This year the Stroke Association makes its debut appearance at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show with the restorative Garden for Recovery
For over 100 years the RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been a mecca for horticulture lovers. The 2024 event promises to be equally magnificent with show-stopping designs and floral displays. Attractions include displays by both renowned Chelsea veterans and exciting newcomers, as well as floristry and floral displays and gardens supported by Project Giving Back.
Launched in 2021, Project Giving Back funds gardens by charitable organisations to secure a place at the Chelsea Flower Show. This year the show will feature 15 supported gardens including the Stroke Association’s first appearance with its Garden for Recovery.
The garden is the work of acclaimed landscape designer, writer and stroke survivor Miria Harris. The designer used her own story and the experiences of other stroke survivors as the foundation for creative inspiration.
“I survived a stroke at the beginning of 2019,” says Miria. “It left me with aphasia, the inability to speak and form words properly. I didn’t know what was happening and I thought I was losing my mind.”
The emotional trauma and her experience of recovery informs the concept, design and planting choices within the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery. Let’s explore the garden to discover more…
Sending a message
“A stroke doesn’t discriminate, it can strike anyone, young or old, at any time and it affects people in a multitude of different ways,” says Miria. “The only communal experience is the trauma… all survivors of stroke will need time and space to recover, to process the trauma and reconnect with family and loved ones.” Taking the effects of trauma as a guiding theme, the garden has been designed as a peaceful, sensory space that aims to provide respite for survivors, while acknowledging the distress of the experience.
“The main focus for the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery was to create a calm, sensory space where visitors will be able to take a breath, rest and be transported away from the built environment of hospitals into an immersive natural space,” says Miria.
The circuitous nature of recovery for stroke sur
