Horatio Chapple's Garden blooms - thanks to a band of volunteers In fact a team of 40 worked since June to turn a scruffy patch of ground outside the entrance to The Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre in Salisbury into Horatio's Garden. It now contains 2,500 plants, and paths wide enough for a spinal injury patient to be wheeled along while still in a hospital bed. Horatio, Chapple, the Eton schoolboy who died aged 17 in August 2011, after being mauled by a polar bear during an expedition to Spitsbergen, the Norwegian island inside the Arctic Circle, had volunteered at the unit in the summer of 2010. At his home in Bishopstone, Wiltshire, he discussed with his father David, the spinal surgeon for the treatment centre, how patients confined to their ward wanted some relief from the frustration of being constantly indoors - and the idea of a garden was born. He then devised a questionnaire, to establish what patients would want from the garden. He died before his idea could become reality, but his mother Olivia, a GP, said: "Horatio's Garden is a symbol of love, kindness and courage. These were qualities, which Horatio had, which I treasure and miss and will remember forever. We hope it will inspire all who use it. The volunteers are the key part of this. Can it work without them? The garden, funded by donations in commemoration of Horatio and to the Southern Spinal Injuries Trust charity, was formally opened last month. Before that, at a private viewing, the patients got their first glimpse. Amid the verbena and the butterflies, the effect was immediate: tears of joy and laughter from men and women who had been forced by spinal injury to lie unmoving in their beds, staring at the same patch of white ceiling for weeks on end. To get to this stage, the volunteers had toiled through rain and shine, to realise the design of Cleve West, who this spring won best in show at the Chelsea Flower Show for the second year running. The volunteers will now continue their work - getting the patients out into the garden as often as possible, forming friendships with them, even helping them do a spot of gardening themselves if they want. They hope that this, possibly the first large scale garden at a British spinal unit, will be copied by many others. For that to happen, one element will be vital, as Tina Crossley, 50, the head gardener, was the first to admit: "Without the volunteers, it can't be done at all. I can't begin to tell you how dedicated they are. The volunteers include friends of the Chapple family, including Charlie Perkins, 16, a lower sixth form pupil at Bryanston School, Blandford, Dorset, which is attended by Horatio's younger brothers Titus, 16, and Magnus, 14. "When the school told us there was this opportunity, it appealed to me instantly," Charlie said. Titus is in my year and I am friends with him. I just really wanted to help out with this. I am hoping that we will be able to contribute quite a lot, because many spinal injury patients are quite young people who have been involved in accidents. Other volunteers are former patients at the spinal unit, including Annie Maw, 64, a housewife from Pilton, Somerset. She was treated in 2002, when she was bucked from her horse while riding, severing her spinal cord, and leaving her paralysed from the chest down. "I feel I must fight the corner for the current lot of patients," she said. Helping someone plant a few tulip bulbs might sound menial to you, but I know the pleasure a spinal patient can get from that. It allows you to feel that life won't always be about being stuck looking out from behind the windows. It makes you think about the future, not dwell on the past. I was out here when the first patients came into the garden. I was talking to one of the patients. Her bed had been wheeled into the garden. There were toys of joy and laughter streaming down her face. She had been wondering whether she would ever be able to get outside into a garden again. Horatio's Garden is a massive step forward. We don't think there is another spinal unit with a substantial garden like this. Other units will be watching us, and I hope what happens here will be emulated. Katie Trafford, 46, a mother-of-five from Homington, Wiltshire, said she had volunteered to make a difference to the patients. "I know how important it is for me to get my own fresh air and exercise - so I signed up," she said. I don't know how I would be able to cope if I were stuck in a hospital bed for months on end, seeing nothing but a white ceiling for most of the time. I want to help get the patients outside to let them get fresh air and sample an outside environment. When you talk to spinal patients, and hear what it means for them, you realise how important it is.