AN Ealing nurse launched The Garden Centre Group’s first national charity partnership this week, with Marie Curie being chosen in a staff vote.

Olive Hoare, who works for the Ealing and Hounslow rapid response team, launched the Gardens for Good partnership, which will run for two years.

It aims to raise more than £500,000 nationally, through garden-inspired fund-raising, volunteering initiatives and commercial activity.

The partnership will also help Marie Curie’s nurses provide an additional 25,000 hours of free care.

Partnership activities are launching during the Great Daffodil Appeal, Marie Curie’s biggest annual fund-raising event.

Olive said: “I remember taking a patient out into her garden in the early hours one morning, to look around and soak up the sights, sounds and smells.

“We talked about the plants and her happy memories of time spent there as a family. She passed away later that morning.

“I think, because gardens are so full of life and hold such sentimental value, it is only natural that our patients get great joy from them in their last days of their life at home.”