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.

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.

• 

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.

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.

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

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

 

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.

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/

Sunflowers have long been symbolically associated with hospice care, the yellow sunflower being the emblem of the hospice movement.

But what is the story behind the Sunflower and why is this? …

No one can help but smile when greeted with the sight of Sunflowers, their heads tilted in exaltation towards the sun. Bright and cheery, with brilliant yellow petals, also known as “rays”, sunflowers have an unmistakable appearance and while they are stunningly beautiful, they also are rich in meaning.

Used the world over as the emblem of the hospice movement, Sunflowers are thought to represent love, admiration, loyalty, positivity and strength – all qualities undeniably encompassed in hospice care. Sunflowers are known for being ‘happy’ flowers and a symbol of joy and used at a time when joy and happiness can be hard to find.

The design for the St Giles Hospice garden project takes on the theme of Sunflowers – showcasing bespoke paving inlaid with a sunflower design and a custom made metal screen laser cut in a pattern of sunflowers.

To add to that hundreds of specially made metal Sunflowers, sold to raise funds for both St Giles and to help fund the garden project, will create an art installation at the heart of the garden

The seeds of the Sunflowers are thought to represent patients and the surrounding petals love, care and compassion. Sunflowers move to follow the sun during the day, from East to West, at night returning to face the East, ready to face the new day. They draw strength from focusing on the light and not the darkness. As Helen Keller famously quoted;

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow … it’s what sunflowers do.

Helen Keller

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

Sunflowers also traditionally symbolise friendship and support, as summed up beautifully in this quote;

Every friend is to the other a sun, and a sunflower also. He attracts and follows.

Jean Paul Richter – influential German writer 1763 – 1825

To find out all about the St Giles Hospice garden, visit the dedicated project website here https://stgileshospiceshowgarden.com/ . Or contact Karen Tatlow Garden Design at