THE West Yorkshire Forget-me-not Trust is working extremely hard to ensure that the new Russell House Hospice at Brackenhall is built and functional as soon as possible.

In fact, care work is already underway across our region with several children and their families being supported by the Hospice care staff.

To continue this incredible work, the Trust is looking for the communities and individuals of Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield (the Local Authority areas covered by the new Hospice) to help raise more vital funds for the building, fitting out and maintenance of the new hospice.

And gardeners across the area are being asked to open their gardens to help raise funds for the project.

This brand new and exciting event will be relying on the gardeners of West Yorkshire to open their garden gates.

By opening your garden and asking for all donations for the charity, this is a simple yet effective way of raising those vital funds.

The event is based on the very successful National Garden Scheme where property owners open up their gardens to help raise funds for a variety of national charities.

We want to encourage local gardeners to do the same but for our own West Yorkshire Forget-me-not Trust.

Why not get together with a few neighbours and have an Open Garden Trail along your street?

The gardeners signing up to participate can offer one, two, three or more dates any time from May 2 to July 1 2011 to open their gardens.

Choose dates that allow you to show off your garden when it is at its best.

Perhaps you might also like to offer some light refreshments as well to help increase the fund raising.

Maybe you will be able to set up a stall selling some plants to help raise more funds.

The Trust will do the rest – banners, advertising, collection tins etc will all be provided to help raise those much needed funds.

The final date for signing up to this exciting new idea is April 9 2011 and we will be publishing a list of open gardens soon afterwards for everyone to enjoy.

Community Fundraiser, Gina Fielding, said: “This is such a simple event that anyone with a garden can take part in and if you don’t have the time to open your own garden you can go along and support the event by visiting someone else’s garden.”

The person or household raising the largest sum of money over the two month period will receive a prize for their hard work and gardening efforts.

To register contact Gina Fielding at gina.fielding@forgetmenottrust.co.uk or call 01484 487570.

For more information about the West Yorkshire Forget-me-not Trust visit www.forgetmenottrust.co.uk .

And just for inspiration, consider this. The Forget-me-not family, Boraginaceae, contains some 200 Genus and 2500 species and has some wonderful representatives that can be grown in our gardens.

All members of the family are excellent for bees as the flowers are high in pollen and nectar and are easily accessible to bumble bees and honey bees.

Why not source some of them through the RHS Plant Finder or ask at your local garden centre or nursery, propagate some yourself, sell them to friends and neighbours and give some or all of the money to the Forget-me-not Trust – everyone wins.

See the list of plants in the panel above to give you a start.