A woodland garden, ‘Woodland Retreat’ is soon to be enjoyed by residents of The Sundials, a new purpose-built facility for people suffering with dementia run by Bristol charity, the St Monica Trust.
Designed and donated to the Trust by Bamboo.
The end result is an array of sights, sounds, scents and textures, with sensory features designed to provoke memories.
In this Woodland Garden, scents of garlic in spring time roll into roses in summer and the smell of simple woodland mulch as the seasons progress.
A path of resin-bound gravel by SureSet leads to a gate and an area of overgrown planting. In an old and collapsed section of stone wall, plants begin to grow amongst the fallen stones. A simple seat constructed of logs and wooden boards offers a place to pause and reflect or simply to appreciate the planting. The garden is enclosed on three sides by Hazel Coppice Hurdles, a product of traditional managed woodland.
The garden represents the importance of a calm and welcoming environment that allows for peaceful reflection away from mental stress. Capturing the essence of a calm woodland setting and presenting it in a cultivated and domestic form, ‘Woodland Retreat’ will be a quiet haven for the residents of the St Monica Trust, but could equally be created in almost any garden or outdoor space.
