Gardens Provide Comfort and Solace at Community Hospice House

The gardens at Community Hospice House in NH provide a peaceful escape for patients, family, caregivers while prioritizing biodiversity

Hi GPODers !

We get so many very especial submissions on Garden Photo of the Day , but this one peculiarly so . As evident by the title , the subject matter in this post is a little heavy and I need to give a very light disclaimer . This berth focus on the garden , but does mention hospice care and the way patient , families , and stave are able to apply these amazing place . As someone who recently experienced loss and is a minuscule extra worked up , reading this compliance definitely brought a binge to my eye . If you usually read GPOD at body of work , employ your discretion if you ’d like to finish this post at a different time . With that out of the way , I will rent Barb Young , owner ofThe Big Little Garden , take it from here .

greeting ! I co - lead a large team of consecrated volunteer who steward about 30 private garden beds throughout the Community Hospice House ( CHH ) holding in Merrimack , NH . The CHH garden are integral to the patient role / family / primary care provider experience , leave comfort and solace during difficult times .

Community Hospice House is dedicated to help people regain a peaceful and dignified end to their biography ’s journeying . It is part ofHome Health & Hospice Care of NH , a not - for - profits organization . Spacious patient rooms adapt families , and even visit from family pets , to comfort patients in their last week and days . Each room open to a private patio with view of the broad gardens that are lovingly lean by dedicated volunteers .

Views from surrounding patient rooms and patios , plebeian space and the outdoor court are cautiously consider as gardens are designed . The culmination of a six room offstage in 2023 and the addition of Modern gardens , leave us the opportunity to increase the landscape ’s pallet of coloration , texture and form . garden are connected with paths that reveal singular and extremely textural gardens with every turn .

Our intent is to promote biodiversity and stand local wildlife while building upon the beauty of the original gardens , planted in 2000 . The new gardens were designed with an stress on New England native plant and non - aboriginal pollinator plants that would complement the original garden . The termination are all-inclusive decorative garden with a emphatically realistic flair .

Bulbs begin the show

After completion of mental synthesis in October 2023 , military volunteer institute more than 2,000 bulbs . A cornucopia of miniature daffodil , wild flower tulips and allium welcome patients , home and staff on the approach to the facility ’s entrance this bound .

Spring bulbs give way to densely planted perennial gardens

Immersive pollinator gardens occur to living in late May and early June with a cornucopia of bloom from yarrow , penstemon and lilies . Benches are placed throughout the gardens , allow category member a quiet space for reflection .

In May , 2024 volunteer murder a jumble of trespassing groundcover and perennials to make room for a new conceived ‘ Tranquility Garden ’ . Viewed from patient rooms and patios as well as from a common indoor space , the garden have a 1400 pound‘Hindu - Pan ’ Scotch pine tree ( Pinuscontorta ‘ Hindu Pan’,Zones 3–7 ) .

The stately tree is underplanted with Nipponese wood grass(Hakonechloamacra , Zones 5–9 ) , foamflower ( Tiarellacordifolia , Zones 3–8 ) , cardinal flower(Lobeliacardinalis , Zones 3–9)andSolomon ’s seal(Polygonatumhumile , Zones 5–8).Complementary shrubs are strategically engraft to anchor the space , includingnative beautyberry(Callicarpaamericana , Zones 6–10)andclethraas well as a modest weeping Japanese maple . Large goshen stones were set to attend as both a visual and physical welcome for visitors to research the space . The tree is under the care of a passe-partout tree surgeon who will control its pattern and sizing .

A shady ‘ Remembrance Garden ’ is a tapis of annual and perennials that mince memorial stones honoring the life of former residents . It is frequented by family member on their promenade through the garden paths .

Summer abundance

By previous summer , the border have become a laugher of native smoke , tall verbena(Verbena bonariensis , Zones 7–10),agastache , salvia , gaura , genus Allium , and more . StatelyJoe Pye weed(Eutrochium purpureum , zona 3–9),caryopteris , goldenrod andrudbeckiacreate a living concealment screen for multiple patient patios .

Pollinators remain quite active all through the month of October . Dahlias , annuals and tender perennials will be lifted and put in for the winter . All stay perennials and supergrass will be left to stand throughout the winter months , providing structural stunner and habitat for beneficial insect and seed promontory for songbirds .

The Community Hospice House garden have develop importantly this year with plans to upgrade a realistic meadow and bioswale in 2025 .

The gardens offer comfort and consolation to visitors as well as to our extensive squad of unpaid worker as we lean to our gardening duties . We are proud of the gardens and please to be entrusted with their care .

Thank you so much for sharing these incredible garden , Barb . I ’m sure everyone in the GPOD community knows of the healing benefits of gardens and gardening , but this puts it in a whole linear perspective .

Have photos to share ? We ’d love to see your garden , a particular collection of plants you sleep together , or a wonderful garden you had the chance to confab !

To submit , send 5 - 10 picture to[email protected]along with some information about the industrial plant in the picture and where you have the photos . We ’d be intimate to get a line where you are located , how long you ’ve been gardening , succeeder you are proud of , failures you memorise from , hopes for the futurity , pet plants , or suspicious stories from your garden .

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