Nelsons Sponsors Charity Horatio's Garden

Nelsons, a leading manufacturer of natural healthcare products, is sponsoring Horatio’s Garden stand at the Chelsea Flower Show for the third year running to help raise awareness and funds for their nature-inspired charity work.

Horatio’s Garden is a charity that creates and nurtures beautiful gardens in NHS spinal injury centres for patients and families affected by life-changing injuries. The charity is named after Horatio Chapple - a schoolboy who wanted to be a doctor and volunteered at the spinal centre in Salisbury. It was Horatio’s idea to create a garden and his research has shaped the garden designs and the charity’s aims. Horatio’s life was cut short at 17 when his camp was attacked by a polar bear while on expedition in Svalbard in 2011 but his legacy continues to help patients and their families with the long process of learning to live with a spinal cord injury.

Evidence has shown that gardens can have a positive effect on a person’s physical, mental and emotional well-being and Horatio’s Garden harnesses this to create beautiful therapeutic outdoor spaces at NHS spinal injury centres which help aid patients’ recovery.

Nelsons also firmly believes in the power of nature for good health and emotional well-being as part of an integrated approach to healthcare and therefore, is delighted to provide its ongoing support to the charity. Commenting Robert Wilson, Nelsons, Chairman, said, “The work Horatio’s Garden is doing is truly inspiring. The positive effects that being in gardens and green spaces make on our health and wellbeing has long been acknowledged, therefore, the centres that Horatio’s Garden creates are so crucial in making a difference to patients’ recovery.”

This year the charity’s national profile has grown extensively. The fourth Horatio’s Garden at the Midland Centre for Spinal Injuries in Oswestry is due to open later this year, and the capital appeal for Horatio’s Garden in the London Spinal Injuries Centre at Stanmore is progressing with great momentum.

The charity also makes an effort to work with the very best garden designers, many of whom have been present at the Chelsea Flower Show in the past. This includes RHS gold medal winners Joe Swift, who created the charity’s garden at Stoke Mandeville, and Tom Stuart-Smith, who has designed Horatio’s Garden London.

Tom has said of Horatio’s Garden, “We all know that gardening has this enormous impact on the quality of people’s lives. Here is something that offers hope, change, and growth.”