Registered Office: 01993 899980
Dig ‘n’ Grow
Dig N’Grow is a gardening project to encourage all groups of people to enjoy the experience of working individually or within a group, learning and sharing gardening skills. It offers the opportunity to be outside in the fresh air working alongside professional gardeners, giving a safe and secure environment to explore. Carers/families can be happy knowing that their loved ones are safe and having fun.
Dig ‘n’ Grow would like to say a big THANK YOU to http://www.agrivert.co.uk who have very kindly supplied Guideposts with free compost for the Dig ‘n’ Grow therapeutic gardening scheme in Oxfordshire.
Click here for the latest newsletter and see how our project has grown!
Gardening and working within nature is recognised as a therapeutic activity which can bring a whole range of benefits to people. Access to the outdoor environment can be beneficial to the physical, social, psychological and spiritual health of a person. A therapeutic garden can provide exercise to an individual through activities such as planting, weeding, walking and team-working. Garden related activities are very important because they help a person remain connected to the world around them, and to connect with natural life-cycles. It is important for a person with Alzheimer’s, for example, to be able to continue enjoying outdoor activities they have done throughout their lives and working in the garden or simply enjoying being in our outdoor space enables them to do that.
Gardening can offer development in social and intellectual skills, especially those required for social inclusion or rehabilitation. Gardening involves personal initiative, personal effectiveness, a nurturing responsibility to living things. It can involve team work and encourage dialogue. It reveals our capacity to become involved and offers opportunities to achieve something concrete. It offers a unique opportunity to be as engaged as the individual is comfortable being.
Gardening is a form of self-expression; creativity builds confidence while enabling a healthy outlet for emotions. Gardening can assist with fundamental skills like literacy (labelling a plant, reading seed sowing and watering instructions) and numeracy (measuring planting distances, counting seeds) helping build confidence and self-esteem in a low-pressure environment.
Gardens stimulate, they engage all of our senses not just the sights, sounds and smells around us, but touch too; the textures of soil tell a story, and feeling; the emotional satisfaction of a harvest or a successful cutting as well as the deeper side in a sense of belonging or a realization of a spiritual connection or spiritual/emotional peace.
Benefits
The activities we do are interesting but also offer benefits such as:-
Experiencing the benefits of therapeutic gardening
Meeting new people and gaining new skills
Rediscover your confidence and self esteem
Be more physically active helping movement, sleep and mental health
Learning healthy eating with cookery sessions.
Activities
Organic horticulture
Greenhouse
Raised growing beds for easy access
Allotment
Craft sessions
Cooking session
Social activities and country walks
Dig ‘N’ Grow
Bromag Industrial Estate
Burford Road
Witney
OX29 0SR
01993 709430 or 01993 772886
Email: cjones@guidepoststrust.org.uk
