Garden designer Camellia Taylor (great name for a gardener!) chose our Cornford Lane site as the basis for her final project of her course at the London College of Garden Design at Kew Gardens, after visiting the site with her young children and being impressed by the work the charity does and the beautiful site.

Camellia, who has a Degree in Psychology and has worked with young people with autism, was interested in creating a design to demonstrate how the outdoors can be used to support mental health and explore concepts such as the restorative effect of exercise and water, ‘biophillia’ or how nature can lower blood pressure and the connection between people and the landscape around them.

Camellia’s wonderful vision for the site’s grounds included a wheelchair friendly lifted walkway into the woods, a vineyard, meadow planting, lake pods, a sensory walk and anti-allergen planting. Needless to say, Camellia received an A+ for her design and recently visited us to show us a presentation on the project.

Camellia’s design has given us lots of inspiration about how our Cornford Lane site could be developed and enhanced in a way that would benefit all those who use it enormously.

If you are interested in helping us realise this vision and supporting a project such as this by becoming a funding partner please get in touch with us at: [email protected] 

Camellia Taylor is available for gardening and landscape design projects and can be found on Instagram at @thegardentaylor