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The grounds of the Freedom North Lakeside Garden provide

a healing place for people to be with nature including coral honeysuckle (below).

Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

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By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley

    As you sit on a wooden bench in the shade of an elm tree, you aren’t alone. Next to you, a cat basks in the sun, licking its dark fur. On the edge of the nearby lake, a Muscovy family includes four fuzzy yellow ducklings.

    The birds call to each other from their perches in the pink crape myrtles. And the butterflies don’t have to go far to drink the nectar of a blue plumbago flower or a red jatropha bloom. 

    This garden that measures only about 100-by-70 feet also is popular with people who traverse the cement paths in wheelchairs or on walkers. After all, it is attached to the 120-bed Community Living Center on the grounds of the West Palm Beach Veterans Affairs Medical Center. 

    “It’s a healing place for people to just go and sit and be with nature,” says nurse practitioner Maura Miller, who is director for the center’s hospice and palliative care program as well as the powerhouse behind this bit of nature.

    The patients include vets who need rehabilitation after knee replacement surgery or a stroke. They may be here because they suffer cognitive impairment or advanced Parkinson’s disease and can no longer live at home. Or they may be looking for peace in the center’s hospice unit.

7960493078?profile=original    In 2005, Miller started the gardening program after asking the veterans what more the center could offer them. They told her they wanted to be more active in their day-to-day lives and to do things they remembered from childhood, such as gardening.

    She started the program indoors with the vets growing seeds in pots. But they soon told her they preferred being outdoors in the dirt. 

    So in 2010, she approached the Mounts Botanical Garden in West Palm Beach and discovered a dedicated group of volunteers willing to help create this therapy garden on the east side of the center. Today some are still involved with the garden’s upkeep.

     For many of the patients and their visitors, this garden is a cherished spot. Just ask David Corsi of Boynton Beach who has been at the center for two and a half years battling cancer. 

    “I love the garden. I go out there to pray, have a cigarette and relax. It’s the best part of the hospital,” he says.

    You’ll find him watering the tomatoes in their oversized pots or wheeling himself past bright yellow, green and pink bromeliads as well as crotons with yellow speckled leaves that really stand out. 

    The concrete garden paths make three circles that pass by orchids, an antler fern, red and green copper leafs and the pink-touched leaves of snow on the mountain. 

    Or you can stop and view a Dutchman’s pipe, which attracts swallowtail butterflies. The vine with its pipe-shaped purple flowers grows over a support that keeps it off the ground and makes it visible from just about any height including Corsi’s wheelchair.  

    “If you stay here long enough, you can watch the butterflies lay eggs, caterpillars grow and butterflies pop out,” says Miller. There’s also plenty of milkweed for the monarchs. 

    “The garden represents the wholeness and freedom of nature, and that’s why our patients like it,” says Dr. Michael Silverman, who is chief of geriatric and extended care at the center. 

    Open 24 hours a day to patients and their guests, this garden is a popular place, and there are plans to expand it.

Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley is a certified master gardener who can be reached at debhartz@att.net when she’s not in her garden.

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