How to create an accessible garden for everyone

Adapt your garden with these simple accessibility ideas

Disability, advancing years and poor health can all limit how much someone can do in their garden. But there are plenty of ways to design and adapt a garden to make it accessible for everybody.

Garden paths

Soft, uneven or bumpy terrain can be one of the biggest hazards for those with walking disabilities, including those in wheelchairs. A firm, even, smooth garden path to provide good traction is a great way to enable everyone to move around the garden safely.

“A grade of between five and eight percent is ideal. Direct routes through the garden make the space easier to navigate,” says Sarah Williams of Bridgman garden design.

“To accommodate the turning radius of a wheelchair, one-way paths need to be at least five-foot wide and two-way paths at least seven feet wide. Rigid edging helps people who have difficulty walking and people with visual disabilities stay on the paths,” she adds.

Raised Plants

Bending down can be problematic for those with back problems or in a wheelchair. Raised pot plants can solve this issue by bringing the garden up to a more comfortable and accessible height, upcycle an old table or set of shelves for the perfect perch. 

Find out more about raised pot and bed gardens, including how to build them and which plants work best, from the Royal Horticultural Society.

Vertical gardening

Living walls are the height of horticultural fashion right now and are easy to tend. Simply attach trellises to your exterior walls or fences and grow climbing plants, such as sweet peas, clematis and morning glory. Why not try the lovely passionflower which will happily follow canes and grow towards the sky.

Autumn garden

Easy watering

To take the strain out of watering the garden, invest in soaker hoses, which emit water all the way along like a leaky pipe and can be laid permanently in garden borders.

Help and information

Thrive is a charity that offers a wealth of information on its website to enable people to continue gardening with a wide range of disabilities. There is advice on how to cope with specific gardening tasks for the elderly, stroke survivors, the partially-sighted and those with dementia, as well as an equipment and tool finder that helps to identify specific products suited to an individual’s needs.

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