Thrive's Old English Garden gets Jo Malone funding bonus
6 July 2012
A new scented garden is perfuming the air of Battersea Park in London after British perfume house Jo Malone chose the park's Old English Garden, run by gardening charity Thrive, as the first in a series of horticulture projects it is funding in urban areas around the world.
The garden, designed by leading landscape architect and RHS Chelsea gold medal winner Sarah Price, is a gentle, dreamy space full of roses including the heavily-scented wine-red 'Roseraie de l'Hay' and 'Falstaff'. Among them are perfumed shrubs such as Philadelphus spp. (mock orange) and strongly fragrant climber Jasminum officinale.
'It's incredibly romantic and beautiful,' said Sarah. 'Gardening is good for the soul – it slows you down and forces you to listen to nature. Thrive understands this and its work in promoting the restorative power of gardening is inspirational.'
The garden is the latest stage in Thrive's four-year transformation of the Old English Garden from a neglected area infested with bindweed to the point where it now provides horticultural training and therapy to trainee gardeners living with physical disabilities or mental ill-health. More than half go on to gain a vocational qualification in horticulture.