A beautiful collaboration between St Barnabas and Boston-based nursery owners and horticulturists, the St Barnabas Garden offered a moment of peace that touched visitors during the Lincolnshire Show.
Founded in London in 2009, John and Hugh moved their business, John Cullen Gardens, to Lincolnshire in 2015, having located the ideal place in the county for their ever-expanding collection of plants.
John says: “We donated some plants to St Barnabas last year, and from that, we started a conversation with the team.
“My mum recently passed away from dementia and Alzheimer’s, and we had struggled with mum over the Covid-19 period. We didn’t realise there were any of these facilities available.
“We wanted to create a display for St Barnabas as a conversation piece. We just thought it would be a good place to make people aware of the care and support that St Barnabas offers.
“I know that, for us as a family, had we had access to that sort of care and support, it would have helped us. And I might have kept mum at home a little bit longer. So, we’re quite passionate about the messaging behind the garden.”
Hugh adds: “Gardening is also a great process to support with mental health problems or bereavement. When we were made redundant, we turned ourselves to the garden and worked on this business. To us, it’s more like a therapy than a job.”
The St Barnabas Garden featured a variety of multifunctional plants and herbs, with an olive tree representing the tree of life, adorned with messages about the hospice.
John explains: “At the front, you can see lavender and thyme – both really important herbs. They go way back and were classified as strewing herbs. People would cut them and throw them on the floor to walk across, because they’ve got antibacterial qualities in them.
“The other flowers have some edible qualities but also look pretty in your garden. So, flowers like dahlias, cornflowers, and yarrow. We also included a Japanese Cedar because we wanted to show people that you can have something in your garden that looks like a box ball, but it won’t get affected by the box blight that’s spreading through Lincolnshire.”
Fiona, Community Fundraiser at St Barnabas, says: “It’s been brilliant working with John and Hugh, and I can’t thank them enough for their vision, creativity, and support of the hospice. I’m so proud to say that the fantastic show garden was awarded Gold!
“We’ve had lots of wonderful conversations with visitors throughout the Lincolnshire Show, who have engaged with the garden and supported us through donating or purchasing some of our merchandise.”
John and Hugh had to create a variety of different garden designs after encountering several challenges along the way.
John says: “Doing a display is always quite stressful, because you’re working with different elements. So, every year is different. This year the wind has been an issue. We’ve had really warm days, but a really cold easterly wind. The problem is that when you get those high temperatures of 25, 26 degrees, and then have an icy wind going through, it’s like getting frostbite for the plants.
“A lot of plants then get this black circle in the middle of their leaves and that’s windburn. We’ve had it across 38 to 40% of the nursery. So, a lot of the things we were going to use for the display, we couldn’t.
“Also, because it was really warm in April and May, a lot of plants we would normally use at this time of year had already gone.”
John continues: “The garden has been well received; I think people like that it’s working in conjunction with St Barnabas. For a lot of people, they are quite proud of the county, and they like that it’s a partnership between Lincolnshire growers and a Lincolnshire charity. It’s a nice synergy.”