We donated this healing garden at North Hampshire Hospital. It serves to provide a green sanctuary in a very grey courtyard, as well as offering something to eat year round, and educating its users of the ease and productivity of growing food in this way. This space also shows how using sustainable practices such as the hagelkulture-inspired central mound in the planting bed, can contribute to something beautiful as well as functional. All of the materials are reclaimed in this garden - from the steel and wood bespoke benches, to the pots, climbing structures and the slabs and sand that they are laid on. 

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The hagelkulture principle uses various forms of buried biomass to create a soil-feeding and self-watering system. This happens as the organic matter under the soil's surface can store and slowly release water, and feed the soil as it slowly breaks down.

 

In this space, a range of varieties of multi-stem Hazel trees mark the entrances. The herbs in pots that surround the benches create a Mediterranean aspect whilst offering scented, sensory stimulation in the most accessible place. The planting is all edible perennial, including Good King Henry, Sea Beet, Caucasian Spinach and Garden Sorrel. The ground cover consists of Wild Strawberries and on the central mound- a Thyme lawn. The benches are backed by Thornless Blackberries climbing up screens and for structure, a Perennial Kale is found throughout the planting area as well as punctuating the 'digital' style layout of the slabwork.  

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The main features of the garden are kept symmetrical, such as the central fig tree, the placement of the Small Damson, Pear and Apple Trees, as well as the bench and hard landscaping. However the garden breaks out of any strict symmetry in the planting in the main bed, where plants are randomly distributed around the central mound and amongst Wild Strawberry and Siberian Purslane ground cover. As well as the planting the array of reclaimed pots deny the space its symmetry as do the bespoke benches; identical in width and materials but different in design and colour.