You can help RNIB to win the People's Choice Awards at RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year.
Paul Hervey Brookes has designed a sensory garden to exhibit at the show. The theme is
the experience of the senses.
Vote online for the RNIB Garden
If you aren't able to go to the show itself then we will be tweeting live from Chelsea via www.twitter.com/RNIB and treating you to pictures on our Facebook page. You can cast your vote at the RHS website.
Why have RNIB made a garden?
The RNIB Garden celebrates the redevelopment of the RNIB Pears Centre for Specialist Learning (formerly known as Rushton School and Children's Home). The Centre provides individualised care, education and therapies to children with complex needs and sight problems. The children at the Centre were the inspiration for the garden.
RNIB aims to build awareness and understanding of what it's like to live without sight by providing visitors, no matter what their range of vision, with a deeper experience of texture and sound.
Hervey-Brookes will focus on using materials that have textural qualities, left in as natural a state as possible. The garden will provide a space where raw natural components are fused with textural plants and contrasting colours to create a stimulating voyage of discovery where visitors feel compelled to take off their shoes and connect with their surroundings on a deeper level.
What happens after the show is over?
After the show, the garden will form a central part of the outdoor space at the RNIB Pears Centre and enjoyed by young people with complex needs and sight problems day after day.
Lesley-Anne Alexander, Chief Executive at RNIB, said: "RNIB is really excited to be involved with RHS Chelsea Flower Show. All the children have been learning about the event and getting to know the flowers and plants that will be in the garden. They're really looking forward to the garden being transferred to its permanent home."
Garden designer, Paul Hervey-Brookes, said: "Chelsea is possibly the most prestigeous and adrenaline fueled event in the gardening calendar. I feel that the RNIB Garden is not only something the children at the Centre will enjoy but also one that will help others to empathise with blind and partially sighted people. I am thrilled to be involved with RNIB and at Chelsea once again."