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South Australian retirement living operator ECH – Enabling Confidence at Home – and the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium of South Australia are expanding their long-standing partnership with a new collaborative landscaping venture, Project Eden.
ECH and BGSH first partnered in 2020, on a therapeutic horticulture program, and Project Eden hopes to strengthen their shared commitments to wellbeing, community connection, and environmental stewardship by transforming the villages into their own biodiverse and therapeutic mini botanic gardens.
A pilot of Project Eden will begin later this year, with BGSH providing horticultural and conservation expertise to individually design the outdoor spaces and gardens at an ECH village in suburban Adelaide.
Residents will be involved in the design phase, working with BGSH horticulturalists to establish easy-to-maintain gardens and outdoor spaces, creating more natural, greener spaces that will foster resident wellbeing.
ECH chief executive officer Alan Morrison said the program represents a major step toward positioning ECH villages as leading examples of sustainable, community-focused retirement living.
“It is proven that spending time in nature strengthens mental, physical and social wellbeing, and we want to provide our residents with those benefits, whilst supporting our environment as the climate changes,” said Mr Morrison.
As part of the Project Eden partnership, BGSH will develop a framework to guide ECH’s future redevelopment of outdoor spaces and gardens to ensure plantings and design suit the varied micro-climates across Adelaide while also being tailored to the needs of village residents.
Resident and staff involvement will be central to the framework.
BGSH director Michael Harvey said the project is a new way of sharing horticultural expertise and contributing to broader urban greening efforts across Adelaide while still highlighting the real health benefits of being in natural surroundings.
“Together with ECH, we are creating a model for purposeful urban greening that is sustainable, therapeutic, and deeply connected to nature, supporting residents today while shaping sustainable communities for the future,” said Mr Harvey.
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