2021 IN REVIEW

Gardening for health

In a time that brought relentless challenge to so many, the capacity of gardens and gardening to improve health and wellbeing came to the fore. In balconies, parks and private gardens, green spaces have seldom been more appreciated.

In GP surgeries, communal gardens offered staff relief from heavy patient loads. At the Chelsea and Westminster hospital in London, Jinny Blom, a former psychologist and psychotherapist, designed the Sky Garden, attached to a new ICU there. And at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, designer Robert Myers presented the Florence Nightingale Garden. Originally planned for 2020, the design took on particular relevance in 2021 and will find a permanent home at London’s St Thomas’ hospital in 2022.

Also at the show, Arit Anderson designed the BBC One Show and RHS Garden of Hope. It is destined for the Rosewood Mother and Baby Unit, in Kent. The show also launched a new Sanctuary Gardens category, for which Naomi Ferrett-Cohen designed Finding Our Way: An