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Garden Scheme Helps British Homeless

11th January, 2009

Homeless people dig deep at Eden for next year’s Chelsea Flower Show

Groups of homeless people from across Britain are putting their heads together and getting their hands dirty to help the Eden Project create a unique show garden for next year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

The Key is the name of the ambitious initiative in which Eden, working with the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG), is uniting some of the least advantaged people in society and, through building and planting, aiming to nurture a sense of growth, hope and change.

Eden is overseeing the sowing of seeds and planting of bulbs in homeless hostels across the UK in preparation for the showpiece garden.

The planting programme has just been launched by a group from the Cornwall-based St Petroc’s Society for single homeless people, who planted of a batch of tulip bulbs during a visit to Eden.

Among them was Luke Farley, from Bodmin, Cornwall, who has been channelling his energies into gardening after a troubled time.

Luke said: “My last four years since I was 16 have not been good. I was in rehab. I have felt better since I have got into gardening. My gran is 90 and has turned blind and I have been helping her in her garden. I find it therapeutic to dig holes and plant, to pour my energy into something positive.

“This has been a really good day out and we’ve enjoyed the planting. It will be great to see what the Chelsea garden turns out like.”

Prisoners with gardening or building skills will also be involved and may even be released on licence so they can work on the plot in time for the show.

Through working with Eden on The Key, the CLG wants the public to understand more about Places of Change – a major capital improvement programme that works with the belief that investing in people offers solutions and should not be viewed as a cost.

Eden is best known as an environmental visitor destination, attracting more than 10 million people since it opened in a disused china clay quarry near St Austell, Cornwall, in March 2001.

It also has a strong track record working with homeless people, offenders and excluded children. The CLG-funded Great Day Out programme, for example, involves inspirational visits to Eden, providing hope and motivation and helping vulnerable people move on. So far around 500 have taken part in what is seen as a model for others to follow and the St Petroc’s visit was part of that programme.

Outlining The Key, Howard Jones, Eden’s Director of Human Networks, said: “We are involving many people now living in hostels and prisons in providing the plants and the skills to make this unique garden. We will be working with the charity Homeless Link, who will encourage hostels around the country to grow plants to order. We have a very big plot to fill so thousands of plants will be needed.”

He added: “We are calling the project The Key because keys are a symbol of being locked up - whether in prison or just by a lack of opportunity - but they are also a means of opening doors and being released. It is a huge, collaborative effort, bringing together the plants and people to make this project work - and that is starting now with the planting.”

The Key garden is being designed Eden’s Paul Stone, who has a clutch of Chelsea flower show gold medals under his belt. He is working with the design of the garden with the group Architecture sans Frontieres.

Ten thousand plants will make up a garden which will be as far away from the cute and cottagey as you can get.

Paul said: “Many of the people taking part will probably have not grown anything before. Of the 10,000 plants, one-third will be grown from seed and bulbs, some from seedlings and some from plugs. All of them will be nurtured by prisoners and the homeless so the logistical challenge is huge.

“Add to this the fact that our plot, at 220 square metres, is the biggest at the show. It is on the Main Avenue and right in the middle of it. That’s as prominent as it gets at Chelsea and it also means that we will be getting an awful lot of scrutiny.”

He added: “The design of The Key will echo the life journeys that many of the participants in the growing and planting are making.”

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