"You'd never know a garden was there," Daisy Mah said as we pulled into the driveway at Sutter Memorial Hospital.
Tucked precariously along the edge of an east Sacramento neighborhood, the hospital rises out of the landscape like a large box. At first glance you'd think it was all building, asphalt and cars.
Except for three towering pines.
Take a closer look, and you'll see that they frame a small, oval-shaped garden, not more than 60 feet by 100 feet, entirely surrounded by a driveway. And it's beautiful.
It's called the "healing garden," and it was designed by Mah with the help of many volunteers and generous donations. Mah also oversees the WPA Rock Garden at William Land Park in Sacramento.
Spires of red and yellow kniphofia flowers mark the entrance and greet visitors. The bright purple flags of Spanish lavender contrast cheerfully with the sea of light green pittosporum shrubs. Their rounded shapes look like ocean waves under the pines. Great sweeps of coral bells, their tiny pink flowers making a haze of color, border most of the beds. There are generous plantings of flowering maple, yucca, mondo grass, tulips.
"I wanted plants that attracted butterflies, that were somewhat drought tolerant, and that were tough survivors," Mah says.
Now 5 years old, the plants have matured and grown together. The coral bells have insinuated themselves against the hardy geraniums. The flowering maples stand guard above mondo grass. Lilies have reseeded themselves around the pines. Clumps of yucca spread their bright yellow blades across the ground.
Paths from three sides meet in the middle, where a large celadon-colored Gladding McBean planter, surrounded by pink flowering geraniums and coral bells, stands. Benches face the planter. A mom and her daughter sit at one of them, laughing and talking.
Children walking through with their parents can't resist jumping off the path and scurrying over to take a closer look at a flower or to stand next to the massive pine trunks. Two hospital employees in surgical scrubs sit talking over a cup of coffee. Patients going in and out of the hospital walk through the garden instead of taking the shorter route across the street and into the parking lot.
Mah originally envisioned a serenity garden of bamboo. But the hospital didn't have a suitable site for bamboo. They did, however, have the sunny oval between the hospital and the parking lot that begged for help, and the hospital asked Mah if she'd tackle the job.
She still takes time to stop by and check the plantings, add a few new flowers or tidy up. It's become a small island of serenity, peace and beauty in an otherwise busy parking lot.
If I were a patient at the hospital in a room facing the front, I'd surely have the curtains open so I could look down on the small, but beautiful, healing garden.
Call The Bee's Pat Rubin, (916) 321-1075.
