Hospitals and Healing Gardens: Designing with Purpose

Whether you have a loved one in a long-term healthcare facility or you’ve ever visited a sick relative or friend in the hospital, or if you have been a patient with a healing journey, you understand how frightening and uncomfortable hospital settings can be, especially when undergoing rigorous treatment for a medical condition. Whatever the case, though visiting and staying at a hospital can be an unsettling experience, it’s sometimes necessary to receive the treatment to heal.

Hospitals and healthcare facilities do everything they can to make your stay or visit as positive as possible, offering comforting amenities such as entertainment, group activities, and mental health support. Another great amenity hospitals and healthcare facilities offer is healing gardens throughout their properties, most often on outdoor terraces or along pathways near the hospital. 

Healing gardens are wonderful additions to any hospital, offering many benefits to their patients and visitors. Continue reading to learn how to design a healing garden so employees, patients, and visitors find comfort during their stay.

What is a Healing Garden?

A hospital healing garden is more than an area full of flowers; it’s an outdoor space designed to offer comfort, peace, and stress relief for employees, patients, and visitors during their short-term or long-term stay. Healing gardens are built with a purpose: to provide anyone who visits a quiet, beautiful, peaceful space for reflection, conversation, or relaxation. 

Surrounding ourselves with nature has a positive impact on our health. According to a study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Library of Medicine, exposure to nature significantly improves brain activity, cognitive function, mental health, and offers physical benefits, like improved blood pressure, physical activity, and sleep. When you’re cooped up inside a hospital caring for patients, receiving treatment, or visiting a loved one, retreating to a healing garden is a great idea to find peace and comfort.

How to Purposefully Design a Comforting Healing Garden

Healing gardens should be carefully designed and built to provide peace and comfort to patients, visitors, and employees. Below are some tips for purposefully designing a comforting healing garden to provide the best comfort possible:

Add a Mix of Sun & Shade

Some people find comfort in shaded areas, while others love the feel of the sun and prefer to rest in its rays. When designing your comforting healing garden, add a mix of sun and shade to appeal to everyone. Incorporating seating under pergolas, large, mature trees, and seating in direct sunlight will comfort all guests. Adding a mix of sun and shade can offer comfort; it’s also a great idea since some patients/guests have sun exposure restrictions and are highly sensitive to light.

Engage the Senses

Some people retreat to healing gardens to find peace and comfort, while others simply want to escape the confines of the hospital/healthcare facility and enjoy fresh air. When designing your healing garden, engage the senses to offer therapeutic benefits to patients. For example, adding soothing, vibrant, and green plants can provide peace and calm. Adding plants with varying textures can help patients interact through touch. Adding plants with pleasant aromas can help relax or bring about happy memories, while adding a fountain or rustling grasses can be a pleasant distraction from the traditional hospital sounds. You can even consider adding edible gardens to engage their sense of taste.

Add Signage

Signage is a great addition to any healing garden, especially for new visitors or those who have difficulty navigating physical environments. Adding signage to direct patients through your healing garden will create a pleasant experience that gives them confidence in navigating and a sense of independence. 

Adding signage to the planters around your healing garden serves as beautiful, multifunctional signage. From engraving to emblazoning graphics and creating engaging points of visual interest, PolyMade’s branding and signage offer unique branding opportunities.

Use Planters to Separate Zones

If you’re designing a healing garden with separate zones, including an area for privacy, gatherings, conversation, and quiet, using planters is a great way to separate zones. Large planters offer an easy, low-cost way to create a decorative barrier that can enhance privacy and screen out unwanted noise. Using potted plants in healing gardens creates a viable alternative to landscaping throughout the healing garden. Large commercial planters can also separate areas into zones, creating a stunning wall between areas, and help frame the entrance.

Designing a comforting healing garden is a fun project, one that can significantly impact the lives of hospital patients, employees, and guests. By adding a mix of sun and shade, engaging the senses, adding signage, and using planters to separate zones, you’re sure to build a comforting, relaxing healing garden.

The PolyMade Advantage

PolyMade’s commercial planters deliver superior performance compared to conventional metal, concrete, or fiberglass planters, creating an environment where plants can truly flourish. Our custom planters combine visual appeal, durability, and functionality to support healthy plant growth. Each planter is tailored to each client’s needs and engineered for challenging outdoor conditions. They provide a sophisticated alternative to traditional concrete planters, delivering long-lasting performance without compromising design goals or plant well-being.

Built to withstand demanding environments, PolyMade’s commercial planters are designed to handle extreme weather conditions, including temperature fluctuations, heavy storms, and repeated freeze-thaw cycles. Our specialized three-layer construction provides both strength and protection. A lightweight, high-density polystyrene core offers structural integrity and thermal insulation, while a polyurethane layer enhances impact resistance and overall durability. The exterior is finished with custom coatings that help preserve appearance and protect against weather-related wear and UV exposure.

Unlike products that rely solely on surface treatments, PolyMade planters incorporate UV inhibitors directly into their construction for comprehensive protection. This advanced approach helps prevent fading, chalking, and discoloration over time. As a result, the planters retain their appearance and performance for more than a decade, making them a cost-effective and long-term solution for commercial landscapes and outdoor spaces.

Let’s Design Your Healing Garden Planters & Signage Today

PolyMade planters maintain their integrity and appearance much longer than concrete commercial planters, delivering both beauty and reliability year after year, protecting your plant from extreme temperatures and severe weather. From initial concept through final installation, our experienced support team provides hands-on guidance at every stage. Our streamlined process makes customization effortless: we collaborate with you to define dimensions, refine specifications, select finishes, and finalize design details, ensuring every piece influences the customer experience.

Connect with our team to learn how PolyMade’s custom commercial planter boxes can enhance your space, simplify installation, and create an environment where plants—and properties—thrive.