We started our Award-Winning Community Garden Project in April 2024 as a way to bring patients together and to make the green space surrounding the Hamworthy surgery more wildlife friendly.
Working in partnership with Dorset Wildlife Trust, our volunteers have made such a difference to our outside space, including:
- Planting shrubs and flowers that have been kindly donated from local garden centres.
- They have tidied up the pathways and trimmed bushes to make the surgery more accessible via the paths.
- Poole Men’s Shed, an organisation dedicated to improving men’s mental health, helped us to build a raised bed in place of some bushes at the edge of the car park, improving the space next to the disabled parking bay and giving patients more space to get in and out of their cars. The raised bed has been planted with sensory plants and herbs to encourage wildlife.
- Dorset Wildlife Trust helped us build bird boxes and these have been put up in the trees.
- Sunflowers have been planted outside the front door and an avenue of lavender and rosemary has been planted alongside the main entrance for pollinators and patients to enjoy.
- We also built a compost bin at the rear of the car park.
We have had lots of positive feedback from both patients and staff. Our clinicians are proud to be able to offer this social group and other similar groups on top of standard GP work.
Our group meet every Thursday morning and want to develop the wilder garden near the compost bin to include a dead wood habitat and also provide space for hedgehogs!
We are hoping to expand this project across our sites, with our Lytchett surgery taking its first steps already.
If you have any questions or enquiries about our garden project, please contact [email protected].
