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Allotments
Every local council in the UK has to provide a proportion of allotments according to the size of the population. Your local Council may have a specialist Allotments Officer. The Council may refer you to its own allotments or a local Allotment Society.
Allotment & Garden Guides - Ministry of Agriculture
Allotment growing for allotment holders and gardeners
Allotments UK - sources of information, advice and experience on allotment gardening
Hens on Allotments in the UK - hen-keeping is allowed on all Council allotments in England and Wales. Hens on allotments in Scotland
National Trust land for allotments - the UK Trust is offering to share land with would-be allotment gardeners. TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has set up a
landshare web site where gardeners can be matched up to plots of land.
Allotment gardeners reap healthy rewards (11/27/2010) - a study shows the benefits of working an allotment, particularly for those over 60.
Books (including accessible formats)
Links here are to Amazon, but you can use the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) to search for them elsewhere if you wish.
Able to Garden by Peter Please. Pub. Batsford, 1990. ISBN: 0713461373. The success of horticultural therapy.
Accessible Gardening: Tips and Techniques for Seniors and the Disabled - by Joann Woy - ISBN: 0811726525. Making gardens easier, advice on tools and low-maintenance plants, raised-beds, watering and pest-control, paths inclines and railings, and the benefits of gardening.
All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space! - by Mel Bartholomew. This is a popular system of gardening among blind and disabled gardeners.
Gardening: an Equipment Guide (Equipment for Disabled People) by F. Walden. Pub. Disability Information Trust, 1997. ISBN: 187377317X
Grow It Yourself: Gardening with a Physical Disability by Roddy Llewellyn and Anne Davies, pub. Cedar Books. 1993. ISBN: 0749314311. Planning, tools and low-maintenance plants.
Landscape Design for elderly and Disabled People - Jane Stoneham and Peter Thoday. Pub. Garden Art Press, 1999. ISBN: 1870673204. Mainly aimed at professionals in the care and design fields who plan for these "clients".
Audio Books and Magazines
Audible is one of the largest purveyors of downloadable audio books. titles include "An Evening with Alan Titchmarsh" and ""Spiritual Gardening: Cultivating Love through Caring for Plants"
T N A U K - Talking Newspapers and Magazines - provides national papers and magazines on tape and in digital formats, including mp3 and DAISY. The choices on offer include gardening titles. Subscriptions start at £30 a year, and you can buy in more publications if you want.
Disabled Gardeners
Amazon: new items tagged 'disability' 'gardening'
anAurora: the quarterly Internet Magazine for the disAbled Woman includes gardening tips and features.
Back in the Garden - Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired (NCBVI) - taking on a garden may seem like a daunting task at first, but here are some hints to get you started.
Blind Gardener of the Year Competition, 2010
Blind Seniors Garden Too -= Pat Munson recounts her life learning the techniques and pleasures of gardening.
Carry On Gardening - practical information about gardening with a disability. The site has a section on tools for easier gardening, and ways of contacting other disabled gardeners.
Come Gardening - quarterly magazine for visually impaired gardeners, published by Thrive in the UK.
Download a free copy (Word format).
Desert Year: Gardening Blind - some reflections on what it's like to garden without sight.
Different Shades of Green - "Amargia is a group of variously disabled people, but we do not discriminate against T.A.P's. (Temporarily Able-bodied Persons)".
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Digging in the Dirt: Container gardening from Fred's Head Companion.
Fred's Head Blog - Gardening in a Square Foot
Gardening for blind or partially sighted people - what's on offer at thrive.org.uk. Also Visit
Thrive ~Charity on Twitter.
Gardening for Young Visually Impaired or Multi-Impaired Children
Gardening for Disabled Trust - voluntary trust that gives advice and grants so that people can carry on with gardening when they have a disability. The Trust runs the
Garden Club, which published a newsletter 3 times a year. Subscription £5 individuals, £12 groups.
Gardening Tips - advice from Kent Association for the Blind.
Gardening Tips If You are Blind or Have Low Vision | VisionAWARE
[DOC] Gardening information pack - RNIB
Getting On with Gardening -Two books on the basics of gardening with a visual impairment.
National Blind Gardeners' Club - £9 per year membership fee for blind and partially sighted gardeners.
Planters, Containers, and Raised Beds for Accessible Gardening
Purdue University: Gardening for the Blind: Tips for People with Impaired Vision
R N I BGardening Page
Seeing with Other Senses: Gardens for the Blind - an overall introduction with examples of some blind gardeners and places in the USA that have blind-friendly gardens.
Susan Tomlin's Disabled Gardening Page - out of date, but some good ideas. This was a Geocities site, now preserved in a web archive.
Teenage gardeners rise to challenge - Liam Flemming and Cory Stubbs, pupils at Highfield School, Ossett, Yorks., have come equal third in the national blind gardeners’ competition. Their garden could provide food for them and niches for wildlife.
The Accessible Friends' Network: Container Gardening Page by Sue Pallett.
Tips for Blind Gardeners from NFB, Idaho.
Garden Supplies
Able Gardener - based in Perth, Scotland, they stock a range of clothing, tools and gadgets for gardeners.
Benefitsnow Shop Gardening - gardening section.
Crocus.co.uk - over 4,000 plants to choose from. You can search for the plants you want using a search facility that actually works! Other gardening materials and equipment are also available from the site.
Disabled Living Foundation - you can search here for products to make life easier, including gardening accessories. Helpline 0845 130 9177
Garden Tools for All Seasons - Disabled Gardening - the focus here is on gardeners with physical disabilities, but some of the tools listed here may be useful for anyone who doesn't want to strain themselves in the garden!
PETA Easi-Grip (UK): Ergonomic Tools, Arthritis Aids and Assistive Devices carry a range of tools for use in the kitchen and garden. Their video presentation may or may not be useful to some blind people.
Sightless man gardens by touch - Robert Wilson, who has macular degeneration, manages a 1-acre garden.
Horticultural therapy
The definition of horticultural therapy is "the process which uses plants, horticultural activities and the natural world to promote awareness and well-being by improving the body, mind and spirit. Horticultural therapy is universal, adaptable and validated by research."
Horticulture: Meeting the Needs of Special Populations - explores people-plant interactions and tries to clear up the confusion about what horticultural therapy is.
Human Issues in Horticulture - articles on therapeutic gardening, community and children's horticulture.
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Smell the Roses: How Gardening Can Improve Your Health - some of the proven benefits of gardening for physical and mental health.
Miscellaneous
About.com Gardening Page - start here to find a fund of gardening information, and look out for free courses by e-mail.
BBC Radio 4 In Touch, 29 November 2005 (audio requires Real Player or Real Alternative). The programme includes an item on the first Blind Gardener of the Year Competition.
Charities hold blind gardening awards - Jean Herrington, 82, is the 2008 winner of the Blind Gardner of the Year Competition in the UK.
FCFCG (Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens) - the site includes places to visit.
Gardening for Young Visually Impaired or Multi-Impaired Children
Gardens that grow themselves | G-Online, the best of green - Jonathan White introduces ecological vegetable gardening methods that could save you a great deal of work and space. Also visit
Jonathan The Fresh Food Garden Guru. There's an e-book and video tutorial package expaining all this. This can be obtained from
Food4Wealth - about $39 or £27.
Help the Aged produce a leaflet on gardening, available in
PDF and
plain text formats. Help with PDF format
Mini Gardening - gardening in small spaces. Growing vegetables in anything from a box to a small plot.
Patrick J. Collins Unconventional Habits - Blind Gardening - they're playing our tune!
Direct access to movie file (Quicktime format) - A page created by singer/songwriter Patrick J. Collins.
Purdue University, Indiana has a range of agricultural leaflets in
PDF format, some of them suitable for the home gardener. The PDF files are accessible to screen reading software.
Square Foot Gardening - no work (oh yes?) organic gardening using small raised beds. The
squarefootgardening Yahoo! Group is sort-of connected. You may also like to join the
Ft2 community Site
News feed for new Amazon items on Square Foot Gardening
Visually impaired and blind children learn to garden - ANR IMPACT - youth project in San Diego County hosted a summer camp that led to children getting a love of gardening.
Wildlife gardening - Ten tips for a wildlife garden and dozens of recommended plants.
Online Contacts
Ag-eq - This mailing list is for the discussion of the activities of the National Federation of the Blind's Agricultural and Equestrian Division. Topics can include anything related to agricultural and equestrianship fields. Ideas and thoughts on how blind people can begin a career in this field as well as topics of general interest to those employed in various agriculture, and equestrianship operations from a blindness perspective.
Blind Gardener Yahoo! Group - a place to discuss gardening with newcomers and experienced gardeners all over the world. It's easier to join via e-mail than try to sign up at the web site because of Yahoo's visual verification system, which is a nightmare for visually impaired people. To join the group, send a blank e-mail to
[email protected]
Blind Gardeners mailing list on Topica -
Subscribe to Blind gardeners list on Topica - not sure whether this is still active. Don't enter a subject or any body text in your e-mail when you're trying to subscribe.
Dave's Garden: Accessible Gardening: SF Program: Gardening for the Blind and Visually Impaired - there are other disability gardening discussion on the site.
Gardening Organically Yahoo! group.
GardenGuides Forums several forums and a chat room, garden links.
GardenWeb Forums
There are many forums on
GardenWeb, including:-
Gardening Forum on ChatEVO!
Square Foot Gardening - People who work the earth a foot at a time! Making the most of small spaces.
Therapeutic Gardening - a Yahoo! group.
Sensory Gardens
A sensory garden is a garden specifically created to be accessible and enjoyable to disabled visitors. It will often, for example, contain features accessible to the blind such as: scented plants, sculptures and sculpted handrails, water features designed to make sound and play over the hands, textured touch-pads, magnifying-glass screens, braille and audio induction loop descriptions. Most sensory gardens devote themselves only to enhancing the pleasure taken in only one or two senses; those specialising in scent are sometimes called scented gardens. There is usually wheelchair access on the paths into and through a sensory garden.
- from
Wikipedia
Add a sensory garden to your landscape to stimulate all five senses - how to plan and start a sensory garden.
BBC News Feed for 'sensory garden' - get the latest stories.
Athelas Exotic Plant Nursery Sensory Gardens Page - From hardy to tropical, this nursery aims to provide something "different" for the garden. Trade accounts available. Trees, shrubs, flowering plants. Large specimen plants, topiary. Based in Ninfield, East Sussex, England. Possibly a source for your sensory garden plants.
RSS Feed
Twitter
Facebook
Blooming good idea to make most of gardens - engineers in Bath, UK, are working with rehab workers to build a 'sensory garden armchair' to enable those with restricted mobility to make the most of sensory garden experiences.
RHS - Campaign for School Gardening - has information on sensory gardens and many other things.
Fragrance Gardening on a New Level - creating a gras garden, that is, one in which perfume rather than visual factors lie behind the gardener's planting decisions.
Fragrant Plants and Selected Gardens
Growing a 'Garden of Five Senses' - "We knew we wanted to have a garden for all the senses, not just for the blind."
Infinitec - Enabling Gardens
Kingsbrae Gardens, St Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, includes a Sense and Sensitivity Garden developed with the CNIB. This has plants with scent and tactile characteristics. Other attractions here include sculpture and a wide variety of plants and animals.
Nanjing Botanic Garden - The Largest Botanical Garden for Visually-Handicapped People in China
New sensory garden in Epping Forest BBC Essex report with
audio clip (audio requires
RealPlayer or
Real Alternative).
Noahs Ark Sensory Garden Pages - principles and purpose of sensory gardens, how to create and plant your own, choice of plants. The site is mainly about wildlife, and of course wildlife makes a valuable contribution to the senses. WARNING: the context menu (or right mouse button option) is not allowed on this site, which may mean some people using some assistive technology could get lost.
Sensory Garden Design Advice from the Sensory Trust in the UK.
Sensory Garden Flowers seeds from Mr Fothergill's Seeds, UK, are one of this merchant's specialist items.
Sensory Garden for Kids - stimulate the 5 senses.
Sensory Trust - a UK charity that works to encourage accessible public spaces. Visit their Sensory Garden Design Advice Pages
Sensory UK - information and supplies for sensory gardens and rooms.
The Sensory Garden Project, Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent.