Our Community Services

 We provide educational gardening programmes to children from 16 local schools with the aim of improving physical and mental health as well as promoting healthy eating, local biodiversity and environmental awareness. 

 Social and therapeutic horticulture is the process of using plants and gardens to improve physical and mental health, as well as communication and thinking skills.

Gardening is a wonderfully flexible medium that can transform lives and Thrive sees first-hand how gardening can help everyone, regardless of age or disability.

Social and therapeutic horticulture uses the garden as a safe and secure place to develop someone's ability to mix socially, make friends and learn practical skills that will help them to be more independent.

Using gardening tasks and the garden itself, Thrive's horticultural therapists build a set of activities for each gardener to improve their particular health needs and to work on certain goals they want to achieve.

The benefits of a sustained and active interest in gardening include:

• Better physical health through exercise and learning how to use or strengthen muscles to improve mobility
• Improved mental health through a sense of purpose and achievement
• The opportunity to connect with others – reducing feelings of isolation or exclusion
• Acquiring new skills to improve the chances of finding employment
• Just feeling better for being outside, in touch with nature and in the 'great outdoors'