.png)
A YEAR IN THE GARDEN FOR GIRLS
A place to grow things.
And somewhere to grow into yourself.
A year-long garden-based wellbeing experience for girls aged 12–17.
In a tiny group of just three to five girls,
A Year in the Garden offers something increasingly rare: regular time outdoors, meaningful things to do with your hands, familiar faces, real responsibility and somewhere you don’t have to perform.
Across the seasons, the girls garden together.
They sow seeds and grow food. Propagate plants. Make decisions. Cook and eat. Notice wildlife. Get things wrong. Try again.
Look after something over time.
Sit around the table and talk — or sometimes don’t.
And gradually, without constantly being asked to talk about themselves, they begin to experience what it feels like to become more capable, more connected and more trusting of their own judgement.
· Autumn 2027
· South East London
Growing up asks a lot of girls
Twelve to seventeen can be a noisy age.
School. Expectations. Friendships. Social media. Family. Appearance. Achievement.
Decisions about who you are and who you might become.
A Year in the Garden doesn’t offer another set of answers.
It offers a different kind of space.
Somewhere slower.
Somewhere practical.
Somewhere a girl can be interested, quiet, funny, uncertain, capable, muddy, curious, frustrated or completely absorbed in what she’s doing.
She doesn’t have to arrive with a problem to solve.
She simply has to be willing to take part.
Why the garden?
Because a garden gives us something real to respond to.
A seedling needs potting on whether we’ve had a good day or a bad one.
The strawberries ripen when they are ready.
Something carefully planted may fail.
Something almost forgotten about may suddenly flower.
There are decisions to make, jobs that matter, things to notice and visible evidence that what we do makes a difference.
And within that ordinary work, something deeper can happen.
SELF-TRUST
As their knowledge grows, they are increasingly encouraged to look and think before asking.
Does this need watering?
Is this ready to harvest?
What do you think this plant needs?
Kaye remains there to guide them, but the aim is gradually to need less guidance.
BELONGING
The same small group returns to the same garden across an entire year.
There is time to become familiar.
To have shared jokes.
To remember what was planted where.
To sit around the same table.
To feel: I have a place here.
Therapeutically informed
— without becoming therapy
A Year in the Garden has been created with emotional wellbeing at its heart.
But it is not therapy, and girls are never expected to analyse their feelings or disclose personal experiences.
There will be opportunities for reflection and conversation, but no expectation to perform vulnerability.
Sometimes meaningful conversations happen naturally while two people are planting seedlings side by side.
Sometimes the table conversation will be about school, friendships or something that’s been on someone’s mind.
And sometimes it will be about music, tomatoes, ridiculous teachers or whether slugs have any redeeming qualities whatsoever.
All of those conversations belong.
The therapeutic quality comes from the whole experience: time in nature, sensory engagement, meaningful activity, learning and mastery, choice, responsibility, creativity, shared food, consistent relationships and contributing to a place that changes because you were there.
Becoming a gardener
The gardening itself is real.
The girls learn to sow and propagate, prick out and pot on, prepare soil, plant, water, feed, support crops, use tools safely, harvest food, cut flowers, save seed and begin recognising what a garden needs without always being told.
There is no rush to master everything.
They have something much more valuable:
Time.
A whole gardening year.
And as the months pass, Kaye gradually steps back.
At the beginning, the question may be: “Kaye, what are we doing today?”
Later, it may become: “Those tomatoes need tying in.”
That change matters
Growing Something
of her own
Near the beginning of the programme, every girl is asked:
What is something you would genuinely love to eat
that we could try to grow here?
That choice becomes her own growing project.
Perhaps strawberries.
Tomatoes.
Sugar snap peas.
Potatoes.
Or something none of us expected.
A garden shaped
by the girls
There is a plan for the year, but it isn’t a rigid curriculum. Gardens don’t work like that.
The weather changes.
Plants behave unpredictably.
Opportunities appear.
And the girls themselves bring ideas.
They help decide what else should be grown, how available space should be used, what to do with surplus seedlings, what might be cooked from a harvest and what they would like to contribute to the garden.
If propagation leaves us with more healthy plants than we need, some might go home, some may be donated, and some may become part of the girls’ own small plant sale. Anything raised can contribute towards something the group chooses to experience together.
The point isn’t to create little entrepreneurs.
It is to experience the full cycle of growing something useful and deciding what happens to it next.
gardening Through a whole year
Autumn
— Arriving & Belonging
Getting to know the garden.
Preparing soil. Planting bulbs. Saving seed. Choosing something to grow and beginning to understand how the garden and the group works.
Winter
— Tending, Making & Imagining
Discovering that a quiet garden is still a living garden. Propagation, observation, planning, botanical making, tool care, good food and slower time around the table.
Spring
— Starting & Growing
Seed trays fill. Seedlings need attention. Decisions have to be made.
Food and flowers are sown and planted, wildlife becomes more visible and the garden begins asking more of us.
Summer
— Tending, Harvesting & Abundance
Watering. Feeding. Supporting. Harvesting. Cooking. Cutting flowers. Long-light sessions, a plant sale and increasingly independent gardening.
And eventually comes the strange realisation: we have been here for a whole year.
Two books
Two completely different purposes
Every girl receives her own BLISS & Bloom Gardener’s Notebook.
This is her working book, and it travels home with her.
It might contain plant names, questions, sowing dates, propagation instructions, sketches, ideas,
things she wants to remember and things she wants to ask next time.
It isn’t homework.
Nobody is marking it.
And by the end of the year, we hope it looks exactly like a gardener’s notebook should: used.
Alongside it, something else is quietly being created.
Her Year in the Garden Book
Throughout the year, the girls create individual pages, drawings, planting plans, recipes, reflections and other pieces.
Kaye also gathers photographs and small fragments of their time in the garden — perhaps a seed packet, a pressed flower, the first harvest, something created for a gathering or a handwritten note about a moment worth remembering.
The girls know their year is being collected.
What they don’t see is the finished book.
At the end of the programme, those pieces are brought together into each girl’s own scrapbook-style Year in the Garden Book.
For the first time, she gets to see the whole year together.
And from that moment, the book belongs entirely to her.
Food,
the table
& time together
Food is woven naturally into the programme.
After school, there is time to arrive, change if necessary and eat something before heading into the garden.
At the end of the practical work, tools are cleaned, the garden is put back in order and the group returns to the table.
Sometimes we’re eating something we grew.
Sometimes we’re making something from a harvest Kaye had to pick and save between sessions because strawberries don’t understand fortnightly timetables.
And sometimes we’re simply hungry.
The table matters because wellbeing isn’t only found in reflection.
Sometimes it is found in being fed, laughing with people you know, having somewhere familiar to sit and knowing that in two weeks’ time, you’ll be back.
Special
days
in the garden
Alongside the regular fortnightly sessions are four longer seasonal gatherings.
These are the days with a little more room.
More time for gardening. Cooking together. Flowers. Seasonal projects. Beautiful food. Long summer light. Or a warm winter table after working outside.
During the first three gatherings, each girl has an opportunity to collaborate individually with Kaye as a co-host — perhaps helping choose food, arrange flowers, prepare the table or shape part of the experience for the other girls.
By the final gathering, they have all done it.
And together, the girls help host the celebration that marks the completion of their year.
Completing
somethings
matters
A year is a meaningful commitment.
So completing it deserves to be recognised.
During their final ordinary garden day, the girls work, harvest, revisit the things they planted and notice how differently they now move through a garden that was unfamiliar when they first arrived.
Then comes the Year in the Garden Celebration.
Parents and carers join for part of the gathering.
Each girl is recognised individually for what she has brought to the garden and is presented with her completed Year in the Garden Book and a beautiful certificate marking her year.
There are no rankings.
No “best gardener”.
No competition over who changed the most.
Completing the year is the achievement.
Group Information
Age: 12–17
Group size: 3–5 participants
Begins: Autumn 2027
Location: BLISS & Bloom private garden, South East London
Core programme: 20 fortnightly after-school sessions during term time
Plus: 4 longer seasonal gatherings
Experience needed: None
Sessions are generally around two to two-and-a-half hours during the darker months and may extend towards three hours in the lighter seasons.
The same small group remains together throughout the year.
Investment
£2,500 for the full year
The investment includes the complete year-long programme:
20 core sessions, four special seasonal gatherings,
gardening materials and consumables, the BLISS & Bloom Gardener’s Notebook, individual Year in the Garden Book,
all food and refreshments, and the end-of-year celebration.
Payment may be made in full or in three instalments:
£1,000 before the programme begins
£750 at the beginning of the spring term
£750 at the beginning of the summer term
What it's like to work with me?
You can arrive exactly as you are: curious, quiet, unsure, chatty, thoughtful, funny, tired after school or not quite sure what to expect.
You don’t need to know anything about gardening.
You don’t have to be confident, especially outdoorsy or good at talking about how you feel.
We’ll start where you are, and we’ll find our way together.
Working with me will feel practical, relaxed and encouraging.
I’ll show you how to do things properly, then give you space to have a go, ask questions, make decisions and sometimes work things out for yourself.
I won’t hover.
But I won’t leave you feeling lost either.
Sometimes I’ll teach.
Sometimes I’ll ask, “What do you think?”
Sometimes we’ll work quietly.
Sometimes we’ll laugh around the table.
Sometimes you might arrive with something you really want to tell me.
And sometimes the biggest conversation of the afternoon might be about strawberries, music, school, ridiculous teachers or what on earth has eaten the lettuces.
You never have to perform here.
You don’t have to be the loudest person in the group.
You don’t have to have the right answer.
And you definitely don’t have to pretend you know what you’re doing.
Gardens are full of things that go wrong.
We learn, adjust and carry on.
As the year goes on, I’ll encourage you to notice more, decide more and trust what you already know.
And for parents and carers…
I know that inviting another adult into your young person’s life requires trust.
My responsibility is not only to teach gardening. It is to create a space that feels welcoming, appropriately held and emotionally safe.
Your young person will be part of a very small group where they can be known as an individual rather than disappearing into a crowd.
There will be clear boundaries, consistent expectations and an emphasis on safeguarding, respect and appropriate communication throughout the programme.
I will encourage without pushing. Listen without prying.
Offer support without assuming that every difficult day needs to become a conversation. And take seriously the responsibility of creating an environment where young people can feel comfortable asking questions, making mistakes, trying unfamiliar things and being themselves.
They will have the chance to build confidence through real experiences rather than simply being asked to “be more confident”.
That might look like staying with a task that initially felt difficult.
Speaking up with an idea. Trying something they had never done before.
Asking for help when they need it. Helping someone else.
Or simply beginning to recognise: I can do this.
These changes may be quiet and gradual.
That is absolutely fine.
A Year in the Garden isn’t about trying to turn young people into a particular kind of person.
It is about giving them somewhere they can feel welcomed, taken seriously and trusted with something real.
Somewhere they can learn.
Laugh.
Get muddy.
Contribute.
Belong.
And grow at their own pace.
a few things you might be wondering
Could This Be Right For Your Daughter?
A Year in the Garden isn’t only for girls who already love gardening.
And it isn’t only for girls who are struggling.
It may suit a girl who would enjoy having somewhere steady and welcoming to return to. Somewhere she can learn useful things, have genuine choices, work with her hands, spend time outside, contribute to something real and gradually become more confident in what she knows and can do.
She doesn’t need to be particularly outgoing.
She doesn’t need to be creative.
She doesn’t need to know anything about plants.
She just needs to be open to joining in.
Because ultimately, this isn’t about fixing girls.
It's about creating the conditions in which they have room to flourish.
