Leamington Rehabilitation Hospital Garden Opening

We have redeveloped the garden at Leamington-Spa Rehabilitation Hospital to create a welcoming, sustainable, and colourful green space to help improve staff and patient wellbeing.  

The peaceful space was also designed in mind of boosting the biodiversity of the area and pushes towards the NHS hospital’s goal of being net-zero by 2040. 

The garden opened on Friday 22nd April and includes many notable new additions.  

Living wall  

We constructed, planted up and installed a living wall at the entrance of the garden to add an impactful welcoming to the garden with the beautiful colour and greenery it displays. Living walls provide a wealth of environmental benefits with the species rich plants helping improve urban biodiversity and absorb Nitrogen Dioxide to reduce the harmful effects of traffic in the atmosphere.  

Green space  

We enhanced the green space by adding 4 planters which we filled with a mixture of edibles and colourful pollinator friendly plants to improve the biodiversity. We included more seating with vintage benches and the accompaniment of pairs of towering Hedera helix ivies. We also put in place a planting circle around a beautiful blossom tree to add more visibly pleasing plants.  

Container mural

The container was painted with a white undercoat and a second coat in a relaxing teal colour. The front of the container displays a beautiful mural depicting a calming image of beautiful bluebells covering the ground in a woodland.

Alpine garden seating area 

We transformed a secluded area of the garden into a picturesque memorial seating area for Martin, a worker at the hospital who sadly passed away from COVID19. We firstly laid an accessible paved area and created an alpine garden centre piece, before arranging the memorial benches in position, perfect for relaxation and reflection.    

Fences

With help from adi Group, we painted the fences a soothing dark grey colour. A colour which helps accentuate the greens of the bushes and shrubs and colours of the plants to create a perfect contrast for peaceful and quiet décor.  

Patio area  

The original wooden outdoor benches and picnic benches were sanded down and painted in the same colour as the fences to add consistency. Parasols were added to the picnic benches to offer shade in the summer and each bench was arranged to encourage socialising. We extended the patio area by adding more paving slabs and jet washed the area.


Feedback from the beneficaries…


“This access to a new green spaces will have enormous benefits to wellbeing, improving patient experience and recovery, and reducing staff stress. Having this calming space to enjoy now will benefit so many and we are extremely grateful for all the hard work Forest of Hearts have put into its creation”


“This is a lovely garden. I’m so pleased to have somewhere outside amongst plants to sit and have my lunch”