September Talk
/David Weir opened the meeting and invited us to observe a minute’s silence in memory of the Queen.
Jane Moore is the County Organiser for North East Wales NGS. They are always looking for more gardens to join their list of gardens, all sizes are considered. If you feel you have a garden that people would like to visit, then please get in touch. There are plenty of people to help you get started with this.
Jane started with the NGS History – The National Garden Scheme has a rich and interesting history with humble beginnings in the early 1900s when they first started supporting district nurses, to donating millions of pounds to nursing and health charities over 90 years later.
1859 William Rathbone, a Liverpool merchant, philanthropist and later and MP, employed Mary Robinson to nurse his wife at home during her final illness. After his wife’s death, Rathbone retained Mary’s services so that people in Liverpool who could not afford to pay for nursing would benefit from care in their homes. Seeing the good that nursing in the home could do, William Rathbone and Florence Nightingale worked together to try to develop the service – and so organised ‘district nursing’ began.
At a Queens’s Nursing Institute (QNI) meeting in 1926 council member Miss Elsie Wagg came up with the idea of raising money for district nursing through the nation’s obsession with gardening. A year later the National Garden Scheme was founded, and garden owners were asked to open their gardens for ‘a shilling a head’. 609 gardens opened and raised a total of £8,191.
1980 – The National Garden Scheme became independent of the Queen’s Nursing Institute to fund a range of nursing and health charities. In 1984 Macmillan Cancer Support joined the National Garden Scheme’s list of beneficiary charities. Their longest standing partner and have donated £17 million to date.
2002 HRH The Prince of Wales became the National Garden Scheme’s Patron.
In 2016 Mary Berry became President of the National Garden Scheme. They began an annual funding programme to support gardens and health-related projects run by charities. The first gardens and health beneficiary was Horatio’s Garden who received a donation of £130,000.
In 2020 the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic led to the closure of many NGS gardens during the lockdown period. Despite this they were able to donate £2.88 million to their beneficiaries.
Jane is the County Organiser of The North East Wales area which includes Flintshire, Denbighshire, Wrexham and Colwyn. There are some wonderful gardens to visit, and scummy cakes! In 2022 there were 23 gardens to visit in this area, not all gardens are open in consecutive years.
You can get more information on gardens to visit on ngs.org.uk
Your garden visits help change lives. In 2021 the National Garden Scheme donated over £3 million to beneficiaries, providing critical support to nursing and health charities following a year of crisis.
Marie Curie £525,000
Hospice UK £500,000
Macmillan Cancer Support £500,000
Carers Trust £424,000
The Queen’s Nursing Institute £395,000
Parkinson’s UK £212,500
Horatio’s Garden £75,000
A vote of thanks was made by Pat Weir, thanking Jane for her informative talk and how lovely to know the NGS all stated with caring and wellbeing at its heart.
Th September competition was won by Mike Jarvis for his vase of homegrown autumn flowers.
