Five year old stroke survivor, with landscape designer Miria Harris and Myleene Klass, launches the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024

The Stroke Association officially launched its first ever show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show on Monday 20 May during Stroke Awareness Month, created to support stroke survivors to achieve their best possible recovery.

Five-year-old stroke survivor Freddie Rushton placed the final trowel of soil onto the garden alongside musician and TV presenter Myleene Klass, and the critically acclaimed landscape designer who created the garden, Miria Harris, also a stroke survivor.

Freddie’s parents own a topsoil company, Topsoil and More, and have donated one hundred tonnes of soil and compost to help create the garden and its future relocation. Myleene is a keen advocate of children’s causes and recently wrote the book, ‘They Don’t Teach This at School’ which features the FAST test and stroke.

Freddie, from Stoke-on-Trent, was just four at the time of his stroke in May 2023. He was rushed to hospital after his mum (Sarah) and dad (Rob) realised he was unable to stand up and then collapsed due to weakness down his left side.

Freddie was taken to hospital and doctors began treating him for suspected meningitis, after a CT scan showed nothing abnormal. However later an MRI scan picked up that Freddie’s stroke was caused by a restriction of his blood vessels which stopped the blood flow. It would be a couple of days later when a lumber puncture discovered this was caused by the chickenpox virus that Freddie had contracted nearly a year earlier.

Sarah said: “Freddie had had chickenpox eleven months earlier, but we never thought it could cause this. The virus had actually caused the restriction of blood in the vessels in his brain which led to the stroke.”

While chickenpox is linked to an increased risk of stroke in children, this risk is only up until six months following the infection. Despite the risk, stroke in children is still an extremely rare complication following chickenpox.

After his diagnosis, doctors said it was 50-50 whether Freddie would be able to move his left side or walk again. He began occupational therapy and physiotherapy straight away and spent a month in hospital. He had a feeding tube for a few weeks and had to learn how to eat and swallow again.

After being discharged, Freddie has continued physiotherapy at home. His movement has improved but he has also been left with problems with his speech, concentration and emotional regulation. While he should have started school last September this has also been delayed. For his parents, it’s the fear of Freddie having another stroke that is causing a lot of anxiety. Freddie is on lifetime aspirin to thin his blood in the event he has another stroke.

Sarah said: “We’ve had to go back to A&E multiple times with Freddie. Every day we don’t know what’s coming, it makes you feel paranoid if he gets a headache or seems a little bit more unstable or behaves differently than usual. We just have to take each day as it comes.

“Now we feel like we’re grieving for the child we thought we would see grow up and we both suffer from the trauma of what happened to Freddie. We are grieving for the life that we pictured for him but that we just don’t think he will have.”

Sarah, Freddie and family are now working with the Stroke Association, to raise awareness of strokes, especially in children and younger people, beginning with launching the charity’s Garden for Recovery at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Over 88,000 people survive a stroke every year in the UK, but surviving a stroke is just the start of a long and traumatic recovery journey. Mums, dads, grandparents, young people, even children can be stroke survivors, and the impact of stroke on them and their loved ones can be catastrophic. A stroke can leave survivors unable to move, see, speak, or even swallow.

Juliet Bouverie OBE, Chief Executive of the Stroke Association, said: “We are thrilled to have the honour of presenting a show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 and we hope it will be an extraordinary occasion for Freddie, Sarah and family too. Our presence at the show will help us to achieve our ambitious new goal; to reach everyone with stroke support as quickly as possible after their stroke, while also creating a beautiful, lasting legacy which will support stroke survivors throughout their recovery for many years to come.”

The garden is sponsored by Project Giving Back, the grant-giving charity that funds gardens for good causes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It has been shaped by designer Miria’s experience of stroke and the stories of other stroke survivors, as a place to support and inspire stroke recovery, both physically and mentally. A hopeful, positive space, the garden mirrors the Stroke Association’s purpose – to support every stroke survivor to achieve their best possible recovery.

Designer Miria survived a stroke in 2019, which left her with aphasia, affecting her ability to speak and form words properly.

Miria says: “Stroke can change your life profoundly. It did mine. It is definitely not as simple as just getting better. There are many bumps in the road and recovery is not linear. But with support, there’s hope. I wanted to design an immersive, calm and optimistic space to support stroke survivors of all ages and needs. Somewhere for visitors to gently move around, to take time to stop, rest and reflect. It’s a place to be alone or connect with loved ones.

“After the disconnecting experience of stroke, the reconnection with people I love and with nature has been hugely important. My story and the stories that I have learned from speaking to other survivors have been the inspiration for this garden. They have shaped the garden’s themes and have directly influenced the material choices I have made in the design.

“Project Giving Back has enabled me to combine my passion for designing gardens and landscapes with the opportunity to help raise the profile of the Stroke Association and the work they do, a charity that as a stroke survivor myself, is very personal to me.”

After being displayed at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show from 21-25 May 2024, the garden will be reconfigured and moved to its permanent location adjacent to the stroke unit at Chapel Allerton Hospital, Leeds, where it will provide a place for connection and rest for stroke survivors and their families.

TheStroke Association’s Garden for Recovery is a 10 x 22m Main Avenue show garden, and is Miria Harris’s first time designing at RHS Chelsea.

The garden is welcoming and accessible, designed as a peaceful, sensory space for recovery. Colour, scent and the sound of water provides soft way-finding for those with additional visual or mobility needs, while interconnected pathways through a contoured landscape acknowledge the difficult road to recovery with its ups and downs.

For more information about the Stroke Association and the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery, visit www.stroke.org.uk/rhs