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GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — It's been more than a decade since a dedicated group of gardeners and a wider community of supporters saw to it that a common tar roof was turned into a healing garden at Three Rivers Medical Center.
Now, when patients and visitors on the third floor of the hospital look onto the former tar roof turned garden-courtyard, they are treated with a view of trees, bushes and flowers, and in its center, a somewhat faded bronze sculpture of a woman in a flowing gown, the work titled "The Healing."
The garden, built with donations of money and talent, has both matured and weathered. But it's still a comfort.
"I think it's nice," said Lois, a hospital patient who had a view of the garden outside her room in late July. "It's nice to have flowers that bloom. I love green grass and trees and flowers. You don't have a view of the freeway."
Dawn Welch, Asante development director in Josephine County, remembers how garden visionary La Rita de Young-Hoellrich believed in the healing power of nature.
"All the patients get to gaze out into a healing garden instead of roof tar," Welch said. "Nurses will use it as an incentive to get patients out of bed to walk to the garden.
"Absolutely, nature heals," Welch continued. "It fit well with the intent of the hospital. We were trying to minimize a hospital look."
Some patients specifically request a room that looks out on the garden, which also is visible from a lounge-lobby area by the hospital's elevators.
The 30-by-50-foot area that is now the garden initially helped the hospital comply with a regulation that all hospital rooms be brightened with natural light. The "light well," however, is now much more that a bank of windows letting in light.
"It all started because of somebody's vision and heart, and then it was about hard work and donors," Welch said. "These things don't happen without vision and support."
Enter de Young-Hoellrich, a nurse whose husband was the late Dr. Robert Hoellrich.
"I think of the community whenever I look at it," she said, in a telephone interview. "I'll never ever forget how people came together. I was just one person and all these amazing people came into my life at the right time. That garden was created with love and selflessness."
Master gardeners, hospital youth volunteers, the hospital's auxiliary and others helped. The garden didn't come cheap. Cost was about $65,000, including the statue. Since no dirt could be placed on the roof, plants grew in containers. Since then, some plants became root-bound. The heat on the roof has caused some plants to stress.
The garden contains a mix of evergreen and leaf-bearing trees. At different times of the year, different plants and flowers are growing — or dying. Just like in life.
"Life isn't always vibrant and green," de Young-Hoellrich said. "It's life and birth and death and in between."
De Young-Hoellrich said she and fellow gardener Linda Lamoreau intend to return to the garden this fall to spruce things up.
"We kind of felt the yearning to go back in there," she said. "Plant some flowers and think of our loved ones."
The garden, she said, "encourages hope and healing." Artist Peter Sedlow's statue, she says, is the garden's focal point. The hands of the sculpted woman are reaching upward.
The statue is open to interpretation. She's not necessarily an angel, but looks like one. To de Young-Hoellrich, she has the effect of one.
"The main thing to me is, whether she's an angel, she's an encouragement and leading the way upward toward God, where all love and healing and hope come from."
Hospital visitor Edward Morrison looked out at that statue and the garden in late July.
"This is really fascinating," he said. "I don't know if it's an angel. It's a symbol of peace."
Morrison was in the hospital to see his mother. His father, Guy Morrison, was beside him.
"I think it's terrific," the elder Morrison said. "A little hope when you need it. This is a place you come when you need a lot of help and a lot of hope."
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Information from: Daily Courier, http://www.thedailycourier.com
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