A “healing garden” is under construction at the Botanical Gardens. The garden is a join effort between the Botanical Gardens, D’Youville College School of Pharmacy, Mercy Hospital of Buffalo and the National Garden Festival’s 2014 LEAF a Legacy project.
The project is said to be a spin-off of the National Garden Festival’s Front Yard Contest, which helped to spruce up some neighborhoods that border Buffalo’s Olmsted Park System (Riverside and MLK) in past years.
This time, Plant Western New York, a not-for-profit corporation of nurseries, garden centers, growers and tree and lawn care firms, pooled their resources and designed an oasis for spiritual healing, meditation and reflection. And what better place to do it than right on the doorstep of one of Buffalo’s most awesome year round destinations?
“In the works for many years, this Healing Garden is such a meaningful project for us and we are so happy to see it break ground,” said David J. Swarts, the Botanical Gardens’ president and chief executive officer. “We are grateful to all supporting entities that have helped to bring this project to life.”
The healing garden is located directly behind the botanical gardens’ complex and is anticipated to be complete by next spring. For years people have hoped that this sort of garden project would come to fruition on the grounds of the Botanical Gardens.
On top of looking beautiful, the healing garden was also designed to assist with storm water management. The garden acts as a rain garden, thus helping to alleviate water runoff from entering into the city’s outdated combined sewer systems.
It’s nice to see so many different elements come together, with the help of Buffalo’s professional landscapers and gardeners. The Botanical Gardens deserves to have such wonderful support from the community, and the community will soon have an incredibly peaceful place to go to relax and simply contemplate life.
Photos: Botanical Gardens Facebook