Bursts of colour, hanging baskets and freshly planted trees and shrubs adorn the tranquility garden outside the Coast Hospice rooms at Shorncliffe intermediate care home.
The soft-coloured stamped concrete path winds through the garden designed especially for folks in wheelchairs or walkers. The garden project started in 2010, when former Hospice co-ordinator Jean Rice envisioned a beautiful garden for the folks in the hospice rooms to view from their rooms as well as to sit in with their families, a place to contemplate peace and tranquility.
Odessa Bromley, master gardener and landscape designer, and Betty McPhee, another master gardener and hospice volunteer, offered their services to help make it happen. Rice recruited additional hospice volunteers and a group from Canada World Youth to pitch in, dig out grass, spread dirt, and start planting last summer. The project was well underway.
During the fall of 2010, the shade structure covering the patio was deemed unsafe with rotting timbers, and leaking sun panels. Sunshine Coast Rotarian and hospice volunteer Rosemary Jones organized the fundraising to repair the shade structure.
With the repairs completed in June, the gardeners continued their work of planting and hanging baskets in July. Funding from Sunshine Coast Community Foundation made it possible to build a wheelchair accessible path through the garden. It's a special space for hospice patients, residents of Shorncliffe and their families to spend quiet moments and peaceful meditation. The garden space was celebrated with volunteers and donors in attendance on July 26.
-Submitted
