Sussex nurseries build living walls for Nightingale hospital

Three West Sussex growers: Farplants, Hills and Newey have donated plants for an initiative run by Richard Sabin of Plant Box to green up and add colour to the temporary Covid-19 Nightingale Hospital at the ExCel.

The growers have planted living walls of plants around the facilities used by NHS nurses and other hospital workers.

The installation was created last Thursday to bring some joy and colour to what is a pretty dire environment for these front line people to be working in. Initial feedback is that this has gone down very well and other hospitals have expressed interest in doing something similar.

Managing director of Farplants, Brett Avery, said, “From my point of view, we at Farplants were so pleased to be involved in this project and be able to ‘give something back’ to these incredible people doing such an amazing job on the front line – hopefully being surrounded by beautiful plants and fragrances can provide some joy and peace in these challenging circumstances.”

£15m of plants at threat of destruction

Farplants were also featured on  BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today. Group strategy director Martin Emmett explained that if the lockdown goes on until the end of June, £15m of plants are likely to have to be destroyed from their nurseries alone. Acres of plants will have to be thrown away.