SERVICE DETAILS
Our Community Garden grow food, build communities and improve health and wellbeing.
Open 7 days a week we hope you’ll visit us soon.
We have two beautiful Community Gardens that we run in partnership with NHS Lothian - Royal Edinburgh Community Hospital garden and Midlothian Community Hospital garden. Both gardens are open every day to members of the public, with volunteer and groupwork programmes running on weekdays.
Our teams deliver gardening outreach sessions on hospital wards across Edinburgh and the Lothians. We also provide placement opportunities for students in Allied Health Care settings, Horticulture, Garden Design and Outdoor Education.
At the Community Gardens we focus on welcoming people experiencing mental or physical health problems, disadvantage, isolation or poverty. The gardens offer people fantastic opportunities to grow food, socialise and improve general health and wellbeing.
Who are the gardens for?
We welcome enquiries from anyone interested in using the Community Gardens. Everyone is welcome, including:
- Visitors: it’s free to come and look around, you may also like to pick up a plant or too from our cart.
- Inpatients and outpatients: we have a range of therapeutic activities, and run social prescribing programmes
- Volunteers: we have lots of opportunities to get involved at the gardens, green thumbs and beginners are welcome. Find out more about volunteering at our garden - https://cyrenians.scot/support-us/volunteer.
- Community groups: we can organise volunteering days for local established groups – simply get in touch using the details below to chat about how we can work together.
- Companies: we run tailored corporate team building days for organisations from all sectors. Visit our Corporate Volunteering page for more information.
What do the gardens offer?
The Community Gardens offer people a chance to:
- Grow and eat local food
- Learn and develop new skills
- Meet other people and socialise
- Learn about the environment
- Take part in fun team building activities
- Aid their recovery through therapeutic, hands-on green activities
- Keep fit and healthy and become more active
- Spend time in and enjoy a beautiful outdoor space.
If you’d like to find out more, or get in touch with us about working together you can contact us by emailing:
Royal Edinburgh community hospital garden - recg@cyrenians.scot
