The Path of Life remembrance garden at the Hospice provides a space of quiet reflection and remembrance and is home to many of our Walls of Light. Thanks to a grant from HSBC, we have been able to work with local garden designers LemonBalm, to carry out some improvements to the Path of Life. This is the garden on the left hand side of the Hospice car park.
Scroll for the latest updates as work gets underway!
As an important space for many people, we wanted your input to help shape the space and ensure it is fit for purpose as a tranquil place of remembrance. Therefore, as part of the improvement work, we sent a survey to people who have bricks on the Walls of Light along the Path of Life, and others who have recently supported the Hospice in memory of someone.
From the responses, a few key themes and issues were identified. Some of these were: not enough seating for people to spend time in the garden, a sense of being overlooked from the car park and Hospice buildings, a need for more depth and colour in the planting.
LemonBalm created a design (pictured below) to solve these problems. Their concept for the garden has been broken down into five “mini-gardens”: a welcome garden, a woodland wildlife garden, a sun garden, the terrace and a secret garden. These gardens will be updated in phases, starting with the welcome garden and woodland wildlife garden for Phase 1.
The work for Phase 1 is due to start on 5th November and will go on for five weeks, so it will be completed before the Christmas period. During this time, access to the Path of Life will be closed. If you have any questions about visiting or anything else, please call Sophia on 0113 218 5506 or email on sophial@st-gemma.co.uk.
Phase 1 will also include installing lights along the Path of Life, to improve visibility, safety and a feeling of warmth for people visiting the garden at any time throughout the year. These lights will also illuminate the Walls of Light at night, which we know is important to families with bricks in memory of loved ones.
Over the course of the year, we are hoping to hold some planting and remembrance days on the Path of Life. However, this will depend on guidance and restrictions due to Covid-19, so we will continue to monitor what we could do for these and update you in due course.
Thank you to everyone who completed the survey and contributed to the future vision of the Path of Life.
Update week commencing 9th November
This week the landscapers broke ground and began preparing the beds for planting. Behind these walls of light will be a wild flower meadow, which will look great and also encourage pollinators to visit the garden. On a chilly morning site visit we noticed that a spider had made a web on our temporary fencing.
Update week commencing 23rd November
Last week was busy on the Path of Life! LemonBalm have planted over 100 plants and bulbs in the welcome garden. They have also built and filled the habitat tower from reclaimed pallets and materials.
The landscapers have been busy building the posts and cairns, putting a new seat on the long bench and have skilfully crafted an amazing bird house! Finally, they’ve also been planting up the woodland wildlife garden and will sow the meadow seeds ready for the spring.
Update week commencing 4th January 2021
This week we have a video update where garden designers LemonBalm walk us through some of the latest developments on the Path of Life.
The Mosaic
“Out of the darkness comes light and love”
This beautiful mosaic is now in place on the Path of Life. The fantastic team at Seagulls created the mosaic with input from St Gemma’s staff and supporters to create something truly special to the Hospice.
Seagulls carried out virtual workshops and socially-distanced drop-in sessions to gather ideas for mosaic. The mosaic is a unique focal point in the remembrance garden and we look forward to when it can be enjoyed by many.
