Samaritan’s Listening Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show was visited by the King, Queen, Princess of Wales, and many celebrities.
It was designed to be a place of comfort and hope as well as exploring the often-challenging journey towards safe space.
It was designed by Darren Hawkes and was awarded a Silver-Gilt medal.
Joe, one of our Stockport volunteers, was a Shift Leader. He said "Darren Hawkes designed the garden over two years and I think it came from his own experiences. The concept was to depict a caller first with trepidation in making that first call denoted by the spiky plants, concrete, vissures in the ground with rushing water. The garden then opens out into a stream and tranquil pond, ending in a small place of sanctuary under the tree with soft plants in the area, in the hope that the caller feels in a better place at the end of the call."
"Our role was to talk about that concept and hand out brochures that described the garden and what Samaritans do. The public were very engaging and wanted to know all about the garden enabling us to spread the word about Samaritans if people did not know so much about the service. Other people reflected on their own experiences of the service. People felt very humbled on knowing the garden’s concept and it needed an explanation otherwise you wouldn’t naturally see it. It was a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness as all the public wanted to talk and there were big crowds through most of the day and we distributed boxes of leaflets."
People felt very humbled on knowing the garden’s concept and it needed an explanation otherwise you wouldn’t naturally see it. It was a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness as all the public wanted to talk and there were big crowds through most of the day and we distributed boxes of leaflets.
