Brackley Care Home is first winner of Kingsley Green Garden Competition

Brackley Care Home has won the inaugural Kingsley Healthcare Green Garden Competition with an impressive range of projects involving residents, staff and the wider community.

Kingsley, a UK top 20 ranked large care home group (carehome.co.uk), challenged staff at its homes around the country to show their green credentials by devising schemes to improve the environment.

Projects included sensory gardens to enhance resident wellbeing, vegetable and herb gardens to supply the kitchen and a variety of schemes to attract wildlife – even one including a creative squirrel obstacle course at Gower Gardens, in the West Midlands!

Kingsley co-founder Sumi Thayan, one of the judges from the company’s operations team, said: “We had a fantastic response.  Enhancing the beautiful gardens of our care homes is the perfect way to demonstrate our commitment to green values as well as improving amenities for our residents.”

What impressed judges so much about Brackley Care Home was the way the whole community had become involved in transforming the garden into a green oasis since its opening in Wellington Road, Brackley, Northamptonshire, at the end of 2020.

The home’s Customer Relations Manager, Julie Wilson, said: “Starting from scratch, we are delighted with what we have achieved. So many people have played their part, including the children from local schools who entered our competition to design an area of the garden for visiting families.”

Raised beds were an impressive feature of the garden, allowing residents and staff to grow vegetables, herbs and fruit for use in the kitchen.

Activities lead Barbara Foley said the absolute foundation of a successful garden was really good soil which resulted from really good compost.

“We have a double compost heap which we started about 18 months ago and our wonderful kitchen staff place all vegetable peelings there, which we then turn into compost,” she said.

The Brackley team has also focused on encouraging local wildlife, including birds, bees, hedgehogs, foxes, and on one occasion a weasel.

Mrs Foley said: “We have linked up with Brackley Hogwatch which is an amazing charity that monitors, protects and rehabilitates hedgehogs. We were lucky enough to have a hedgehog house donated to us and we have placed that in a quiet sheltered spot in our garden.”

Over the past couple of years, they had been encouraging birds to visit the garden and take up residence in nesting boxes which were decorated by residents and placed in sheltered places.

“Our residents also decorated bug boxes which have been placed along our fence and these will encourage ladybirds, solitary bees, solitary wasps, spiders and wood lice which perform the necessary task of breaking down leaf matter,” she said. 

The two runners up in the competition were Branksome Heights care home, in Bournemouth, Dorset and Allonsfield House care home, in Campsea Ashe, Suffolk.

Branksome Heights manager Rebecca Hebditch said: “At Branksome Heights we wanted to bring our residents closer to nature both physically and through all of their senses, sound, touch and even taste!”

In March Branksome Heights took delivery of two bee hives, which are maintained by members of the Bournemouth Bee Keepers Association. They have proved to be a lovely and lively addition to our garden and they have just produced some beautiful honey for our residents.

“We also have a Bug Hotel, bird feeders, bird boxes and a hedgehog house for any Branksome Heights garden guests that choose to visit us,” said Rebecca.

“Our garden is also home to a herb garden and vegetable patch, planted by some of our residents, which produces fresh home grown ingredients for our kitchen to use; we also produce our own compost with our composter and water the garden using rain caught in our water butt.

“To further contribute to our garden being truly a sensory garden we have a beautiful fountain, a rain drum and multiple windchimes. Our garden not only looks beautiful but smells and sounds beautiful.”

Allonsfield House focused on developing a sensory garden with beautiful pots, hanging baskets and beds which have been filled with wildlife friendly plants and flowers that both the residents and team have planted.

The team has also started growing our fresh herbs such as mint, basil and thyme, vegetables including beetroot and potatoes and edible flowers for the kitchen which were all grown from seed and are used in the residents’ meals. 

CAPTIONS: First photo show Brackley Mayor Elaine Wiltshire inspecting the garden.