The Secret Garden Gardening Volunteers are raising funds for the Secret Garden at Glenfield Hospital. As a group of volunteers, we have seen how this garden, especially recently, has benefitted staff, patients and their families in so many ways.

The Secret Garden is an acre of Victorian walled garden where physical and mental health, environment, gardening, and our rich heritage all come together. A place where, when you leave, you feel so much better.

In July 2007 the garden closed and was left to its own devices. Then in 2016, it was ‘discovered’ and a project team was given the go ahead to begin the task of reclaiming this fabulous garden and its buildings for the benefit of patients and their families, staff and visitors of Leicester’s Hospitals and also for the benefit of the whole community of Leicestershire and Rutland and beyond our county borders.

This green space in the grounds of a very busy hospital embodies much of the significance and demonstrates several of the values for which the NHS has been inscribed as providing. It is believed that the concept of the gardens design and ongoing re introduction into use by the hospital must afford a greater significance than just a derelict garden.

Since 2016 the Secret Garden project team, together with the gardening volunteers who care for the Secret Garden throughout the seasons, have created and maintained four garden rooms, a garden of reflection, a 'Spring' garden, a wild flower corner, a community lawn, restored an old greenhouse and have prepared the ground and grown a variety of fruit and vegetables.

The kindness of those who have donated, and the support of corporate goodwill, has helped us get this far and for that we are extremely grateful, but there is so much more to do. With your support we can move forwards with our plans to further enrich the experience of all who visit the Secret Garden in the coming months and years ahead.