New garden for hospital will offer a place for respite
Rotary Club of St. Catharines Lakeshore launches fundraiser for project
The concrete walkways are surrounded by beds of dirt and ground cover at St. Catharines hospital, but soon there will be pops of colour with roses, Russian sage and black-eyed Susans.
Plans are in the works to transform the unexciting but popular area on the west side of the building into a colourful, contemplative garden for patients, visitors and staff by Rotary Club of St. Catharines Lakeshore.
“There are tons of people using it and walking around through that concrete, people in wheelchairs being pushed by visitors and so on,” said Eric Jones, chair of the club’s Clarice West-Hobbs Contemplative Garden project. “What it needs is something that’s interesting.
“It just has some ground cover evergreens. There’s no real interest. There’s no colour. You can imagine a garden with all different kinds of perennials … they’ll be colourful hostas and various things.”
The club launched a fundraiser for the $40,000 garden project last week named in honour of West-Hobbs, who was an educator in the Niagara area and longtime member of Rotary Club of St. Catharines Lakeshore.
Jones said West-Hobbs, who was the club’s world and community service committee chair, came up with the idea for a beautiful garden after seeing Niagara Falls hospital had a centre courtyard area with flowers. She thought it was something the St. Catharines site should have for patients and staff to enjoy.
When she died in 2020, the club supported her dream and is developing the Clarice WestHobbs Contemplative Garden along the entire west-facing facade of the hospital.
“The location is so nice because it’s away from the main entrance,” Jones said. “It’s away from the main parking lots and it’s on the other side of the building. Although it’s accessible to everybody, it’s kind of on its own quiet side of the hospital facility.”
It also features the existing walkways, lighting and a couple of benches already.
“What we’re doing is taking over all of the garden beds and we’re going to put in hardy perennials,” Jones said. “They have to be drought-resistant and salt-resistant because you’ve got the emergency road there, plus those sidewalks are heavily salted. It’s going to be very colourful.”
The first phase of the project will include upgrading the soil from heavy clay, planting perennials and bushes in the beds and mulching.
Jones said plantings are expected to happen at the end of this month or the beginning of June and will be watered by hand in co-operation between the club and hospital building management company BGIS.
The later phase this summer and into 2023 includes installing a drip irrigation system, adding signage, new benches and expanding to the other walkways along the existing emergency roadway.
The club committed $11,000 to the project and received about $10,000 in donations before the launch.
Jones said anyone who wants to donate to the project or learn more about the plans can go to www.rotarylakeshore.com and follow the link on the righthand side of the page.
He said the project is being done with the support of Niagara Heath Foundation, BGIS and Niagara Health.