On Wednesday 26th April, residents across the Excelcare Family took part in our annual gardening event dubbed the ‘Plantathon’.
The Plantathon is a competitive gardening competition, which challenges residents and team members to spend the day renovating their outdoor space and getting their gardens ready for summer. The Plantathon also encourages residents to spend the day surrounded by nature, showing off their skills and learning some new ones too. This in turn has a positive effect on their wellbeing and the thought of being crowned a winner adds to the excitement.
Each year, Excelcare COO, Sam Manning sets a different theme, with the aim to challenge people’s skills in different ways. Lots of people living in Excelcare homes share a passion for gardening as it’s something they have done throughout their lives, so encouraging them to put these skills to use helps preserve their sense of identity and bring back some fond memories in the process.
This year, the theme was homegrown, so residents were challenged to create a vegetable patch and plant different fruits and vegetables within it, so when the crops have grown, they can be used by the kitchen team in home-cooked recipes. The second part of the challenge was to make the vegetable patch attractive and colourful so it stands out in their green spaces.
On the day of the Plantathon it was unfortunately quite cold and gloomy outside, so lots of people opted to plant their fruit and vegetable seeds in pots and planters, ready for the team to arrange outside in the garden. Residents really enjoyed getting involved in the Plantathon this year, and team members said planting their own fruits and vegetables has really added excitement to this summer project, as they get to witness the whole process, from planting the seeds, to maintaining them through the summer months, then finally tasting them on their plates during mealtimes.
COO Sam Manning then had the difficult task of choosing a winning home for the best vegetable patch creation. It was a tough decision, but she awarded first place to The Willows Care Home. There were many pictures of residents smiling and putting their all into the Plantathon, so this secured their first-place finish!
It was a really successful event and residents now look forward to watching their crops grow!
Scroll through our gallery below to explore pictures from our most recent Plantathon event.
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