A UNIQUE healing garden project to benefit the health of patients at the new Okehampton Hospital will also benefit the town?s prestige ? the garden is the only one of its kind in the United Kingdom and the first outside Japan.
A team of Japanese gardeners led by an internationally renowned garden designer will be in Okehampton next month to help create the healing garden in the centre of the grounds of the new hospital.
Top international garden designer Mr Kasai is now back in Kyoto? -the centre of Japanese gardening ? but will return to Okehampton next month to oversee the project and witness its official launch. His trip has been paid for by the Johrei Society based in London and Kyoto.
The pioneering idea behind the garden is that it should contribute to good health with plants, art and sculpture designed to have a calming and tranquil influence on patients, inspiring their inner-health potential.
Three of Mr Kasai?s assistants will be staying with Okehampton GP Paul Nielsen and his wife for 40 days as they follow their master?s designs. A further 15 student volunteers will be arriving from Japan to work in the garden for a few days in the middle of May.
Dr Nielson, of Okehampton Medical Centre, said: ?Mr Kasai is an internationally famous garden designer and he has designed gardens throughout the world. We are very lucky to have him.?
Dr Nielson said Mr Kasai took great inspiration for his designs from the environment of Okehampton and the surrounding area.
?He has asked for 2,000 river stones to be used as part of the path and a round granite trough as a water feature, as granite plays a big part on Dartmoor.?
Dr Nielson said he had sent maps and plans of the proposed hospital and photographs of the moor and the local trees and landscape to Mr Kasai to help him come up with a design. ?It has evolved even since his original plans,? said Dr Nielson.
Dr Nielsen said Mr Kasai was very excited at working on the Okehampton project as it was the first time he had created a healing garden in the grounds of a hospital.
?The centre of the gardens is a healing garden, so staff, patients, relatives and friends can go out there and be calm.?
Dr Nielsen said everyone involved was eager to get started on the project: ?We really want to get cracking before the patients move in.?
A competition was also run among Okehampton College GCSE pupils to contribute a sculpture to be used in the small courtyard of the new garden.
Dr Nielsen said the standard of entries was so good, he hoped five or six of the best sculptures could be used in the courtyard, where they would assist in touch therapy for elderly and confused patients.
Mr Kasai attended a public meeting in Okehampton last week and outlined his enthusiasm for the healing garden project through interpreter Juinchi Imura of the Johrei Society.
The society, based in London and Kyoto, promotes the concept of holistic healthcare using touch therapy, herbalism, therapeutic massage and Western medicine.
The new Okehampton Hospital is officially to open on May 22, following the extraordinary success of the fundraising appeal to collect £250,000 to equip it with state of the art medical equipment.
l The Tree for Life campaign, which allows people to pay £10 to buy a tree or shrub to be planted in the hospital grounds, is going from strength to strength.
Karen Percival, Tree for Life appeal co-ordinator, said the current total raised stood at a remarkable £3,134. ?It is a brilliant response, far more than we ever expected,? said Karen.