Garden Mentoring Day. Here, all five communities involved came together to receive guidance from the gardens designer, Lee Burkhill.

Jim Nicholson, Gardener at Wigan & Leigh Hospice said;

“My volunteers and I are really excited about being involved in the Northern Star garden at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show. We love working in the gardens here at the hospice, making them a place where patients and their friends and relatives can find some peace and quiet, at a time which can be very stressful. It is a privilege to be able to create that space.”

“Whilst at a training day at RHS Bridgewater, we were shown the plans for the garden and met the other community groups involved. Lee Burkhill, aka The Ninja Gardener, has done a wonderful job at creating a show garden that reflects the ethos of each of the groups. The Hospice’s garden will be one of peace and tranquillity and will be full of colour. We are very excited about planting it up and then showing it to the public.”

We are very proud of our gardens as they bring joy to the patients, their families and the staff. We have a dedicated team of volunteers who maintain and grow the gardens, keeping them flourishing all year round.

Find out more about the Northern Star garden here.