Completed in 2021, the Healing Garden provides a calm and therapeutic space, for patients, their visitors, and for staff.
Keep up to date with Healing Garden news on Instagram
We are now raising funds for a garden building: ‘The Potting Shed’, and a lean-to greenhouse. A place to propagate and grow plants for the garden, to hold workshops, and for volunteers to take a well-earned break on those cold and wet gardening days.
Can you help, please?
Completed in 2021, the Healing Garden provides a calm and therapeutic space, for patients, their visitors, and for staff.
Keep up to date with Healing Garden news on Instagram
We are now raising funds for a garden building: ‘The Potting Shed’, and a lean-to greenhouse. A place to propagate and grow plants for the garden, to hold workshops, and for volunteers to take a well-earned break on those cold and wet gardening days.
Can you help, please?
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“A place of quietness. A quiet, calm space, nature to view and remember that all life changes.” a Harefield patient
Why we built a garden at Harefield Hospital

As a specialist heart and lung centre, many of Harefield’s patients have life-threatening conditions, needing a transplant or other surgery, and many spend months at Harefield. Some suffer post-traumatic stress from their experience.
We wanted to provide a garden which would be accessible to all; a sanctuary for patients, a place for visitors, including young children to spend time with their loved ones, and for staff to take a well needed break.
As relatives of former patients we know what a difference having this garden would have made, and it’s great to see the garden now being used as we had hoped it would be.
Patients with access to nature:
√ Suffer fewer complications after surgery
√ Use less pain medication
√ Experience more positive feelings and fewer negative emotions
√ Patients with a garden view are discharged sooner than those who looked out on an inanimate brick wall
Roger Ulrich “Effects of Gardens on Health Outcomes”
Comments from Harefield’s patients and staff
“A garden will offer a vital breathing space, somewhere to escape away from the wards.”
“It would give me the motivation to go outside”
“Seeing the seasons change makes you feel part of the world”
“Somewhere to sit, to listen and to get some fresh air would be wonderful. The ward is far from peaceful.”
“My husband would have loved this garden. It would have given him somewhere away from the wards to enjoy being with his grandchildren.”
Our physiotherapists welcome the garden as: “somewhere for patients to get back on their feet” – “an important first step to gaining confidence and feeling part of the world again.”
Helen Doyle, Matron of Rowan Ward says: “We’ve noticed that patients are happier and more positive when they are outside, away from the hospital environment. It lifts their mood and is a nicer place to socialise with their family”
Our hope is that in the words of a Harefield Transplant Fellow, the garden will provide for all: “a place where you can just sit and lose the concept of time.”
Our personal reasons for building a garden


Rosie Pope OBE, Founder
My son Will received a new heart in 2013 when he was 20. He spent many weeks at Harefield when first diagnosed, at 16 years old, with dilated cardiomyopathy, and more than 6 months there aged 20. He had a VAD (Ventricular Assist Device) implanted in 2009 but was back at Harefield on the urgent transplant list four years later.
We saw Harefield all year round. In Spring, Summer and Autumn, when possible, Will would sit on a bench overlooking the road. In winter the nurses pushed him from ITU to the front doors of the hospital to see and feel the snow.
Will suffered from ITU syndrome and took many months to recover after his transplant. On a cold crisp day in February, as he was too weak to get into a car, I bumped him along the uneven pavement to the Old Orchard, in a borrowed wheelchair supported by pillows, pulling him
Since Will first became ill I have raised funds for the Brompton & Harefield Hospital working for their Charity in Special Events. I am now, as a volunteer, focusing on the garden.
Who are we?

Rosie Pope
My son Will received a new heart in 2013 when he was 20. He spent many weeks at Harefield when first diagnosed, at 16 years old, with dilated cardiomyopathy, and more than 6 months there aged 20. He had a VAD (Ventricular Assist Device) implanted in 2009 but was back at Harefield on the urgent transplant list four years later.
We saw Harefield all year round. In Spring, Summer and Autumn, when possible, Will would sit on a bench overlooking the road. In winter the nurses pushed him from ITU to the front doors of the hospital to see and feel the snow.
Will suffered from ITU syndrome and took many months to recover after his transplant. On a cold crisp day in February, as he was too weak to get into a car, I bumped him along the uneven pavement to the Old Orchard, in a borrowed wheelchair supported by pillows, pulling him
Since Will first became ill I have raised funds for the Brompton & Harefield Hospital working for their Charity in Special Events. I am now, as a volunteer, focusing on the garden.

Catherine Perry, Co-Founder
Rosie has held the healing garden in her heart ever since her son Will


Catherine Perry

My children would have loved to have visited their grandad while he was in
Rosie has held the healing garden in her heart ever since her son Will

Recent Healing Garden developments
Festive cheer and Christmas shopping
Join us for a spot of festive cheer and shopping🎄at Blackwell Hall, Blackwell Hall Lane, Chesham, HP5 1TN on Tuesday 30th November 10am - 8pm & Wednesday 1st December 10am - 5pm Kindly hosted by Purdy and Figg who will be selling their beautiful range of natural...
A celebration of the official opening of the Harefield Healing Garden
Yesterday the Harefield Healing Garden was officially opened with an event to mark eight years of fundraising, planning, designing and planting. The event was kept small due to being in the hospital grounds, but Hospital staff, patients and supporters came together to...
Joshua’s double-tri challenge
My dad sadly passed away in November of last year after over 20 years of dealing with heart problems. It started with bacteria entering his body from a routine tooth extraction that went to his heart and attacked his heart. 2 open heart surgeries and 2 key hole valve...
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All funds raised to go to the Harefield Healing Garden; a restricted appeal of the

All funds raised to go to the Harefield Healing Garden; a restricted appeal of the