Gardens for All is a community based project spanning various different sites across Bury and Prestwich in Manchester which aims to encourage all members of society to become actively involved in gardening, sustainability and grow your own projects.
The project focuses on improving the integration of vulnerable members of society as well as promoting improved health and wellbeing and self confidence through learning new skills and sharing success with other members of the project. Anna from the groups says:
We grew our sunflowers on the John Denmark Unit at Greater Manchester West hospital by the patients. The Unit is a specialist centre for deaf people with mental health issues. Deaf people communicate through a visual language of sign or other visual forms of communication, therefore these striking beautiful sunflowers are particularly appreciated by them.
We started growing them in a heated propagator in the greenhouse in small pots, they all germinated quickly and we potted them on to bigger pots in the greenhouse, eventually once the weather warmed up a bit we put them outside in large pots with lobelia trailing around the bottom.
We had a bit of a disaster when the greenhouse wasn’t watered and lost a few plants so our sunflowers were real survivors. We were really very pleased with our beautiful sunflowers, they caught up well after a cold start to the season and we are all enjoyed their sunny bright faces.
The Big Sunflower Project 