RHS Gardening Week 1st - 7th May 2023

You probably know by now that both myself and my husband Ady love a bit of gardening. It’s a great form of exercise (that doesn’t feel like you’re actually working out), being out amongst nature is also a brilliant stress reliever and it allows you to get really creative if you put your mind to it!

So you can imagine how excited we are to reveal that we’ll be making an appearance at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival in July this year! We’re aiming to create something really special and we can’t wait! If you can’t make it to the festival, we’ll be sure to take lots of photos so keep an eye out for them.

But before that, it’s National Gardening Week next week and I’m going to do my very best to get you outside and involved! This year’s theme is ‘create your coronation container’ to celebrate His Majesty King Charles III’s upcoming Coronation! Which is quite apt as King Charles loves a spot of gardening himself you know!

So whether you want to create a splendid ‘coronation container’, get rid of those pesky weeds or even simply mow the lawn, get yourself out in the garden next week and reap these benefits…

Healthy Mind, Healthy Body

After a stressful day, I love nothing more than getting out in my garden and either getting my hands dirty or just sitting out there to wind down, with a glass of wine obviously! Even just the peaceful sounds in the garden are enough to calm me down. The chirping birds, the buzzing bees and the peaceful trickle of my water feature all combine to make me feel serene, ahh.

But the act of gardening itself is a fantastic stress reliever and not only that, but it helps to burn those calories too! The best thing about it, is you don’t feel like you’re doing exercise, you just feel like you’re having fun! (at least I do anyway). It certainly beats going to the gym, that’s for sure!

In fact, our new charity collaborators are the perfect example of the healthy benefits gardening can bring. The Sunshine Sunflower Foundation’s horticultural therapy has helped numerous young people to gain transferable skills, learn to work with others and to improve their mental health. It’s an amazing organisation and Ian and Debbie are really lovely people to boot! 

Grow Your Own

Nothing beats a tasty dish made with fresh ingredients and you can’t get much fresher than growing your own in your back garden! We’ve set aside a small patch of land for our very own allotment and we’ve now got fresh fruit and veg on tap! Sweet apples and strawberries, tasty tomatoes and cucumbers and even garlic bulbs are all growing in our garden. 

It’s amazing how easy it is to grow a wide variety of fruit and veg at home, it’s even inspired the design on some of our lovely Hug Rugs. The RHS have a really handy and helpful guide which we’ve taken lots of tips from. It’s split out into each month, so you can see what needs doing throughout the year, it’s fab!

Get The Creative Juices Flowing

I love planning out where each flower is going, to achieve a gorgeous mix of colours, shapes and sizes. It’s so much fun and a real sense of achievement when everything’s blossoming and it looks beautiful!

Gardening can be a fantastic project to get involved in and there’s plenty of ways to get creative outside of just the plants too. From incorporating fun planters such as old work boots or car tyres through to water features and garden ornaments. Your garden truly is a blank canvas on which you can create whatever you desire. Get creative and imprint some of your personality!

Fun For All The Family

Gardening doesn’t have to be a solo activity, in fact, the more the merrier. It’s a fantastic activity to get all the family involved in, right from an early age. Early exposure to dirt has been linked to a number of health benefits for children, plus it’s super fun for kids (and adults) of all ages to learn all about nature and what gardening entails. It gets everyone outside soaking up the sun’s rays too. Just don’t forget the sunscreen!

So as you can see, there’s a vast number of benefits that gardening brings, that’s why we love it so much! So please try to get outside and have a potter in the garden next week, I promise you’ll feel better for doing it! Don’t forget to wipe your feet on the Hug Rug by the door when you come back in, yes Ady, that means you too!

Time for me to get outside and get my garden ready for our Coronation party next weekend! I really hope the sun makes an appearance!

Busy Lizzie x