Choosing a site and things to consider

Deciding where to have your own STH Garden is a huge first step. It may be that its location is dictated by its principal purpose, for example, being next to a GP Practice or a particular medical facility. However, you may be able to choose a site where you can make a more deliberate series of choices about how effective it will be to garden that piece of land. The driving factor is likely to be availability of a site and then cost- how much will it cost to rent or buy the land for use as a STH garden?

A suitable site will be different for different organisations. Each organisation will have different answers to the questions:

• Why are you creating the garden?
• Who is the garden for?
• What resources are available to help make it happen?

The Why? may be answered by a careful consideration of who you want your users to be. Is it a garden primarily for rehabilitation, physical or mental recovery or wellbeing?

The Who? is a crucial question and requires careful analysis of a number of parties needs. Who are the target users and what needs do they have? What outcomes do you want to achieve? How many people can you manage? Who will the therapists be and what are their needs? How can volunteers be cared for and nurtured?

The resources available include not only the finances but also people to help with maintenance, who may be volunteers.

Some of the questions to consider at an early stage of planning are:

• Will it be used all year?
• Do you need a lockable, safe storage area for sharp and valuable tools?
• How will you provide dry areas to work and store personal items on wet days?
• How will you provide loos and hand washing facilities?
• How will you provide access for as many physical abilities as is feasible?
• Are there specific facilities that you want, such as a composting area, pond or polytunnel?
• Will lighting be required and permitted?
• Do you want to encourage wildlife?
• What do you want to grow? Vegetables, fruit, wildflowers, trees?
• Does the garden form potential users (or others) view?
• Do you need to control access to the garden whilst STH sessions are running? This may be applicable if you plan to host children or vulnerable adults.
• How will users and volunteers travel to the garden? Does it need to be close to public transport links and is there a need for parking?

How big?

When we ran our single allotment as a therapeutic space we fairly rapidly ran out of gardening tasks and the land started to feel ‘over gardened’.

There is a relationship between on one hand the amount of ground needed and the type of growing planned and on the other the number of users expected per week and their level of physical ability. Sufficient  meaningful gardening (key to the therapeutic impact) needs to be available for every session, potentially all year round.   It is very easy to underestimate the amount of work that can be achieved each week and simply run out of things for the users to do.  For example, 6 x half-day sessions each week with 8 gardeners in each session is the equivalent of 3 full time people working in the garden.   This requires a large space and careful planning and is one of the reasons why growing annual vegetables and flowers is so common in STH gardens.

Communal or Individual?

One decision to be made is whether  garden space and any produce is communal or individual.

There are two main approaches:

1. Attendees have a small plot allocated to them to garden with any necessary support and, within limits, they decide what to grow and look after “their” plot on each visit.  
2. All space is gardened by whoever attends the project when work is needed, suggestions on what to grow are solicited from garden users (curated by an organiser to ensure practicality) and any produce is communal.  

These 2 approaches can be combined if space permits and may be influenced by how long individuals attend the project.  The most important thing is to manage expectations when people first arrive.

Another point to consider is what will happen to any produce from the garden.  If users are able to take some home then some process of recording is needed to ensure ‘fairness’ where the gardening is communal.  Some projects are able to prepare meals onsite as part of the social and therapeutic activity.  Others donate produce to a local food larder or cooking project.

To rent or buy…

Gardening4Health started by providing STH gardening services in an allotment. There are many advantages to this route, and some downsides. It has been extremely cost effective as rental per annum is well under £100. There are already paths and sheds and water available and a ready-made community of interested and helpful gardeners. However, there are rules, and many allotments only allow recreational and personal use, not STH, however they may be open to discussion.

It may prove difficult to get Public Liability insurance on an allotment too.

There may also be restrictions on tool storage. The allotment is not a private space and may not be suitable for all potential users, particularly those with social anxiety or other mental health conditions.

Leasing a parcel of land specifically to develop a STH garden may prove cost effective but thought needs to be given to the length of the lease to ensure the significant capital investment in providing hard landscaping, welfare facilities and the plants is viable.

A private parcel of land brings many benefits, whether bought or leased, in terms of a more tailored provision to the beneficiaries.