Hospital Grows a Healing Space

Gardens are in full bloom this summer – including the healing garden at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

A few years ago hospital representatives sought the services of Ayres Associates’ landscape architects to help them design a therapeutic garden on their grounds. Ayres designed an award-winning garden space that provides a calming, reflective area of respite for hospital patients, visitors, and staff. The garden offers an aesthetically pleasing space to conduct meetings, hold hospital functions, meet for lunch, or use for personal reflection.

“Our healing garden provides space for our patients and colleagues to relax among the flowers. The staff at Ayres Associates made sure that the space was inviting and serene with a water fountain, walking path, and gazebo,” said Alyssa Van Duyse, a St. Joseph’s Hospital marketing specialist. “I take my lunch breaks in the garden to center myself and enjoy nature. I feel it makes me a more productive St. Joseph’s Hospital colleague when I can take a break in such a welcoming space.”

But she emphasized that the hospital’s patients and visitors are key: “They are the ones that we see taking a stroll through the garden and enjoying the peace,” she said. “We’re so glad that we can offer that bit of serenity while they’re at our hospital.”

The hospital’s healing garden project was a finalist in the Vendome Healthcare Media Group’s 2013 Landscape Architecture Awards for Healthcare Environments program. Following the first garden’s success, the hospital hired Ayres to design a second healing garden at its adjacent L.E. Phillips-Libertas Treatment Center.

At Ayres, our goal is to provide beautiful, functional, sustainable spaces that build a sense of community and provide accessibility for all – just as we did for St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Want to see the gardens for yourself? Take a virtual tour of the St. Joseph’s Hospital healing gardens by following this link to our profile on the project, and see what St. Joseph’s Hospital has to say about the restorative power of the project. Read even more background in our TRENDS article.

Watch for more Ayres-designed healing gardens in the months to come, including several at the Baldwin Area Medical Center.

Have you benefited from a healing garden? Comment below to share how a therapeutic garden was good medicine for you or a loved one.