Growing an improved healing garden

• What: Healing garden project kickoff event.

• When: 4 to 6 p.m. May 28.

• Where: Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center, third floor patio/terrace, 2211 N.E. 139th St.

• RSVP: Shirley Gross, 360-487-3457 or skgross@lhs.org

• Info/To Help: For more information or to support the new healing garden at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center, contact Shirley Gross, associate director of development and planned giving, 360-487-3457 or skgross@lhs.org

The third-floor terrace garden at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center has the privacy of a fishbowl.

The brick patio area is tucked between two towering hospital walls full of windows. On one side, the cafeteria and birth center patient rooms look into the garden. On the other side, more patient rooms offer a view.

The terrace is full of green grasses, bushes and native plants, but there is nowhere for families to quietly gather, or for people to take a peaceful stroll.

Legacy’s Salmon Creek Hospital Foundation hopes to change that — and more. The foundation is spearheading a $225,000 fund- raising campaign to renovate the 10-year-old space. The changes will enhance the existing garden, adding a quiet seating area, a labyrinth, water features and additional seating, including a covered activity shelter.

“Right now, there’s not a lot out here that people want to look at,” said Teresia Hazen, Legacy Health’s therapeutic garden program coordinator. “It feels like you’re in a fishbowl.”

The foundation is kicking off the campaign with an informal event next week and will spend the next year raising the money. The foundation hopes to break ground by next spring, but work won’t begin until at least 80 percent of the funding is secured. Construction will take six months to complete, said J. Michael Schultz, the foundation’s executive director.

Each of Legacy’s 11 healing gardens were constructed with community donations. None of the money comes from the hospital operations, Schultz said.

The foundation has already raised about $27,000. The Firstenburg Foundation has pledged the money to pay for the covered activity area at the south end of the terrace. Another donor is offering to match donations, dollar for dollar, up $10,000 to pay for the labyrinth, said Shirley Gross, the foundation’s associate director of development and planned giving.

The goal of the project is simple: provide patients and their families, hospital staff and community members with a healing, calming space.

“This garden has to help us improve the environment of care for our patients,” Hazen said. “Every decision we made is around serving patients, community members and employees 24/7.”

Research has shown that people who interact with nature show physiological improvements — such as decreased heart rate, lower blood pressure and improved mood — within minutes of stepping outside, Hazen said. Gardens can also help families and staff to reduce stress, she said.

“This is all about health and wellness,” Hazen said.

In the new garden, a currently enclosed concrete circle will be broken into three segments, and the planters will be filled with Northwest conifers representing all four seasons, Hazen said.

Off to the side, a small gate will lead people to a labyrinth. A green screen will provide privacy for the patients in adjacent rooms and the people using the labyrinth. Outside of the chapel, which protrudes into the terrace area, an existing pond will get bubbler pots that will bring the peaceful sound of water to the terrace.

And the northwest corner of the terrace will be converted into a private, quiet seating area for families. Trees will shelter the space from the hospital windows and other terrace visitors.

The new space will also include more color year-round. The current garden area is mostly green with some splashes of deep red and purple from trees and small plants. But during the fall and winter, 90 percent of the garden is dormant and brown, Hazen said.

The upgraded healing garden will have bright planters and raised planting beds filled with colorful flowers and plants. Small birdhouses atop wood perches in planting beds will add more color — and songs from birds, Hazen said.

Unlike the current garden, the new space will also be fully lit, making the area more inviting during the dark evening hours. In addition, new covered areas will provide respite on rainy, windy and hot days.

“This is a 24/7 garden,” Hazen said. “It needs to be always open to families and employees.”