Scotts Miracle-Gro Christmas Cards Benefit Charity

7th January 2010, by Dan Walford

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has doubled the sum and the number of charities it supports thanks to the savings it makes by sending Christmas e-cards to their customers, suppliers and friends instead of sending printed cards by post.

Scotts were supported by their design agency, Design Hive Ltd, Farnham who contributed by waiving the creation costs, putting together an animated e-card incorporating Scotts’ own message together with the logos of Greenfingers and Gardening Leave.

For the fourth year running Scotts has donated £1000 to the garden industry’s own charity, Greenfingers, that creates havens of gardening peace in the grounds of children’s Hospices. In addition Scotts has also adopted a new gardening charity called Gardening Leave with a similar sum. Gardening Leave provides horticultural therapy to ex-service men and women in a protected walled garden provided by the Scottish Agricultural College in Auchincruive, Ayrshire. The charity is the brainchild of Anna Baker Cresswell, a horticultural therapist who offers places to the residents of nearby Hollybush House, the Scottish residential home of Combat Stress, the ex-services mental welfare society that treats veterans with psychological problems.

Anna told Scotts, “The idea is to provide former servicemen and women with a secure environment where they can garden, assessing their needs and abilities and encouraging them to work on projects that produce tangible results, and work together as a team. Gardening is a fantastic catalyst in the healing process of these people who have developed combat stress problems while fighting for their country.”

And Gardening Leave continues to go from strength to strength. A research team from Glasgow University have been conducting a study into the psychological effects on veterans of working in the garden, and the plan is to roll out the Gardening Leave model at other veteran homes across the UK, starting with the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, and introducing similar projects at Combat Stress’s other two residential homes, Tyrwhitt House in Leatherhead and Audley Court at Newport in Shropshire.

Martin Breddy, VP and General Manager at Scotts, said, “We have been delighted to send a ‘green’ Christmas card this year and thus be able to continue our support of Greenfingers and additionally this year give help to Gardening Leave, a horticultural charity that is doing such positive work with ex-service people who get real benefit from growing plants.”

Freshness: 65 days ago

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