Tucked in behind the Sturgeon Community Hospital is a hidden grove full of flowers, butterflies, talking trees, and squirrels.
Once it was a tangled thicket of shrubs and spruce. Now, thanks to dedicated volunteers and a chainsaw, it has become a place of healing.
About 60 people held a tea party at the hospital on Sept. 17 to celebrate their work on Mary Lou’s Garden, which is on the northeast side of the building by the cafeteria.
The healing garden, which is open to the public, features flower beds, ceramic squirrels, and a fountain, as well as benches, bears, and butterflies carved from wood.
It’s a magical, secluded space that’s not easy to spot from the nearby road as it’s in a roughly one-story deep dip in the landscape, said garden designer Sandy Mageau.
“It’s a best-kept secret.”
Magical tribute
The idea for the garden started two years ago when Mary Lou McKenzie, then site director at the Sturgeon Hospital, asked for some team-building ideas. Mageau, who works at the hospital, suggested a garden club, one that would build a healing garden by the cafeteria to help patients and staff relax. McKenzie gave the project the thumbs-up.
“She wanted to tie in the community with the hospital and create a nice garden for everyone to enjoy,” Mageau said.
“After my boss [McKenzie] said we could create this space, two weeks after, she died.”
Mageau said she and other hospital employees decided to build the garden in McKenzie’s memory.
Crews started clearing the tangle of shrubs and spruce trees from the garden area in Spring 2023, Mageau said — it was so overgrown that some coyotes decided to den in there one time. Crews left as many tree stumps as possible standing and replanted many of the shrubs in the flower beds on the garden’s north side.
Sherwood Park chainsaw artist Kelly Davies was hired to turn the stumps into art.
Davies carved some mouth-like notches in a cluster of trees in the garden to create an installation called “Conversations,” which references the many joyous and tearful conversations staff and patients will have in the garden. The “mouths” are arranged so that no matter what angle you view the trees, at least two of them are talking to each other.
“There will be forevermore a myriad of conversations happening [in this garden], some good, some bad, but all of them will directly connect two souls together, and that’s pretty special,” Davies said.
Three of the trees became the park’s front gate, Davies continued. The gate’s crossbar features the words “Mary Lou’s Garden” (named after McKenzie), angel wings, and many poppies, which were McKenzie’s favourite flower.
Davies carved the other stumps into bears, benches, butterflies, and giant morels. Davies said he added a squirrel to one of the benches in honour of the squirrel that kept piling pine cones atop one of the stumps he was trying to carve.
“I looking forward to seeing where Mr. Squirrel starts squirrelling away all his stuff now that the garden has been all landscaped. He’ll be out doing his own landscaping for sure.”
Growing garden
Garden club and Kinsmen Club of St. Albert volunteers have gradually built out the rest of the garden in the last two years with donated materials and decorations, Mageau said. Plans are afoot to add a second level, one that might feature a large meeting table.
Mageau said the garden has become a place of peace for staff, patients, and visitors, and has helped her heal from the loss of McKenzie. She recalled one woman who would walk barefoot on the garden’s gravel paths to rejuvenate herself before visiting her ailing mother in the hospital.
“That is the whole purpose of [the garden]: to be a gathering place and a healing garden.”
Donations to support the garden can be made to the Sturgeon Hospital Foundation. Anyone who wishes to help maintain the garden should call Megan Petryk at 780-418-8279.
