Scented garden taking shape in Castle Park

The previously neglected sensory and herb garden next to St Peter’s Church in Castle Park is being turned into a physic garden.

The transformation is already well underway, thanks to volunteers from homeless charity St Mungo’s Broadway in Bristol and London perfumery Jo Malone, who have been working with select charities to transform public spaces around the UK into beautiful, scented gardens.

“All the charities we deal with people who have had a rough start in life,” says Jo Malone’s Holly Rowlands.

The project is funded by the sale of their annual charity candle – this year rhubarb and lilac.

“All of the money from the sale, less VAT goes into funding these projects,” Holly adds. “There are statistics the NHS have released – if everyone had access to green space, they’d save £2.1 billion a year in health costs.”

“A lot of things that feature in our colognes and candles, things like white jasmine and mint, peony and blush suede, you can find all of these elements in our garden across the country, so it was a real natural fit for us.”

  Holly Rowlands from Jo Malone  

While the volunteers work on the gardens, they are also working towards gaining qualifications in gardening and landscaping. In fact, in their first garden in London’s Battersea Park as many as 70 percent of the volunteers went on to work in gardening fields. 

Bristol volunteer Paul Chittock was introduced to the project through St Mungo’s and has already landed himself a full-time gardening job.

Rubyjo Narbey works for St Mungo’s Bristol and is the gardener trainer. It’s her job to put the volunteers through their qualifications.

“We’ve got five people who are doing the qualifications, but we have about nine people helping on the garden at the moment. Because they’re in dry houses or in recovery, it’s something to do with their time – it’s great.”

Gardener trainer, Rubyjo Narbey and volunteer, Paul Chittock  

Barbara Owens volunteers at the garden three days a week, working towards her APT awards.

“I went to the graduation day at St Mungo’s last year and Rubyjo told me about the project, and I thought I need to do something like that! I like the idea of going to university now to do the horticultural exams.”

“It’s the whole caboodle – academically and therapeutically, it’s brilliant. It’s focused my mind, anyway. This project is important to not just me, but everyone that we work with. 

“It’s a team event and the fact that we’ve all come from all walks of life, whether we’re homeless, not homeless. It’s just amazing to work with all the guys and I’ve got some fantastic friends out of it all as well.”

Volunteer Barbara Owens

The garden is expected to be finished in June, but the public are welcome to take a walk through the scented garden and follow their progress.