Healing Garden
Heide’s healing garden reflects Sunday Reed’s aspiration for the Heide gardens to be both a creative outlet and a source of respite and rejuvenation.
When she and John Reed lived in the original cottage the healing garden site was their first kitchen garden. Over time the eucalyptus trees cast too much shadow and they moved the kitchen garden further out, to its current location. Their friend Barrett Reid later attempted to plant a rainforest garden in the area during his residence in the cottage in the 1980s, however, it was largely unsuccessful, and the healing garden restores the alignment of the space with the philosophical intentions of the Reeds.
The garden has been designed with climate and seasonality in mind and to maximise wellbeing benefits, with many sensory plantings and numerous places to sit and feel enclosed within the space. It is also located on the most physically accessible part of the Heide grounds so that people of all abilities can enjoy it and have a heightened experience of all the different elements of the Heide gardens in one location.
photograph: Clytie Meredith
photograph: Clytie Meredith
photograph: Clytie Meredith
photograph: Clytie Meredith
The healing garden is for everyone who visits Heide, but it is also purpose-built for people who could benefit the most, facilitated by partnerships with community groups for co-designed programs including disability service providers and aged care facilities.
Completed in 2021, the garden was designed by leading urban design and landscape architecture firm Openwork and supported by The Shine On Foundation. The project has seen the transformation of one of the most under-utilised and overgrown sections of the Heide environment into one of the most beautiful, purposeful and inviting.