Started in 2015, the Recovery Garden Group is run by volunteers to support people in recovery from substance misuse. The project is supported by Aberdeen City Council who provide a polytunnel where the group meet.

Each year a core group of participants decide what they want to grow at the start of the season and then plant, care for and harvest the produce to either use themselves or give to other vulnerable people in the community.

The group have participated in Keep Scotland Beautiful, ‘It’s your neighbourhood’ and helped the 2019 Aberdeen entry for Britain in Bloom by partnering with the Council and others to provide small planters for shop keepers as well as maintaining a larger planter dedicated to people who have lost their lives due to addiction, planted with flowers and plants that reflect hope and remembrance.

Involvement with the project also led to some group members becoming beekeepers with the Aberdeen Urban Bee project and taking an interest in ensuring the plants they grow are pollinator friendly.

On the 16th of March 2021, the project was awarded with the prestigious Horticultural Groups Award from The Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society.

Find out more at

alcoholanddrugsaction.org.uk

Mental Health Awareness Week 2021