Garden Club Helps Plant Lake Forest Hospital Legacy Garden

LAKE FOREST, IL — Staff at Lake Forest Hospital and members of the Lake Forest Garden Club collaborated to design and plant a new outdoor area to honor the hospital's previous building.

With its design aiming to have have a prairie feel rather than that of a traditional English garden, the legacy garden features low-maintenance native plants that can withstand severe weather and will serve as pollinators for bees and butterflies, according to hospital officials.

“The legacy garden was always part of the campus plan,” Thomas J. McAfee, president of Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital, said in a statement. “The rich history and impact the hospital had on patients and the community is to always be remembered and acknowledged, and we are pleased that the Lake Forest Garden Club joined in our vision to create a beautiful space for the public to enjoy.”

Ten volunteer garden club members recently volunteered to come out in high heat and community to work with hospital maintance staff to plant the garden, which is filled with native grasses plants and bushes.

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“While we were thrilled to be offered the opportunity to help design and plant this garden, we weren’t sure how many members would be able to come out due to COVID restrictions and working in the challenging weather conditions,” Charenton Drake, second vice president of the Lake Forest Garden Club, said in a statement “When we saw so many members participate, we were reminded of how dedicated our members are to the Lake Forest community.”

The former building was built in 1942 and replaced with the new facility at 1000 N. Westmoreland Road, which was completed in 2018 after four years of construction. The hospital campus includes 116 acres of open space, and the redesign included the addition of nearly 700 new trees and a 6-acre pond to reduce flooding in the area.

The center of the garden features a bronze seal that includes an image showing the facade of the former hospital building with a background of leaves, which hospital officials said symbolizing the hospital's longtime commitment to green space and nature on its campus.