Restorative Gardens: The Healing Landscape

Gerlach-Spriggs, Nancy, et al

ISBN 10: 0300072384 / ISBN 13: 9780300072389

Published by Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1998

About this Item

Dust Jacket is in fine condition without tears or chips or other damage. Quantity Available: 1. Category: Gardening; ISBN: 0300072384. ISBN/EAN: 9780300072389. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 7748.

Seller Inventory # 7748

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Restorative Gardens: The Healing Landscape
• Publisher: Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300072384
• ISBN 13: 9780300072389
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Gardening

About this title

Synopsis

In the beauty of restorative gardens, patients from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century found a setting in which to heal both physically and mentally. This engaging book examines the history of such gardens and their therapeutic role in six modern medical centers. The authors make a plea to integrate nature into the medical milieu for patients' sense of peace and well-being.

Reviews

The idea of a garden as an adjunct to high-tech medicine in the treatment of patients is not widely entertained, but the three authors argue that it should be. "Whatever the precise design, a restorative garden is a healing landscape," they say. "It can sometimes be soothing in its sensitivity or stimulating in its exuberance, but at either extreme it is intended to engage the viewer in an act of invigoration." Gerlach- Spriggs is a landscape designer, Kaufman a physician and Warner a professor of urban studies. They combine their interests to describe, with numerous supporting photographs and drawings, six gardens of the kind they have in mind: at the Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in New York City, Queen of Peace Residence in Queens Village, N.Y., the Hospice at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Friends Hospital in Philadelphia, Wausau Hospital in Wausau, Wis., and Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey, Calif. At each place, the authors found that the garden's effects touched staff as well as patients, resulting in "an emphasis on individualized, meticulous, intimate caring for the patient." A restorative garden in a health care setting, the authors say, provides a "touch of grace [that] goes remarkably far in restoring personhood to patienthood."