The Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery launches at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024

The Stroke Association presents its first ever show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May 2024, during Stroke Awareness Month, created to support stroke survivors to achieve their best possible recovery.

Sponsored by Project Giving Back, the grant-giving charity that funds gardens for good causes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery is designed by critically acclaimed landscape designer Miria Harris, herself a stroke survivor.

The garden has been shaped by 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 charity’s purpose – to support every stroke survivor to achieve their best possible recovery.

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.

The Stroke 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.

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 battle to finding their way back to life. 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.

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 was a very disconnecting, disembodying experience. Things were happening to me that weren't under my control. My speech was affected. The fatigue was like nothing I’d experienced before. And I had headaches that went on for ages – like I’d bruised my brain.

“Although physically, everything repaired quite quickly, mentally, the traumatic response went on for quite a long time. There’s a whole new layer of vulnerability and anxiety that exists in my life that never existed before.

“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.”

The Stroke Association is the leading stroke support charity in the UK. From providing vital stroke support services, to funding pioneering stroke research, the Stroke Association relies on fundraising in order to support stroke survivors to achieve their best possible recovery. Currently, the Stroke Association can only reach one third of the survivors who most need the charity’s help.

Juliet Bouverie OBE, Chief Executive of the Stroke Association, said: “Through tailored, coordinated and empowering stroke support, the Stroke Association helps survivors and their loved ones to find their way back to life. We provide support that covers every aspect of a survivor’s recovery, so they are not just living to survive, but able to live life again.

“We are thrilled to have the honour of presenting a show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024: it is the most extraordinary occasion for the Stroke Association. 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.”

Craige Richardson, Director of Estates and Facilities, at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “It’s wonderful that the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery will be relocated to its permanent location at the stroke unit at Chapel Allerton Hospital, part of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, where it will provide a place for connection and rest for stroke survivors and their families. Not only will it increase the biodiversity of the landscape, it will provide our recovering stroke patients with direct access to nature and the positive impact on well-being that comes with it.”

More about the garden

A wildlife pond and stream add the soothing sound of water, with a bridge across the stream as a metaphor for the mental, physical and emotional connections that have to be rebuilt after stroke. Gently curved accessible paths lead visitors around the garden, while a series of natural built walls shape places to rest and be with loved ones.

Miria adds: “The bridge is symbolic of the support from the Stroke Association, of finding a place to be in a complicated situation with ups and downs. You need that scaffolding to help you move forward.”

One of the garden’s key focal points is the pine trees, which were rescued from a forgotten nursery field and nursed back to health. Their windswept shapes symbolise the resilience of stroke survivors and their loved ones. The trees find ways to continue to grow, strengthen and thrive, despite a challenging environment.

The trees, with their gently twisted branches, are strongly emblematic of the stroke recovery process. It’s not linear or straightforward or perfect, but it is possible. As well as creating a visual impact, the pines have been chosen for the transportive nature of their scent, which is the direct opposite of the clinical smell of hospitals.

The garden features loose muted rainbow colour blocked zones, using shrubs, perennials and annuals to help visitors find focus without cluttering the space. The central area of the garden provides a place to rest and reflect, with seating created by emerging furniture designer Olivia Gonsalves. Olivia’s mum had a stroke in 2002 and sadly died a year later. During that year together, Olivia says that sitting outside in nature was a simple pleasure she and her mum enjoyed together.

One of the key plants Miria is using in the garden is called ‘Honesty’. Miria adds: “There are so many misconceptions about stroke – that it's just something that affects old people or people who have an unhealthy lifestyle. That’s not the case. I’ve included ‘Honesty’ as it has these beautiful, transparent seed heads, which I’ve asked my growers to keep on as I want honesty and transparency about stroke and stroke recovery to be at the heart of the garden.”

The Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery will be displayed at RHS Chelsea Flower Show from RHS Chelsea Flower Show from 21-25 May 2024.

Find out more about the garden and help raise awareness of stroke. www.stroke.org.uk/rhs