15 Jun 2023 Community

A blooming good day for The Kirkwood Gardens

The Kirkwood’s first independent Open Gardens event proves to be a roaring success. 

Earlier this month, we opened our gardens to the public. A tranquil place loved by patients and their families and along with our teams, supporters, and volunteers, we showcased our best blooms of the season, with the addition of live musical performances from the highly talented Beaumont Musical Academy and Hanson Community Arts, held in The Kirkwood's maze paving, offering visitors the opportunity to take time to reflect and lose themselves in the moment, taking in the surroundings to the harmonies of the musical performances.  

  

 

We welcomed visitors into our hive of activity in the lower car park area of our site in Dalton. Greeted by friendly faces of The Kirkwood volunteering community and tempted by the smells of our BBQ, with the faint hammering sound of our Craft Club taking place on the upper terrace of the Support and Therapy rooms, where Senior Occupational Therapist, Elspeth and the team were hosting a Plant Hammering Workshop as part the Woven Festival, Kirklees, in conjunction with the day's event, creating beautifully intricate designs using natures natural dyes from the plants and flowers grown in the gardens.  

Senior Occupational Therapist, Elspeth comments: 
“On the day of the Open Garden event, 22 budding artists joined us to try their hand at the beautiful technique of plant hammering. The workshop was run as part of the WOVEN in Kirklees festival, which this year celebrates the natural colours and pigments found in plants, and The Kirkwood Gardens provided the perfect setting. The many beautiful plants and flowers available as inspiration, along with some creativity and lots of enthusiasm resulting in some amazing fabrics!" 

 

 

Inside the Support and Therapy Lounge, visitors were spoilt for choice with an overwhelming variety of cakes and sweet treats available and for a small donation, they could grab a drink and a bite to eat to take with them down to the lawn to enjoy the day's musical offerings.  

  

 

The event was well attended and included some visitors from our local constituents, such as Mark Eastwood, Tim Bamforth, Susan Lee-Richards. Bernard McGuin, Tyler Hawkins, Naheed Mather, and Beverley Addy.

 

  

 

 

Fundraisers Julia and Judith comment:  
“We were delighted to see so many of our supporters, new and old enjoying our beautiful gardens in the glorious sunshine. We’d like to give special thanks to the children from Beaumont Musical Academy and Hanson Community Arts, for their amazing performances. On the day our volunteers did an amazing job, from serving refreshments, helping on stalls and signposting our guests around the gardens. Thank you to everyone who came to visit and to our wonderful volunteers, without whom the event would not have been possible".

 

 

Our volunteer gardening team pulled out all the stops this year to ensure the gardens were in tip-top shape for the event, and their effort shone through on the day, with the sun also making an appearance, its rays gently highlighting the lilacs, purples and blue hues of the Lavender and Salvia bordering the In-Patient Terrace. Visitors could be seen enjoying the quiet waters rippling through the lilies of the pond, eager for a rare sighting of Jemima Puddle Duck, normally in residence in our newly installed duck house. Along the path, past the wildflower section, brimming with Butterflies and Bees, finishing the loop back to our light up a life tree, centre stage, standing tall in full bloom, opposite the musical performance, offering spectators a little shade from a welcome, but non the less, relentless sunshine.  

 

 

Financial Director and visitor on the day, Penny Wade, comments:  
“Our garden plays an important part in the holistic care we give to patients and families. Events like ‘Open Gardens’ are only made possible by the hard work and dedication of our employees and volunteers. It was wonderful to see so many people enjoying the beauty of the early summer blooms”.  

 

 

The Kirkwood would like to thank and congratulate the gardening team for their efforts and for making this year's event so wonderful. Their love of gardening combined with their vast knowledge of plants and steadfast dedication is astounding, and we are so grateful. Thanks to our team, patients and their families will be able to come onto the terrace or down the ramp into the gardens and enjoy all the sweet smells of the beautiful flora and the buzzing sounds of the bees and be amongst the life of the garden, peaceful, and calm, able to be in the moment and that something truly special, and we can’t thank the gardening volunteers enough for making that a reality for our families.