Aspens is Seeking Gardening Volunteers

Based in Pembury, Tunbridge Wells

Aspens is looking for gardening volunteers to maintain our beautiful grounds and look after our prize-winning Natural Affinity Garden from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Aspens provides high quality care and support to people on the autism spectrum and with learning disabilities; and their families; meeting their needs and aspirations and empowering them to learn and grow through an integrated network of services across the South-East.

Our gardening volunteers support the charity by helping to maintain our outdoor spaces through weeding, pruning and general maintenance of our gardens. We also have our own horticultural area where we support the people who attend our day opportunities to grow and care for a range of flowers, fruits and vegetables.

As a gardening volunteer your tasks could include:

• Watering, planting, weeding and pruning
• Maintaining flower beds
• Creating/improving/maintaining our sensory garden spaces
• Hand weeding, hoeing, raking, staking, dead heading, tying-in plants and cutting back the flower and shrub borders and hedging
• Digging over, mulching and manuring borders
• Helping to maintain the silver-gilt medal winning RHS Chelsea garden that is being rebuilt at our site

What we offer you:

• A sense of satisfaction and belonging, knowing you are helping the people supported by Aspens, their families and the front line carers who support them to enjoy the outdoors and have safe spaces to socialise or spend time in quiet contemplation
• Enjoyment of meeting a variety of new people
• Opportunity for others to learn and benefit from your skills and experiences
• Work experience to help build skills for your CV
• 25% discounts of our charity shops and 20% of the main menu in our lovely Bluebell Café (Pembury site)

Time Commitment:

For this role, we ask that volunteers should be prepared to make a regular commitment, allowing for flexible working to suit personal availability, but taking into account the seasonal requirements of a garden.