Quotes

We know intuitively that with this relaxing environment and wonderful view, we can achieve a better outcome.

The full-grown trees offer shade and solace, the waterfalls and ponds serenity. It's a new direction in medicine known as the healing garden, a place where people can leave behind the stressful aspects of their lives for a few quiet moments.

Research has shown that viewing gardens can reduce patient stress and improve health outcomes while also having the ability to reduce stress among employees and visitors. A 1991 study showed that gardens have the ability to have a positive effect on blood pressure, heart activity, the brain's electrical activity and muscle tension.

I see it as a community healing environment. It's free to the public and people and come in and enjoy it and it's very unique for a timber community to have something like this.

Anderson Japanese Gardens is an authentic Japanese Garden maintained by the highest standards that touches the souls of our guests. With grace, elegance, and gentle awareness we exemplify the Japanese cultural heritage of respectful humility in service to people of all cultures.

Construction of Anderson Japanese Gardens began in 1978, when Rockford businessman John Anderson was inspired by a visit to the Portland Japanese Garden in Oregon. With the ongoing assistance of renowned Master Craftsman and designer Hoichi Kurisu, the Andersons' swampy backyard along Rockford's Spring Creek was transformed into a Japanese-style landscape. From groundbreaking to today, the placement of every rock, alignment of every tree, and layout of all paths has been made with careful consideration by Mr. Kurisu.

Gazing at Hoichi Kurisu's most successful gardens reveals a subtle sensitivity to material and its arrangement. Walking in them is to discover space as a transformative experience.

Whenever I feel weak in recovery, I look out at the garden and I realize that I couldn't enjoy all the beauty of the world under the influence. It reminds me of how much I want recovery.

In the Rosecrance Griffin Williamson healing garden project, Hoichi Kurisu embraced the spirit of recovery with elements inviting clients and guests to become immersed in the garden. The garden sets the tone for the healing spirit of the building and the programs that are carried out in the building. It is an inspiration and motivator to all who see and feel its presence.

The garden emphasizes harmony and the spiritual connections between human beings and the natural world.

It is a peaceful area to reflect on what I will accomplish in treatment and what I will do when I leave. The Healing Garden is a big part of my recovery.

The garden connects to the heart and the human soul, and allows clients to process thoughts, emotions and experiences that might not be easily accessible or understood. Many young clients have lost connection with their friends, families, the world around them and in some cases themselves; the garden reintroduces them to the simple act of connection.

I was grateful I heard the swallow cooing as I walked in the garden and I looked up to see her nest... She reminded me that life is about the simple things, finding your niche to nest in even if it between a rock and a hard place. If she can do it, so can I.

Through honoring the design and vision of a fellow landscaper before him, Kurisu has not only brought history, insight and beauty back to the Japanese Garden - he has brought back a little piece of heaven on Earth.

A marvel of engineering.

When people come to our home, they feel like they've entered another world.

We're purposefully creating an environment to defuse the stress of modern life. It's our special romantic getaway. To have a garden like this in the middle of the city - we just love it.

The process of design and installation was one of firsts and bests. On Kurisu's initial visit to the site, he was struck by the unique opportunity it presented to a landscape designer - fashioning a Japanese garden in the sky, complete with water features and rock and boulder hardscaping to compliment the evergreen "forest" they'd be creating.

Nature has been rearranged and enhanced to create a better aesthetic. The atmosphere of peace and beauty here reminds one of a word coined several years ago by Harvard University professor of science E.O. Wilson. The word is 'biophilia,' which means 'the natural affiliation humans have for natural environments.' In an accelerating and sometimes confusing high-tech age, an age of busyness and little time for reflection, it's this human affiliation for nature that Hoichi Kurisu wants to reflect and elicit.

With modern condominiums rising in the background, Kurisu's restored wetlands offer repose and tranquility.

Mr. Kurisu has a unique way about bringing nature and healing to the projects and the public spaces that he creates and we're hoping that the space will not only be significant in terms of waste water treatment, but it will be significant for the community ... as a place where water is reconnected back to the essence of who we are.

The gardens represent a space where we're trying to nurture that feeling of nature healing the water ... and a place where people can go and feel rested and healed as well.

When I walk through the garden [at Fernhill], I feel a calmness in my heart.

When I want to be peaceful in my heart now, I just stop and think of the garden.

Once he started building, people here at the museum noticed the changes. It really is a sensual and emotional kind of experience. It really does change your mood and your pace. People are going to find this to be a moving experience.

Hoichi Kurisu wants you to walk slowly through this garden, listening to the wind that whispers through the pine tree across the lake. Perhaps you'll stop to rest on the cool, smooth surface of granite boulder and then, when all is still, you'll hear it: Your own heart beating a calm and steady rhythm.

The garden has transformed the mental wellbeing of hospital patients and caregivers. It has also revived the economic health of Lebanon. The garden-adjacent care has attracted out-of-state patients to the facility and drawn doctors from afar.

The Japanese Courtyard Garden provides a distinct, rejuvenating experience for Phipps visitors.

Kurisu visited Phipps to meet with the horticulture team, observe how the garden has evolved since its installation and share ideas for the future. Kurisu and his team worked closely with Phipps on renovation and maintenance plans, focusing on traditional Japanese pruning techniques and adding new plants to optimize the flow of energy within the courtyard.

We are excited to continue to enhance one of the most serene, reflective spaces at Phipps.

To me, this [garden] will be the first place where it's all-inclusive, where everyone can go there, of any culture, of any power structure, staff, inmates. We can all go there and feel some sense of safety, some sense of peace. In this type of place, that's almost unheard of.

It is amazing to see how this project and its story is inspiring people to see beyond the typical perspective of prison. We are very grateful and appreciative for all the blessings and positive responses. Hoichi Kurisu had said this to us upon our very first meeting with him, concerning how we were supposed to raise the money and gain support from the community. HK calmly expressed 'believe in yourself and in your heart that it is the right thing to do, it has a meaning.' HK's blessing has given us the strength to overcome all the challenges and barriers through this process.

It [the Healing Garden] changes your inner feelings about what has happened to you. It makes you realize, there's an end to all this. I am going to get better.

Kurisu's commitment to gardens that can heal the world makes him a leader in the movement to change Japanese-style gardens into places of individual and social transformation.

Clinical outcomes improve when patients are exposed to natural environments. It makes sense to expose both patients and staff to the healing capacity of the garden. We believe this is the design model for the future delivery of healthcare. The impact of the Healing Garden on our patients, and on our physicians and staff, has been nothing short of extraordinary. From morale and pride, to patient care, to a spirit of healing and recovery, it profoundly affects us every day.

The impact of the Healing Garden on our patients, and on our physicians and staff, has been nothing short of extraordinary. From morale and pride, to patient care, to a spirit of healing and recovery, it profoundly affects us every day.

The garden is such a beautiful and amazing addition to our hospital. It creates an environment of peace and well-being for the hospital staff, the visitors and patients. But more importantly, it generates something very personal and pure within the individual. It touches the soul, and what could be more important and healing than that?