The Greenfingers Charity, the national children’s charity transforming outdoor spaces in children’s hospices across the UK, has unveiled its 2026 appeal - Healing Hand, Helping Hearts - a powerful call to action designed to harness the restorative power of nature to support life-limited children and their families. Launched at a time of significant financial pressure across the hospice sector, the appeal is a cornerstone of the charity’s long-term ambition to raise £1 million a year, ensuring that every children’s hospice in need can benefit from a therapeutic garden.
Why gardens matter in hospice care
Children’s hospices provide extraordinary care, compassion and support for children with life-limiting conditions and their families. Yet outdoor spaces are often overlooked or underfunded, despite the profound impact that access to nature can have on physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. Thoughtfully designed gardens offer children opportunities for play and sensory stimulation, family moments of calm and connection away from the bedside, and care teams vital spaces for reflection and respite.
The Greenfingers Charity exists to ensure these outdoor environments are recognised not as a ‘nice to have’, but as an essential part of holistic hospice care.
“Our gardens are about far more than planting and landscaping,” said Boyd Douglas-Davies - Chairman at The Greenfingers Charity. “They help to create moments of joy, peace and togetherness at the most difficult times. Through the Healing Hand, Helping Hearts Appeal, we’re inviting individuals, groups and businesses across the UK to help us create gardens that reach more hospices, support more families and secure the future of our vital work for years to come.”
Building a sustainable future for hospice gardens
Since 1999, the Greenfingers Charity has created over 70 bespoke gardens in children’s hospices across the UK, each uniquely designed in close collaboration with hospice teams to meet the needs of children, families and carers. Yet demand for these vital therapeutic spaces continues to grow, and Greenfingers currently has a waiting list of children’s hospices seeking support to provide gardens that offer a place to play, learn, grow, care and remember.
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The Healing Hand, Helping Hearts Appeal aims not only to fund the creation of new gardens, but also to establish a sustainable funding model that supports the long-term care, maintenance and evolution of existing spaces. This approach ensures that gardens remain safe, accessible and meaningful for many years to come.
How to get involved
This new appeal calls on individuals, community groups, corporate partners and supporters from across the horticulture industry and beyond to play their part.
Opportunities to get involved include fundraising, making a donation, raising awareness, donating gifts in kind, partnering with the charity at a local or national level and so much more.
By building long-term, sustainable support, Greenfingers aims to become a widely recognised national charity, not only within the garden industry and among garden lovers who understand the restorative and therapeutic power of nature, but also across the hospice and healthcare sectors, ensuring that therapeutic gardens continue to be an integral part of children’s hospice care.
To find out more about the Healing Hand, Helping Hearts Appeal and how to support The Greenfingers Charity, visit: www.greenfingerscharity.org.uk/get-involved/healing-hand-helping-hearts
