A garden worth growing at Annear Place

Impact for Good Award, East Midlands

Winner: Annear Place, Nottinghamshire supported living

What was once a fairly uninviting outdoor space at Annear Place, part of FitzRoy’s Nottinghamshire supported living services, has been transformed into a space where people can grow vegetables, enjoy the outdoors and spend time together.

The team at Annear Place won the Impact for Good Award at our East Midlands Roadshow for transforming their garden and encouraging people across FitzRoy to get growing.

Nic and the team have worked with people living at Annear Place to make much more of the space. Together, they’ve planted carrots, onions, tomatoes and salad leaves, with everyone getting involved in watering the plants and watching things grow.

Getting the garden ready took some work. Nic and her colleagues approached local businesses and the council, raised funds and secured donations of benches, gardening equipment, a lawnmower and a small greenhouse.

The garden has become somewhere people enjoy spending time, whether that’s looking after the vegetables, sitting outside together or enjoying what they’ve grown.

Vicky, who lives at Annear Place, recently told a colleague how happy she was and how well things were going for her.

Nic’s enthusiasm for gardening hasn’t stopped at Annear Place either.

As part of FitzRoy in Bloom, she organised a sunflower growing competition, encouraging people supported across the organisation to join in.

Teams from different regions started sharing photographs of their sunflowers and updates on how they were getting on. Nic kept the competition going, checking in with everyone and encouraging people to give it a try.

Before long, people were growing more than sunflowers, sharing photographs of vegetables and other plants they’d added to their gardens.

What started with making better use of the garden at Annear Place has encouraged people across FitzRoy to get their hands in the soil.