It was a sad affair, with more concrete than plants and, squeezed between the hospital wings, it had little light and no view. For a patient, it would not give peace or comfort, rather, the opposite— it was likely to lower their spirits. Quite different from Horatio’s Garden, next to the spinal-injuries unit at Salisbury District Hospital in Wiltshire, which was opened in 2012. From what had been the hospital car park, patients can now look across a swathe of perennial grasses and sanguisorba lined with an apple walk, to a view of distant chalk downland. As one patient said: ‘It’s such an inspirational place, it gives you hope and takes away the darkness of being in a clinical environment.’
The garden’s designer, Cleve West, showed how to overcome a challenging, non-horticultural brief. It had to have seamless access from the next-door ward for both wheelchairs and hospital beds and paths that were level and smooth-surfaced. These provide the garden’s skeleton, together with low limestone walls in the shape of a human spine, which double as seating. There is a garden room for year-round socialising, as well as a glasshouse and a horticultural therapy area, where patients can actively garden at wheelchair height.
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