garden - the healing garden

A garden at the heart of the healing process

The choice of plants seeks to provide year round beauty of bark, bud, leaf and flower. Many of the plants are also the ingredients of traditional herbal medicines – fennel, comfrey and eucalyptus in the herb garden, echinea and yarrow around the raised beds. Others are used in Homoeopathic remedies – back bamboo in the gravel courtyard, rhododendrons along the woodland edge – and even the honey bees themselves who love to feast on the eupatorium!

“The peace and tranquillity here is wonderful. It’s more restful than a holiday.”

Patient

Patients have repeatedly described how the hospital garden has a calming, healing effect. Recounting their recuperative experiences, almost all refer directly to the garden, and some attribute the main benefit to it.
Indeed patients like to sit out in it, even the Scottish rain.

Especially important has been the effect on terminal patients and their families. The architectural full wall of glass, with sliding door access to nature has a powerfully comforting and balancing effect. Staff too sing its praises …. And a wildlife of foxes, robins, bees and butterflies have started to colonise it.

”One of the reasons I wanted to work at the Homoeopathic Hospital, is the building. It is light and airy and welcoming. The sense of space is extravagant for a hospital. The best thing about working here is opening the windows and listening to the birds singing as I work.”

Candida Fenton - Librarian at GHH