A shared love of flowers and wellbeing brought Leicestershire Flower Farm  and HighGround together this week, as the farm hosted HighGround’s Horticultural Therapy Team for a practical and inspiring visit focused on using cut flowers as a therapeutic activity.

Flower Farm owner and professional florist Charlotte Myddleton led the session, sharing expert advice and techniques on working with cut flowers, making living wreaths and using dried flowers in craft activities. The Horticultural Therapy Team will use the new skills learnt during their visit together with a generous donation from the League of Remembrance to develop therapeutic sessions for patients that support their recovery from physical or psychological illness and injury.

Lead Horticultural Therapist Jane Taylor commented “Our visit to the Leicestershire Flower Farm was so inspiring! Charlotte has generously shared lots of great advice with us and with help from the League of Remembrance we will be able to turn our ideas into new activities for our patients.”

“We are passionate about raising awareness of the positive benefits Horticultural Therapy can bring” explains HighGround’s CEO Jamie Crisp. “What is unique about our service is that it is rooted in clinical care and forms part of each patient’s rehabilitation. Our team are very skilled in identifying what horticultural tasks will best support their patient, and their commitment to finding new creative ways to support these clinical goals is what makes them so special.”

Horticultural Therapy is highly adaptable and can be shaped around each patient’s needs, personality and circumstances, and adjusted to suit how someone is feeling on the day. It can provide invaluable support to people living with a broad range of physical and psychological conditions and activities such as working with cut flowers provide huge benefits for improving hand dexterity and supporting cognitive functions such as attention, planning and decision-making.

This visit marks the beginning of a new and exciting partnership between Leicestershire Flower Farm and HighGround. Building on the ideas and enthusiasm shared during the day, future sessions and pilot activities are being planned that will further develop the use of cut and dried flowers as a therapeutic tool.

A registered charity, HighGround is extremely grateful for the support of the League of Remembrance and the Leicestershire Flower Farm for making this work possible.