Law Man-chun likes flowers and loves looking after them at the Ngai Shum Home at the hostel of the Fu Hong Society in Aberdeen.
Ms Law, 49, who is mildly mentally disabled, has lived there since 1998 after her parents died.
'I like every type of plant, especially the pepper plant. I remove any weeds, water them regularly and also give them fertiliser. I learned horticulture here and last year we took some plants to the flower show. It was beautiful.'
Ms Law works every day at the workshop, packing cutlery for a fast-food outlet, putting advertising leaflets into envelopes, and taking the excess plastic off new bottles.
'I like earning money at the workshop and on Sundays I go to church with my friends. The church is in Western district. I used to live there. The old houses have gone now and been replaced with new ones,' says Ms Law, whose parents came from Shanghai. 'I like singing but I need to follow other people when they do the hymns.'
When she feels the need to relax, Ms Law goes to the roof of the building, where plants and flowers provide a scenic place for the mentally disabled and mentally ill residents to sit quietly or chat.
Flowers and plants are important markers for the changing of the seasons, says Cathy Kwok Wai-hing, a Fu Hong Society occupational therapist - particularly important for people living an institutionalised existence with air-conditioning, who otherwise would lose their sense of time.
