Background St Columba’s Hospice Care in Edinburgh began Compassionate Neighbours in early 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic broke. As the pandemic eased, Compassionate Neighbours moved from telephone support to being able to meet face-to-face with those living with life-limiting conditions across our communities. The Compassionate Neighbours team soon noticed a recurrent theme emerging from feedback from our people in the community, that a real cause of emotional distress was their inability to maintain their much-loved gardens. Many shared that they were also unable to access the garden due to overgrown plants, hanging branches or uneven paths and they missed seeing the garden birds on now empty birdfeeders. This sense of loss was deeply felt, and several spoke of the detrimental effect to their health and sense of wellbeing. Where once their gardens were a source of pride and joy, of memories past with glories of colour, they were now just another loss to bear.

Aims To add joy and help restore a sense of wellbeing by offering gardening support to those living with a palliative condition at home for a season, for a reason or lifetime.

Methods After sharing our feedback across the hospice, we created a new community-based volunteer role in late 2022, Compassionate Gardeners. They offer a range of gardening services, from regular visits throughout the season to ‘team attacks’ for larger jobs.

Results It’s early days and we continue to receive heartwarming feedback. Our wonderful team of six volunteers maintained 14 gardens over 320 ½ days across the 2023 season. Garden owners expressed their joy at ‘having their garden back’, felt their wellbeing greatly improved with many joining in to potter alongside the Compassionate Gardener (Marie Curie. Campaign highlights the therapeutic value of gardening for those with terminal illness. [Press release] 6 October 2017; Pilgrem. BMJ Support Palliat Care. 2023;13(3):323–326).

Conclusion Compassionate Gardeners make an immediate and heartwarming impact on the lives of those we support.