St Giles Sunflowers now available to collect

COLLECT YOUR SUNFLOWERS FROM THE ST GILES CARE CENTRE, LINDRIDGE RD, SUTTON COLDFIELD,
OR ON SPECIAL COLLECTION DAYS AT WHITTINGTON 29TH MAY & 12TH JUNE
SEE DETAILS BELOW

Once again, a heartfelt “Thank you” to all of those who purchased Sunflowers to support the St Giles Hospice Show Garden project and for your patience in waiting for confirmation of collection details, following the cancellation of the project due to the pandemic.

Needless to say, it has been a difficult year in which to make plans, especially when it came to making sure collection arrangements could be made safely.

There are now two ways in which purchased Sunflowers can be collected;

1) ST GILES SUPPORTIVE CARE CENTRE

LINDRIDGE ROAD, SUTTON COLDFIELD, B75 6JB

Sunflowers can be collected

between 9am and 4pm Monday to Friday

Please ring the bell at reception and one of the team will come to help.

Please note that masks must be worn.

2) SPECIAL WHITTINGTON COLLECTION DAYS

ST GILES HOSPICE, FISHERWICK ROAD, WHITTINGTON, WS14 9LH

Saturday 29th May between 10am and 12 noon

Saturday 12th June between 10am and 12 noon

Sunflowers can be collected from OUTSIDE the hospice, in front of the Day Hospice entrance.

Sunflowers CANNOT be collected from the Whittington site at any other times.

When collecting your Sunflowers please bring a copy of your PayPal receipt

(printed or on your phone is fine)

If you would like to purchase any more Sunflowers on the day for £20 each, staff will be available to take cash or cheque payments.

Thanks to your support, despite the cancellation of the project, thousands of pounds have been donated to St Giles to help keep supporting people at the end of their lives in our community.

St Giles ‘Moments that Matter’ Sunflowers

THE LATEST UPDATE ON THE ST GILES SUNFLOWERS …
And the future of the St Giles Moments That Matter Garden Project.

First a huge ‘Thank you’ to all the project supporters for your immense understanding and patience, as we have tried to navigate our way through these unprecedented times.

Since the announcement of the cancellation of RHS Malvern in May 2020 the St Giles Moments that Matter garden project has been officially ‘on hold’. The project team had dearly hoped to be able to create the garden either at RHS Malvern in 2021, or even just simply back at St Giles Whittington in some way.

Sadly, after discussions with the hospice, it has been decided that now is not the right time for the garden project and although we dearly hope to work together in the future, the charity’s focus right now, is and has to be, on funding and delivering the best possible care to people living with incurable illness and their families.

Thank you to every company, donor and volunteer who has contributed with such enthusiasm from the very beginning. The support for the project has been overwhelming.

We have been in touch with all those businesses who kindly sponsored the project with a cash donation and are tremendously pleased to announce that, in every single case, they all wanted to donate the funds directly to St Giles to help support core services.

We have also taken the decision to donate 100% of the funds raised from the sale of the Sunflowers directly to St Giles too.

All funds donated to support the garden have now been donated directly to St Giles

The Sunflowers

All the St Giles ‘Moments that Matter’ Sunflowers have now been collected by the St Giles team and are being stored at the St Giles Sutton Coldfield site. Please bear with us as lockdown restrictions still mean we cannot make arrangements for people to collect their Sunflowers. But please be assured they all remain safe and sound and ready for collection when possible.

What a van full of 500 corten steel Sunflowers looks like!

As and when the hospice restrictions can allow people to collect their Sunflowers, the St Giles team will be in touch by email, or via the project social media platforms, to announce the arrangements.

Once again, thank you to each and everyone, for your tremendous support and goodwill. You will be able to collect your Sunflowers at some point and St Giles will be in touch with the arrangements on how to do so.

The St Giles ‘Moments that Matter’ garden

Sunflowers Safe and Sound

In response to several enquiries of late … we just want to reassure you, your Sunflowers are Safe and Sound and will be, until we can find a way for you to collect them.
SUNFLOWERS IN A CRATE … Not quite what we had in mind for them originally … !

Remember these beauties?

We’ve not been in touch much lately, following the cancellation of the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2020, (to be honest there’s not been much to be in touch about !), but the St Giles Sunflowers have all been kept safe and sound and have been weathering beautifully. We think you’ll agree, the patina on the corten steel is looking resplendent in the Autumn sunshine!

Not bad given they started out looking like this …

Rob and Andy of A.T. Services Engineering Ltd very kindly delivered them …

Yours truly watered them … !!!

We kid you not ! Corten steel needs moisture for the weathering process to work, and for a time there it was a bit on the hot and dry side, so believe it or not Karen was in the garden watering the steel flowers !!!

And then they went from this … to this !

And Rolo and Mars have been fiercely guarding them ever since … well sort of …

We hope to be able to share with you, how you can collect your St Giles Sunflowers, very soon. Thank you to everyone for your patience while we continue to try and work this out in a COVID safe way – particularly difficult in the hospice environment and now that regional restrictions have been reinstated.

Watch out for further information on the St Giles Sunflowers coming soon!

To receive automatic updates simply enter your email address and click on the ‘Subscribe’ button at the bottom of the page on this link https://stgileshospiceshowgarden.com/

And here it is !

See here for the 360 degree virtual tour ..https://www.facebook.com/282698812442338/posts/555975301781353/

On what should have been the first day of the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2020, we may not be able to see the St Giles Hospice ‘Moments that Matter’ at RHS Malvern, but the virtual garden is here!
Go to rhs.malvern.co.uk and visit the Virtual RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2020!

The St Giles Hospice ‘Moments that Matter’ garden finally comes to life, all be it in the virtual world.

While the rest of the world is on hold, including the St Giles Hospice garden project, we can still take a look around the garden and get a glimpse into what the real garden will look like when it is finally built.

Everyone involved in the project is hopeful, that at some point, we will be able to pick up from where we left off and that next year, you will be able to see the garden built for real at RHS Malvern 2021 and then rebuilt back in the grounds of the hospice … but for now enjoy the 360 degree tour and some 3D images, bringing the garden to life …

And at last we can see the ‘Moments that Matter’ Sunflowers in place, as a beautiful art installation at the heart of the garden. Weaving their way through the planting at the front of the garden, they then spill out onto the grass beyond … each lovingly bought by supporters of the project and eventually destined to nestle back in their own gardens, or to be donated to the garden back at St Giles.

And the ‘Moments that Matter’ Sunflowers continue to be on sale. Buy your very own Sunflowers online for just £20 each … with 50% of the proceeds going directly to St Giles Hospice and 50% to help fund the building of the garden next year.

In these unprecedented times, St Giles Hospice needs to raise funds now more than ever, with many of their usual fund raising activities having to be cancelled. So in recognition of this, the proceeds for St Giles will go to them immediately and will not be kept on hold. To but your Sunflowers follow the link below …

Buy your Sunflowers here …

Don’t miss the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2020 Virtual Show!

Thursday 7th May sees the launch of the very first ‘Virtual’ RHS Malvern Spring Festival and with it, a virtual tour of the St Giles Hospice ‘Moments that Matter’ garden, led by garden designer Karen Tatlow.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/malvern-spring-festival/news/2020/virtual-rhs-malvern-spring-festival

Calling all RHS Garden Show fans and St Giles Hospice garden project supporters! … Who would have thought it, given the current lockdown restrictions … but you can go to the show and you can see the St Giles Hospice ‘Moments that Matter’ garden, built in a virtual world online, for all to visit!

Simply go on line to rhs.org.uk, or rhsmalvern.co.uk and along with thousands of others, enjoy the show from the comfort of your armchair. And, with the help of some stunning 3D images, Karen Tatlow will take you on a virtual tour through the ‘Moments that Matter’ garden.

RHS Malvern Spring Festival Virtual Show

A little taster of the wonderful images to be shared – a birds eye view of the ‘Moments that Matter’ garden.

For those of you who have already supported the project and bought your metal ‘Moments that Matter’ Sunflowers – thank you! – and we are delighted to be able to show you how they look … all be it in a very virtual way.

Now, more than ever, we appreciate the symbolism of the garden – celebrating the simple but important moments that happen when family, friends and communities come together and memories are made. And what was already a poignant art installation created from the Sunflowers, becomes even more special.

People can still buy the Sunflowers. Although the RHS Malvern Spring Festival has been cancelled for 2020, the St Giles Hospice garden project has not been cancelled. Everyone involved has agreed to put the project on hold, in the hope that we can pick it up from where we left off for next year!
By continuing to sell the Sunflowers it means we can give the proceeds raised for St Giles to them immediately now, at a time when they really need all the funding they can get.
You can find all the details and buy them on the St Giles Hospice Show Garden website and if you follow the blog you will be automatically informed as the arrangements are updated.
Karen Tatlow

Buy the ‘Moments that Matter’ Sunflowers here …

‘The Moments that Matter’ metal Sunflowers continue to be on sale to help raise funds for St Giles.

The ‘Moments that Matter’ metal Sunflowers continue to be on sale.
IN RESPONSE TO THE URGENT NEED FOR FUNDS IN THESE UNPRECEDENTED TIMES, 50% OF THE PROCEEDS WILL NOW GO IMMEDIATELY TO ST GILES AND WILL NOT BE KEPT ON HOLD.

While the St Giles garden project itself continues to be ‘on hold’ in response to the current government guidelines regarding COVID-19, the ‘Moments that Matter’ metal Sunflowers continue to be on sale. As before, 50% of the proceeds will go directly to St Giles and 50% of the proceeds will go towards funding the garden project. However …

*IN RESPONSE TO THE URGENT NEED FOR FUNDS IN THESE UNPRECEDENTED TIMES, 50% OF THE PROCEEDS WILL NOW GO IMMEDIATELY TO ST GILES AND WILL NOT BE KEPT ON HOLD.*

50% of the proceeds going towards funding the garden project will be kept in a ‘holding fund’ until such time the garden project can be resurrected. Should the garden project have to be cancelled (a decision that will only be taken in consultation with the St Giles Hospice project team), then all proceeds will be donated to St Giles.

Arrangements for collection will be published once lockdown restrictions have been lifted. Supporters can choose from the following options;

Collect your Sunflowers (from Whittington, WS14) after lockdown restrictions are lifted – (details to be confirmed)
Leave your Sunflowers with the project team for inclusion in the ‘Moments that Matter’ Show Garden and collect afterwards (from Whittington, WS14)
Donate your Sunflowers for inclusion in the ‘Moments that Matter’ Show Garden and then as part of the garden back at St Giles

Buy your Sunflowers here ! …

With a heavy heart, St Giles Hospice garden project ‘on hold’.

On Monday 16th March 2020 the RHS made the following announcement;

“Following the Government update on 16 March 2020 and ongoing situation with COVID-19, all RHS Shows, Garden Events and school visits will be cancelled with immediate effect until 30 June 2020.
“With the Government no longer supporting mass gathering events due to the impact on emergency services and heightened actions to encourage social distancing, the following RHS Shows will regrettably no longer take place in 2020:
RHS Flower Show Cardiff, 17-19 April
RHS Malvern Spring Festival, 7-10 May
RHS Chelsea Flower Show, 19-23 May
RHS Chatsworth Flower Show, 11-14 June
https://www.rhs.org.uk/about-the-rhs/policies/coronavirus-statement

Therefore, as a result of this action, taken in line with Government guidelines, the project to create ‘The Moments that Matter’ garden in support of St Giles Hospice, can no longer be exhibited as a show garden at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival in May 2020, before going on to be relocated as a real-life garden space in the grounds of the hospice in Whittington.

In response to the news St Giles Hospice said;

“We thank everyone for their support and interest in the RHS Garden project – the response has been phenomenal.
“The work Karen Tatlow has put into this project has been amazing and we want to say a huge thank you to her for her commitment, passion and enthusiasm, as well as thanking everyone involved.
“We’re hoping to work with Karen in the future and will keep everyone posted about what’s next when we know and hope we can still call on everyone to get involved.

The project team would like to think we can make this garden happen in some way, at some point in the future. However, at the moment work on keeping the patients and visitors of St Giles Hospice safe, must of course be the priority.

At present therefore, the St Giles garden project is officially ‘on hold’ and we ask everyone involved in the project to bear with us, while we work through the ramifications of the RHS Malvern Spring Festival being cancelled.

As next steps become clear we will of course update the project website and share information via the St Giles Hospice Show Garden Blog and associated social media platforms. In particular, information around the metal Sunflowers will be shared soon.

“I would like to thank everyone, from the bottom of my heart, that has been involved in the St Giles garden project so far. The support we have received from companies, the local community and volunteers, has been nothing short of awe inspiring and I am so very sorry we can’t go ahead right now.
“I would also like to thank everyone for all the many kind messages I have received in response to the news that the show has been cancelled. I hope very much the garden will go ahead in some way and all the work over the last six months will come to fruition at some point.
Karen Tatlow – garden designer

100s of metal Sunflowers manufactured to support St Giles Hospice

A sneak preview of how the metal Sunflowers art installation will look in the ‘Moments that Matter’ Show Garden in support of St Giles Hospice.
Buy a Sunflower, help create a unique Art Installation and show your support for St Giles Hospice.

100s of metal Sunflowers have been manufactured to help support St Giles Hospice. Local garden designer, Karen Tatlow, has designed a garden in support of St Giles, which will first be exhibited as a show garden at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival in May 2020, before being moved, piece by piece, back to the hospice in Whittington, where it will be rebuilt as a real garden in the grounds of the hospice, for patients, visitors and staff to enjoy.

The metal Sunflowers (the sunflower being the emblem of the hospice movement), are being sold to raise funds for St Giles and to help fund the building of the garden and will create a unique and poignant art installation at the heart of the garden at the show.

Click here to buy your St Giles Hospice Sunflowers and help support the project

People can buy Sunflowers in support of the project on line at our dedicated project website. 50% of the proceeds will go directly to St Giles and 50% will go to help fund the building of the garden.
They won’t receive their Sunflowers straight away … first the Sunflowers will go to the show, where they will become part of the art installation at the heart of the garden.
After the show, all the Sunflowers will come back to the hospice in Whittington, when, if they choose, people can collect their Sunflowers in person from the hospice, from 18th – 31st May.
After the 31st May, if they wish to leave their Sunflowers at the hospice, they will go to make another art installation in the grounds at Whittington.
Karen Tatlow – garden designer

The Sunflowers are made out of corten steel – a special steel alloy, loved by designers for the natural rusty surface patina, which once developed then creates a protective, weatherproof layer.

When seen together, the natural patina of the Sunflowers creates a beautiful, orangey glow, reminiscent of the St Giles orange.

To make the sunflowers they are first cut out of a large sheet of the steel using a laser cutter. A special programme is used to calculate the best pattern to get the most shapes out of each sheet, with the least wastage.

Next the ‘dimples’ in the centre and the curved edges of the petals are pressed into the metal. Metal is surprisingly malleable, so this is done when the metal is cold and simply stamped into shaped under pressure.

Even as the steel is being moulded in the factory, it begins to develop its trademark rusty patina finish.

We are hoping to sell 500 of the Sunflowers to help us raise funds for the project and we still have 350 to go!
We only have 5 weeks left before we start building the garden at the Malvern showground, so we need everyone to rally round and buy their Sunflowers as soon as possible!
We also need the help of everyone to spread the word, by following the blog and sharing as much as possible on social media, to make sure we reach as many people as we possibly can, to try and make this happen!
Karen encourages everyone to ‘share’ on social media …

To find out more about the ‘Moments that Matter’ garden in support of St Giles Hospice visit the dedicated project website at …

https://stgileshospiceshowgarden.com/

Or contact Karen at

karen@karentatlowgardendesign.co.uk

07432 646275

The Team behind the Sunflowers

A. T. Services Engineering Ltd are manufacturing the metal Sunflowers for the St Giles Hospice garden project.
Meet the crew proudly presenting their first prototype Sunflower!

More used to sheets of metal, than delicate petals, Rob Tunnah, Director and Owner of A.T. Services, was more than a little bit bemused when approached to make 100s of flowers for a garden!

As a welding, fabrication and engineering company they can make more or less anything for anyone, but the team have to admit that creating Sunflowers is very different from their normal work, which usually involves much more heavy duty engineering projects!

Based in Lichfield Road Industrial Estate in Tamworth, the family run business was established over 32 years ago by Rob’s father Andy.

Five generations of our family have lived in Whittington over the years, so we are very happy to be contributing to our local community by supporting this garden project for the St Giles Hospice in Whittington.
We are delighted to be involved in such a fantastic project and to help fund such a worthy cause.
Rob Tunnah

The metal Sunflowers, as seen above, are being sold to help raise funds for the garden project for St Giles Hospice. The Sunflowers are being sold for £20 each with 50% of the proceeds going to raise funds directly for St Giles and 50% towards the building of the garden, first as a Show Garden at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival in May 2020 and then back in the grounds of the hospice at Whittington, near Lichfield, Staffordshire.

Buy your St Giles Hospice Sunflowers here to help support the garden

The Sunflowers are made out of weathering steel, or COR-TEN steel, the trademark name as it is more often referred to. Corten steel is a steel alloy especially developed to be resistant to corrosion by the weather. It does this by creating a thin layer of surface rust, in order to form a protective coating.

This thin layer of surface rust creates a beautiful natural patina admired by garden designers, not only because it is aesthetically pleasing, but also because it is weather proof. The ‘orangey’ hue of the corten steel is also very reminiscent of the St Giles Hospice orange and therefore the perfect material for the Sunflowers.

When I visited the factory the other day, one of the guys asked if I was ‘the flower girl’, which I thought was rather nice!
When I started talking about making 500 Sunflowers he was rather taken aback, as he had assumed his colleagues were joking!
It’s been great fun developing the Sunflowers with Rob and his team and I very much look forward to seeing them all together as the art installation in the garden.
Karen Tatlow – garden designer

You can learn more about the St Giles Hospice garden at the dedicated project website here https://stgileshospiceshowgarden.com/ or contact Karen Tatlow Garden Design at

karen@karentatlowgardendesign.co.uk

07432 646275

Sunflower ‘Factoids’

Five fun facts you may not know about Sunflowers
Help support the St Giles Hospice garden project and keep spreading the word about SUNFLOWERS!

Metal Sunflowers are being sold to help raise funds for a garden project for St Giles Hospice. The Sunflowers are being sold for £20 each with 50% of the proceeds going to raise funds directly for St Giles and 50% towards the building of the garden, first as a Show Garden at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival in May 2020 and then back in the grounds of the hospice at Whittington, near Lichfield, Staffordshire.

Buy your St Giles Hospice Sunflowers here !

We are aiming to sell 500 Sunflowers, which is a lot of Sunflowers, so we need everybody to help us spread the word.
Anyone can do this just by ‘liking’ and most importantly ‘sharing’ all the posts we are putting out there, either directly from their Social Media pages, or by using the links at the bottom of this Blog.
We thought the ‘Five Fun Facts’ would be interesting to share and maybe we’ll do five more at some point … watch this space!
Karen Tatlow – award-winning Garden Designer and project lead

Fact One

Not all Sunflowers are yellow! Some are Red and some are Purple!

Fact Two

The head of a Sunflower is actually a combination of thousands of tiny flowers and each Sunflower petal is a flower in itself!

Fact Three

The Guinness World of Records records the tallest Sunflower at 30 foot, one inch tall. That’s over 2 double-decker buses high!

Fact Four

There is a Sunflower called the Teddy Bear Sunflower, which has a fluffy head like a stuffed bear! It won the Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in 2015.

Fact Five

Only young Sunflowers track the sun – mature Sunflowers face East! Why? Because they warm up faster and can therefore attract up to 5 times more pollinators!

To find out more about the St Giles Hospice garden, visit the project website here
https://stgileshospiceshowgarden.com/