A SPECIAL green' project built by people with disabilities and the unemployed has opened at Ampfield's Sir Harold Hillier Gardens.

A team of 30 trainees from the Beneficial Foundation created the Beneficial Garden using recycled and re-usable materials with a sun-shaped piece of art at the centrepiece.

It has taken three months to complete and follows major ground clearance work within a walled garden at the rear of Jermyns House stables which lay undisturbed for 10-years.

Nick Wright from Hillier's said: "The first few weeks of the project were hard work clearing the site, removing brambles, digging out tree stumps and uncovering hidden gems from the original planting many years ago. Hard landscaping followed with help from the garden's horticultural team. The trainees constructed raised beds, a rockery, patio and reinstated paths through the garden. Planting then followed."

Nick added: "A unique feature of the garden design is its use of recycled and re-usable materials and surplus stock from the nursery, so that nothing is wasted."

Materials used to make the garden included old house bricks, an old pond liner, old paving slabs and marbles. The pond liner has been recycled to create a bog to grow wetland plants and includes a gunera, which looks like giant rhubarb.

"Visitors will be invited to walk around our garden, take a trip around our spiral dwarf conifer pathway and relax in the log seating area," said Nick.

A spokesperson from the Beneficial Foundation said: "The foundation enjoys a challenge and saw this as a wonderful opportunity for our trainees to extend their horticultural skills and have the experience of seeing through a project from start to finish.

"The aims and objectives are numerous but primarily it is to create to the very best of our abilities a garden that expresses the wonderful diversity of our trainees. On route, we aim to enjoy, learn, share and develop new skills that will enhance our lives and those of others."