Giants stars turned their hands to gardening, to help local youngsters.

Several players from the Super League side gave up their time to help create a new garden and orchard at the Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice in Brackenhall.

They were helped by representatives from the Orchard Group, who are behind the huge project at the Hospice.

Players Joe Wardle, Jake Connor, Luke Robinson and Jacob Fairbank were joined by the club’s marketing and media manager James Brammer at Russell House to help with the planting of apple trees in the garden which is currently being developed by national charity Greenfingers.

Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice has been selected as the charity partner for the Giants throughout the 2015 season, which starts on February 8 with a home game against Hull.

The charity’s Emma Kovaleski, head of corporate fundraising, said: “We have been working closely with Huddersfield Giants over the past couple of months planning our partnership for next year but even before a ball has been kicked we have received some fantastic support from the club.

“On top of helping plant the orchard, we have had Giants players attend our families’ Christmas party earlier this month and we were very excited to see our logo being sported on Huddersfield Giants junior shirts for the upcoming season too. We are looking forward to a fantastic 2015 working together.”

Paul Cribb, commercial manager at Huddersfield Giants said: “With Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice being the charity of choice for the Huddersfield Giants it was our pleasure to come up to Russell House and show our support to the charity this Christmas.

“Some of our players lent a helping hand in the garden and we also brought up some selection boxes for the families to enjoy.”

The orchard at Russell House has been funded by Orchard Group who are long standing supporters of Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice and a number of representatives from the company also helped with the planting throughout the day.

The phase two development of the garden will continue at the start of 2015, with local firm Landscaping Creation having already completed a lot of work.

The meadow garden will feature many special features to help the youngsters. They include accessible grassy viewing mounds safe for wheelchair use; a river bed style flowing water feature for safe play with fishing nets; a walled stone circle area drawing on the typical stone walling to be seen around the region, and bird hide and animal feeding stations for the children to observe and engage with wildlife.