Horatio's Garden creates and nurtures beautiful gardens in NHS spinal injury centres to support patients, their families, and friends during lengthy admissions.  Leading landscape designers and prominent architects create stunning sanctuaries for use all year round as an integral part of life in the centre; research shows that being in contact with a natural environment contributes to an improved sensory of wellbeing and can have a positive impact on patient rehabilitation.

In each project the charity funds a Head Gardener, leading a team of volunteers caring for the garden and offering creative and therapeutic activities including gardening, art, live music, seasonal events and artists' residencies.

Spinal cord injuries are traumatic, life-changing events which affect not only those injured but a wider circle of their families and loved ones.  Not all spinal injury patients are lucky enough to be admitted to a spinal injury centre but for those who are, it is a life changing but challenging experience.  Patients often have little or no access to the outside world during a prolonged hospital admission but we know from the experiences of our many spinally injured clients and the more direct experience recently of Mark's father-in-law, who spent many months in the spinal unit at Salisbury, that the gardens provide a really important space for patients and their visitors to take time away from the hospital environment and to prepare for discharge.

To date there are five gardens in Salisbury, Glasgow, Stoke Mandeville, Oswestry and London with a new garden currently being built in Cardiff, one under development in Northern Ireland and a plan, in time, to bring a garden to all 11 spinal injury centres in the UK.  Please help us to support this important work.