The Thrive Trunkwell Garden Project is located in beautiful countryside in the village of Beech Hill, near Reading, Berkshire, and is set in a Victorian walled garden next to Thrive’s National Office.
Thrive therapists work with more than 100 disabled people each year ranging in age from 14 to 70 years. Thrive gardeners travel to the Project from across Berkshire, North Hampshire, Surrey and South Oxfordshire. They may have learning disabilities, mental health needs including dementia, a physical disability or a sensory disability such as partial sight or deafness.
The Garden is designed to help disabled gardeners develop their skills with a variety of plants and has areas for growing herbs, fruit and vegetables, butterfly and woodland gardens, a glasshouse and polytunnels, a bee border a tree nursery, a large wildlife pond and a shop selling plants grown at the Project. We also offer an alternative curriculum for young people aged 14 to 16 on a nationally recognised vocational qualification.
A £60,000 fundraising appeal at Trunkwell is underway to fund the construction of the 'Garden Gallery’ - five small new gardens with each showing people with particular disabilities how they can make a garden work for them. Find out more about the Trunkwell appeal - five new gardens to help people thrive.
The Thrive Trunkwell Garden Project is approved to offer City and Guilds vocational qualifications to Level 1 and we are always delighted when Thrive gardeners move on to further study, to use their skills as a volunteer or to get a job in horticulture.
In addition to the Project’s work with Thrive gardeners on site, the Trunkwell Garden Project also delivers a number of restricted income projects helping disabled people across a wider area.
For more information on the way we can help disabled people, click on the links below or contact Sue Tabor, Garden Manager, on 0118 988 4844.