By Bruce Curtis

(Photos courtesy of Weinmayr Associate)

Gardens just feel good; that's a main reason why we create greenscapes around our homes and institutions, but what if you could have a garden that actually helped the healing process? Imagine coming home from work with a cold, but instead of popping zinc or Echinacea, you retire to your own healing garden to get well. Such a place is real, and not only that, you can have it designed into your own landscaping, say designers.

A handful of landscape architects have been studying why gardens, in general, create a sense of good feelings, think they have the answer and they've gathered those elements together under a banner called cognitive architecture.

The definition for healing landscapes is understandably broad, but it usually includes many of these elements: physical well-being, the presence of positive colors and shapes, comfort and familiarity, and a sense of being surrounded by nature. Examples include the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Long-term care facility residents often benefit from healing gardens, and facilities like the Allendale Burlington Long Term Care Facility in Ontario feature therapeutic gardens and courtyards. The Alois Alzheimer Center in Greenhills Ohio has two healing landscapes; the Crane Garden and the East Viewing Terrace. The Manse on Marsh, an assisted living facility in San Luis Obispo California features a garden setting both free of mobility obstacles and filled with shrubs and flowering plants selected to accent the area’s bright, sunny climate. The garden flows into a patio adjacent to the dining room, so meals can also be enjoyed in the midst of the warmth.

Another notable example in Portland Oregon, a city already clothed in green by the area's abundant rainfall is Nike's Nisho Awai Garden. The athletic shoe and sportswear maker wanted its corporate headquarters to include spaces where employees could escape and find refuge from hectic corporate life and creative pressures. Since Nike employs a large number of commercial designers who develop the company's signature styles and colors, they needed a place to pause and reflect. The architect was asked to create spaces that were not only calm and reflective, but which utilized a series of flowing water features to communicate an upbeat sense of movement that energizes both the gardens themselves, and the employees who stroll through it. The gardens are almost part of the office complex, so those inside share the ambience and beauty.

While healing gardens can benefit a large Portland corporation, on the opposite side of the country landscape architect Michael Weinmayr does the same thing for homeowners who want to create spaces where both body and soul benefit. Weinmayr's Somerville Massachusetts firm is constantly exploring new ideas and technologies to transform conventional landscapes into healing gardens.

"We create sequence gardens for private residences; you can do a pretty garden, but it costs no more to create a healing garden than a regular garden," Weinmayer notes. He's been successful enough that his designs have been utilized for larger jobs.

His latest project is a healing garden located, appropriately, at a hospital. Careful use of technology and design will hide a network of alerting devices that enable patients to quickly alert hospital personnel should they require it during their garden visits.

"The trick is to know you are being seen but not watched," and Weinmayr explains that health and monitoring technology is carefully hidden, but always accessible within the hospital's green areas, so that heart function can be monitored and nursing staff can be alerted quickly.

It all comes down to Weinmayr's belief that properly designed gardens actually assist patients in getting better. "Most of the healing comes from in, you have to believe you are going to get better and that reinforces the process." He suggests that such gardens may actually shorten hospital stays.

An interest in health-focused landscape design sprang forth when Weinmayr designed urban parks and common areas around public housing. Landscape vandalism was taking place, causing frustration, so Weinmayr began to study why certain design elements worked while others did not. He came away from convinced that landscape design must bring people together, while giving them a sense of control over their personal space. He views the two not as a conflict but as a mixture, a sense of connectedness combined with peaceful solitude, combining human needs with greenscape design.

He realized he had been learning that from early in his life.

"When I was eight, I worked for a Quaker farmer," he recalls, "I got interested in people and how they interact. Through the tragedy of a suicidal friend, Weinmayr became interested in healing gardens when a friend struggled through depression and mental illness. "I wanted to understand the process whereby gardens are good for you, I wanted to find out why you feel better, why gardens are effective healers, such as why the color green helps put you into a mental state where you feel positive about life."

Weinmayr has also taught for the past decade at Harvard's prestigious Arnold Arboretum, adding his knowledge about cognitive landscapes at regular design seminars.

Today, he compares healing landscapes to churches and cathedrals where entering helps individuals reach a relaxed, almost hypnotic sense of mental and emotional well-being.

Weinmayr today utilizes two primary healing garden designs: round and multiple space, but they share many elements. Round gardens are usually preferred by clients who are limited by budget and space constraints, while sequence gardens allow Weinmayr more design flexibility.

"One of the difficulties of doing a healing garden, is the limit of space; more space and it’s easier." Weinmayr leads us on a visual excursion into one of his sequence gardens, which feature three stages, or rooms.

"The first stage is Approach and Arrival; Entry is the 2nd room, and 3rd you're in the garden. You move from a public space to semiprivate, then to private space.

"First is a very active space, everything is light and airy," Weinmayr explains. "Colors are white and yellow and plants are white and yellow, then you move to a gate or portal with predominately green grass, shrubs and evergreens." He uses evergreens as a screen to protect the visitor from the outside world, likening them to the walls of a church. Then, says Weinmayer, you reach another gate or pair of shrubs, after which you arrive in the essential healing space.

"Colors are red, blue and purple, creating a womblike experience with safety, security and warmth. Weinmayr suspects that those colors often fed into our subconscious before birth, since it is known that the subconscious mind is very active in preborn babies.

Weinmayr again combines both private and open spaces in the inner sanctum of his healing gardens.

"When you arrive in the central space, you have a choice: solitary or social."
To make his sequence gardens more social and less solitary, Weinmayr makes use of water features whose kinetic, pulsing qualities sooth visitors. He's even thinking of borrowing an idea used at the home of a California surgeon; a fountain pump set to mimic the rhythm of the human heart, but again, isolation is something to be avoided. "It's a trick you want but not to make people feel out of touch."

Utilizing all the benefits of a sequence healing garden requires some learning, says Weinmayr. "All gardens are healing gardens; we are trying to create a more effective healing experience," he says, "you come in, in stages, from alert, to relaxation to deep relaxation." Weinmayr calls these stages or nodes, gateways. "When you get to the inner portion of the garden you meditate. When you return, hopefully you’ll be in a healing mode, you do you feel better when you come out."

His company, Weinmayr Associates, has been designing architectural landscapes for over 40 years. In addition to creating residential landscape master plans that increase the utility, value and loveliness of a home, the company creates healing gardens in both circular and sequential design. Weinmayr believes that serene gardens can promote relaxation, support medical treatment and enhance long term care.