Dig in for a rewarding new start
WE ALL know that gardening is good for the soul. But there comes a time when pressing noses against a trellis of rambling roses with a pair of secateurs to hand or digging a suitable hole for a new hydrangea is beyond us. All that bending and lifting.
Even so, the benefits of just being enveloped by a beautiful garden are still far-reaching. A King’s Fund report commissioned by the National Garden Scheme said tending a plot can play a ‘powerful’ role in promoting physical and emotional health.
Bake Off’s Mary Berry told Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour: ‘I have long been aware of the therapeutic benefits of gardening, and visiting gardens and how being outside in lovely surroundings in the fresh air is so good for our well-being.’
So perhaps it’s no wonder that retirement homes and villages are luring new residents by promoting what’s going on outside in their grounds as well as inside in their spanking new buildings.
Pegasus Life is opening a development for the over-60s in Tetbury, Glos, next year with a big emphasis on gardening.
Steepleton, as it will be called, is made up of six buildings clustered together in a five-acre site, with extensive gardens throughout.
There will be 113 apartments, a spa, fitness studio, cafe and guest suite for visitors.
‘A lot of people moving to an assisted living development will have had gardens themselves and have spent a lot of time outdoors and so we are keen that this should continue in retirement,’ says Clare Bacchus, from Pegasus Life.
One big selling point at Steepleton is its kitchen gardens, with shared allotments and greenhouses where residents can get involved as much as they wish. They can dig and plant or simply take a stroll along the flower-lined paths.
Pegasus has 38 sites, mainly in the South of England. The one in Tetbury is within walking distance of the town, with its wide range of antique shops, plus the Prince of Wales’s Highgrove outlet on the High Street.
Prices for a two-bedroom flat start at £346,950, with a 1,000-year lease. Annual service charges are around £5,000 and you also need to pay the local authority’s council tax.
A chance to carry on gardening is also on offer at Audley’s retirement villages, of which there are 14 around the country.
‘We are planning to start gardening clubs in all our villages,’ says Audley’s CEO Nick Sanderson.
‘People can then do as little or as much as they please, while pooling their knowledge and getting tips from our own gardeners.’
At Audley’s Mote House village in Bearsted, near Maidstone, Kent, there are 24 cottages within the expansive grounds and each has its own small garden.
This suits Liz Hedges perfectly. She used to live four minutes away in a big house with a large garden. At Mote House, she still has her own garden, albeit small, but has access to several well-kept acres for which she’s not responsible.
‘I’ve got four grandchildren and it’s wonderful that when they come to visit they are not confined to indoors,’ says Mrs Hedges, 72.
In addition, she has the use of one of six allotments, which, she says, are ‘the size of a double bed’, but still big enough for her to harvest a good crop of runner beans, mangetout, beetroot and rhubarb.
‘The beds are raised, which makes it much easier to do the work, and I take a lot of pride in what I produce,’ she says.
Two-bedroom flats at an Audley village cost anywhere from £350,000 to £650,000, depending on the area.
Each village places an emphasis on the outdoor space and there is always an opportunity to volunteer in the garden.
The nonagenarian editor and writer Diana Athill, who only discovered gardening in her 60s, has quoted an aunt who was still gardening well into her 90s: ‘I’m all right so long as I’ve got my hoe and bucket.’