NHS Green Space Projects
Our NHS Green Space Projects grow food, build communities and improve health and wellbeing.
We have two beautiful Community Gardens that we run in partnership with NHS Lothian - Royal Edinburgh Community Hospital garden and Midlothian Community Hospital garden. Both gardens are open seven days a week to members of the public, with volunteer and groupwork programmes running throughout the week.
Our community gardens offer people the chance to meet others, learn about the environment, participate in therapeutic activities, work together, grow and eat local food, and most importantly enjoy time in a beautiful green space.
Our teams deliver gardening outreach sessions on hospital wards across Edinburgh and the Lothians. We also provide placement opportunities for students in Allied Health Care settings, Horticulture, Garden Design and Outdoor Education.
At the Community Gardens we focus on welcoming people experiencing mental or physical health problems, disadvantage, isolation or poverty. The gardens offer people fantastic opportunities to grow food, socialise and improve general health and wellbeing.
“As occupational therapists we used to be able to offer patients gardening sessions amongst other activities but changes in the NHS has impacted on services and we no longer have the time to offer these sessions... having Cyrenians come in and run gardening sessions for our patients has made us so happy as our patients are happy!” – NHS occupational therapist
Who are the Community Gardens for?
We welcome enquiries from anyone interested in using the Community Gardens. Everyone is welcome, including:
- Visitors: it’s free to come and look around, you may also like to pick up a plant or two from our cart.
- Inpatients and outpatients: we have a range of therapeutic activities, and run social prescribing programmes
- Volunteers: we have lots of opportunities to get involved at the gardens, green thumbs and beginners are welcome. Find out more about volunteering at our gardens.
- Community groups: we can organise volunteering days for local established groups – simply get in touch using the details below to chat about how we can work together.
- Companies: we run tailored corporate team building days for organisations from all sectors. Visit our Corporate Volunteering page for more information.
If you’d like to find out more, or get in touch with us about working together you can contact us by emailing:
Midlothian community hospital garden MCHGardens@cyrenians.scot
Royal Edinburgh community hospital garden RECG@cyrenians.scot
We also have developed and run a gardening project at The Access Place, which provides integrated services including housing, health and social work to anyone experiencing homelessness who has additional needs. Find out more about the garden at the Access Place in this Groundswell Consortium / 6 SQuID short film including interview with Martin Danziger, Arts and Green Space Coordinator for Cyrenians.
6 SQuID / Groundswell Consortium film about the Access Place