Dr Karen Groves MBE: ‘The pandemic has shown us the importance of nature and the outdoors’

People have fallen in love with gardening and with outdoor spaces such as parks due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

That’s the view of Queenscourt Hospice founder Dr Karen Groves MBE, as she officially opened the 2022 Southport Flower Show and told the audience that lockdowns had told us just how important nature is to our wellbeing. 

Dr Groves also praised the organisers of the event at Victoria Park in Southport, as it returned following a three year postponement due to the pandemic. 

Southport Flower Show is now looking forward to its 100th anniversary in two years’ time. 

Dr Groves said: “My working life has been spent in palliative care, and at Queenscourt, as everybody knows, caring for those whose life expectancy is short. 

“But, you know, approaching the end of our lives makes the really important things come into sharp focus. 

“That is demonstrated for me in the same way as the Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated for all of us how important nature and the outdoors is for all of us. 

“It has shown us just how important it is to our physical, mental and spiritual health. 

“Garden and park space has acquired an importance that we might not have recognised before. 

“We owe a debt of thanks to all those whose talents go to individualising our own outdoor space, our little garden, our park, our backyard, whatever it is. 

“Many of those are represented here at the Flower Show in the trade stalls or exhibitors who, despite the lean times they have had to endure, are here today and they need our support. 

“Please support them, they have come here and they have supported this Flower Show. We need to support them because we want them back next year. 

Southport Flower Show. Photo by Andrew Brown Media

“I wonder how many of us remember with vivid accuracy the first lockdown, when in the absence of traffic noise and with time on our side, we watched and we started to notice what we sense. 

“We noticed that we heard the goldfinches. The hum of the bumblebee. The whistling wind through the trees. The babbling brook. 

“We noticed that we watched the Spring buds burst forth and surprise us. The dappled sunlight coming through the canopy overhead and the baby birds learning to fly. Do you remember watching them? I saw dozens that year. 

“We noticed that we felt the sun on our skin, the wind in our hair and the raindrops splashing on our face. 

“We tasted the salty sea air. The wild herbs growing by the roadside, and the berries when they later arrived. 

“And we smelled fragrant honeysuckle, the newly-mown grass and the freshness following the downpour. What amazing things we noticed. 

“We became aware of things we had hardly noticed before. 

“Nature stimulates all our senses. But our human response is so much deeper. 

“Intuitive wholeness, that comes from the healing power of nature. Rebirth, regrowth, regeneration, refreshment. 

“It overcomes the sense of destruction for which humans are often responsible. 

“We as human beings all need nature, we all need the outdoors. 

“In addition to this, the science of positive psychology proves to us that one of the most important attributes for restoring our health and our home is thankfulness. Gratitude. So let’s cultivate it today, or start to cultivate, the attitude of gratitude. 

“Let’s be grateful today for all the good things that we have and that we experience, especially the gift of nature in this beautiful seaside town and particularly displayed here in this fantastic Southport Flower Show.” 

Would you like to support the work of Queenscourt Hospice? Please visit the Queenscourt Hospice website here. 

For £1 a week you can sign up to the weekly Queenscourt Lottery here, with the chance to win prizes of up to £1,500 each week. You must be 18 or over to play. Please be Gamble Aware. 

Do you have a story for Stand Up For Southport? Please message Andrew Brown via Facebook here or email me at: mediaandrewbrown@gmail.com