Our Next Project With Horatio’s Garden Is Working On The Belfast Garden, Designed By Andy Sturgeon

We’re delighted to once again be supporting our friends at Horatio’s Garden with a glasshouse that will make its home in their seventh garden in Belfast. The grand opening will be later this year, and we can’t wait to show you more.

Horatio’s Garden Northern Ireland is set to make its grand opening within the next few months in early 2024, in the heart of the Spinal Cord Injuries Unit (SCIU) at Musgrave Park Hospital.

First announced in 2021, Horatio’s Garden Belfast is the fourth garden, in a whole series of gardens that we’ve worked on with this amazing charity. Working with a host of partners and community groups, including Belfast Health & Social Care Trust, the aim of this wonderful new garden is to support spinal injury patients from across Northern Ireland, as well as people staying in the Amputee Rehabilitation Unit, providing a peaceful sanctuary and respite for both patients and NHS staff at the hospital – which is Northern Ireland’s only specialist spinal centre.

Leading the design of this new garden is highly decorated garden designer Andy Sturgeon, who has won an incredibly impressive total of nine RHS Gold medals at RHS Chelsea. The design has been developed in collaboration with patients, their families and friends, and NHS staff as well to ensure that the garden suits the needs of its service users and is functional as well as fabulous.

Horatio’s Belfast will incorporate several key design features to do just that. It’ll be the first Horatio’s Garden to feature a dedicated boccia court in a social area with parasols and sensory planting, with planting to distract from the surrounding buildings and soften the angular geometry of the space, and a beautiful tranquil water feature. The warm garden room will offer shelter, privacy and a place to socialise, with a large greenhouse for garden therapy sessions.

The fully accessible garden will feature many star plants to really make the space a unique full sensory experience, including the tactile paperbark maple and Seven-sons trees, Daphne, box leaf Azara and Japanese quince for fragrant planting, exotic toad lily and majestic Chinese silver grass.

 We’re honoured to be supplying a bespoke, wheelchair-accessible three-quarter span design glasshouse with a porch entrance and double doors to provide a therapeutic space. Once open, the garden will also be home to a full therapeutic gardening programme and arts activities to help aid patients in their recovery while they adjust to living with life-changing injuries.

The hospital recently welcomed players Robert Baloucoune, Matty Rea and Sean Reffell from fundraising supporter Ulster Rugby to celebrate the start of the new project. The community fundraising appeal is currently around £7,650 towards its £50,000 goal, with an incredibly generous anonymous donor pledging to match each donation to make everyone’s money go even further.

 Find out more and please consider donating here to help change the lives of people affected by spinal injury across Northern Ireland.

 If you would like to talk to us about this news piece, or you are thinking of commissioning a structure for your garden, then please get in touch with us on +44 (0) 1962 772512 or sales@griffinglasshouses.com.