Landscaping Considerations For Medical Facilities and Hospitals

Hospital landscaping isn’t just pretty. It helps heal.

Plants, trees and flowers boost positivity, reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, ease muscle tension, and boost positive attitudes.

Patients, with views from their windows overlooking trees, often have shorter hospital stays and need less pain medication than patients with views of buildings or concrete.

But property managers of sprawling health care complexes have a lot more than hospital landscape design on their plates.

We think about this a lot. Here’s what we can bring to the important business of healing — from designing restful and relaxing green spaces to meticulous maintenance.

Watch This Video to Learn How We Help Hospitals & Medical Facilities

The Crucial First Impression

Hospitals can be scary.

Patients want to know right off the bat that they’re in a safe, welcoming place to heal. Visitors want to be confident their loved ones are getting great care.

Great landscaping makes everything friendlier.

Create a cheerful, welcoming front entrance flanked by colorful flowers, lush plants and pretty ornamental trees.

That verdant welcome starts a potentially stress-filled day with calm and beauty. Everybody appreciates that, whether you’re a patient, a visitor or an employee.

Securing Safety

Hospitals and health care centers are busy 24 hours a day, bustling with patients, families, visitors, staff and emergency vehicles.

Before anybody even gets inside, they park.

Your parking lots have to be clean and safe, with signage clearly visible.

No overgrown bushes or wayward limbs obscuring important directions.

No clumps of mowed grass, leaf litter or other unsightly debris.

Anything that can cause a person to trip, fall, and injure themselves is a liability concern. Make sure all of these areas are lit well at night.

It’s impossible for a busy property manager to keep track of every fallen branch, cracked piece of pavement, sunken step, protruding tree root or wayward irrigation head.

We’ll spot those potential hazards. Our crews don’t miss a thing.

Meticulous Maintenance

Your hospital’s appearance outside tells people a lot about your attention to detail inside. Do they feel safe and confident about their impending care? Or worried about cleanliness and carelessness?

Meticulous maintenance is critical, from neatly mowed and well-tended lawns to tidy and weed-free flower beds to clean-up of litter and debris.

Trees and shrubs need regular trimming and pruning so they don’t snag passersby, tumble down unexpectedly or obscure sight lines in walkways and parking lots.

We’ve got this. It’s what we do, every day.

Healing Gardens

Plants have helped with healing for centuries, and some of the plants that worked back then are just as beneficial now.

Fill flower beds with roses, lavender and catnip.

Tuck rosemary, sage and sweet marjoram into pots where passersby can ruffle their fingers through the fragrant leaves and breathe in the healing scents.

Great Greenery

Hardscape is a necessary part of landscaping for hospitals, (we’ll share some good ideas in a minute) but be sure to surround it with plenty of green.

Think soothing expanses of green, healthy lawn. Leafy, thriving plants. Cooling shade.

Position trees, plants and flowers so they’re visible from the inside, too, so patients can view the tranquil scene from their room windows and employees can sneak a peek of beauty and calm between hectic tasks.

Calming Nature’s Visitors

Birds and butterflies are a big healing boost, too, so put out a big green welcome mat.

Native plants are great for this. Birds and butterflies love them. Bonus: they’re hardy and less susceptible to pests and diseases. They grow well and require little care.

And the wild critters they attract are a delightful, fluttering diversion for hospital patients who need a cheerful boost and workers who duck outside for a much-needed break.

Restful Respite

Great hospital landscape design includes peaceful, leafy retreats tucked around your health care campus.

You’ll be amazed at the use they get, from patients relaxing to families gathering for updates to staff reviewing cases or grabbing a picnic lunch.

Stock your courtyards, patios and common areas with the necessities: comfortable, shaded seating; intriguing potted plants; beds brimming with cheerful flowers; nooks for privacy; a spot for kids to play.

Don’t forget your building’s rooftop. It’s fair game for a plant-packed therapeutic garden or a restful employee retreat.

Wooing Your Workers

Working in health care is stressful. The doctors, nurses, and other hospital and medical center employees appreciate beautiful, tranquil landscaping, too.

Consider a restful patio filled with plants and flowers where workers can take a break, eat lunch, meet-up to discuss patient care or catch up on paperwork.

Think about comfort: benches, chairs, shaded tables.

Provide places for group conversation but don’t forget about secluded nooks for restful solitude.

Walkways, Paths and Trails

Hospital landscape architecture should include a peaceful walking path for patients, visitors and employees to burn off some stress, rejuvenate, recuperate or get some steps in.

Paths should be wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs and pedestrians strolling in pairs. They should be smooth but slip proof, easily walkable so they don’t impede wheelchair wheels or snag wheeled IV poles.

Keep in mind winding walkways are more appealing than a straight path.

Win Them Over With Water

Everybody loves water. It soothes our souls, calms us down, captivates us.

Consider water features part of your healing landscape design.

Add a fountain or small waterfall to common areas, courtyards and gardens.

Tuck one away in a secluded spot for a pleasant surprise, but consider placing one that’s on view from indoors, too.

Offer Shade

Bright, warm sun has its own way of healing, but here in the hot mid-South, we also crave shade.

Trees are a natural, but turn to gazebos, pergolas and canvas shade sails to fill in, too.

Light It Up

Property managers know good lighting is crucial for safety on round-the-clock sites like hospitals, but don’t forget beauty, too.

Expert, artistic landscape lighting can highlight your property’s prettiest trees, show off water features and put intriguing plants in the spotlight to create a calming effect that lasts beyond sundown.

How Our People Help Your Mission

Landscaping doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

Your patients, visitors and employees will see our crews on the job, planting flowers, trimming shrubs, weeding beds.

Sure, we’ll be hard at work, but we know the people passing by might be worried, stressed or sad.

That’s why we’re courteous, friendly and understanding.

And we know how to stay out of the way.

Our vehicles are tidy and professional.

We won’t distract from your property’s vital mission.

Trust Your Hospital Landscaping to Hatcher

Here at Michael Hatcher & Associates, we know how important a hospital visit is — and how to make your medical campus welcoming and peaceful.

Our skilled crews can add relaxing patios and seating areas, perfect pathways and calming greenery.

Then, we’re happy to stick around to keep it all perfectly maintained.