Mind Garden: Green fingered Cadent employee raises both awareness and cash for mental health help

• Long serving employee plants new garden feature in Slough car park
• Event raised over £500 for mental health charity Mind
• Benefits of eco-therapy also highlighted

A green fingered Cadent employee has planted a new mixed border in a Slough car park while also raising over £500 for charity.

Phil Muller both designed and planted the splendid new garden feature in the car park of Cadent’s Slough offices.

Featuring a glorious cavalcade of grasses, shrubs and herbaceous perennials on a raised bed, the new mixed border makes for a colourful welcome to visitors to the office.

However the new feature is more than just a pretty visitor attraction as Phil explained: “I wanted to raise awareness of mental health issues.”

Phil, 58, from Edgware has worked for Cadent and its predecessors since 1977, and has experience of dealing with both depression and psychosis.

He said: “There’s a lot of stigma attached to mental illness but the fact is approximately one quarter of the UK population will experience a mental health problem each year. In England in any given week one in six people report experiencing a common mental health problem such as anxiety or depression.”

“It’s important that people aren’t afraid to talk about these issues and that they are also aware of the help and support that is available to them.”

Phil, a passionate gardener who completed a landscape design course at Capel Manor College in Enfield some years ago, is an advocate of Ecotherapy, which aims to improve people’s mental and physical wellbeing through outdoor activities in nature.

He said: “Connecting with nature can help people deal with existing mental health problems and also help stop them reoccurring.

“It can be done either on its own or alongside other treatments.”

The money Phil raised will be going to Mind, the mental health charity for England and Wales, he said: “I’d like to thank everyone who contributed – I didn’t expect to raise over £500!”

For more information on Mind visit www.mind.org.uk