Lavender Lodge Garden Health
Retreats are located within mature landscaped gardens in the secluded rural
peaceful setting of West Cork and offer a unique health experience for people
suffering from a variety of health conditions such as diabetes, high
cholesterol, blood pressure and weight management issues.
Our RetreatsClinical Knowledge
Personal Experience
The Gardens
All our health retreats combine the following aspects:
Our one day retreat programmes
offer practical based solutions when it comes to making lifestyle changes for
health conditions. These unique programmes are exclusively designed &
facilitated by Helena Farrell, RGN, MSC, owner of Lavender Lodge Garden Health
Retreats. Helena combines over 20 years of nursing and research with personal
experience of living with someone with a chronic health condition and a passion
for gardening into a one day programmes that cannot be found worldwide.
Our resident Head Gardener & wonderful friend Tom has
Type 2 Diabetes and takes 5 injections of insulin a day. This requires alot of
knowledge and skill in adapting to the everyday challenges that living with a
chronic health condition brings. Tom is supported by Helena in his diabetes
management and our experience of shopping and cooking daily for diabetes is at
the very core of our Diabetes Retreat Day. We offer very practical, personal
solutions and advice on the day as to how we have overcome the daily obstacles
that diabetes presents which are also backed up with science.
For both Helena & her husband John, as well as Tom, the
gardens at Lavender Lodge have been more than a hobby, they have been a life
saver. For each of us in our darkest days, the gardens have been a source of
peace, solace and inspiration. This coincides with the health benefits we have
all received from working on the garden, both mentally and physically. This has
inspired us to share our garden and develop our one day retreats so that others
can learn and experience similar health benefits as us.
Our garden is nestled in the Sal Valley, between Bandon
& Beal Na mBlath. It has been lovingly worked on from being just a bare
site over the last 10 years to what is a now mature garden and is ever evolving
and changing all the time. We are passionate about recycling and up cycling
which is evident throughout the garden which gives the garden a very vintage,
shabby chic feel which naturally flows in its country surroundings.
Using what we grow in the garden, we teach
retreat participants the health benefits to them specifically of all our home
grown vegetables. Everything grown the garden is done without the use of any artificial
sprays or pesticides
