Idea Garden

The Idea Garden, located on the grounds of Sarah Bush Lincoln Hospital in Mattoon, is 1,200 square feet of planted space.  Volunteers work more than 300 hours each year in the garden to provide a source of inspiration, relaxation, and continuing education for our community and its visitors.  The Idea Garden has been maintained as an educational tool to demonstrate garden design and maintenance ideas, to encourage novice and experienced gardeners to experiment with new plants and techniques, and as a site for public workshops.

The Idea Garden is divided into several sections featuring a variety of gardens.  The gardens included are Rock, Children's, Bog, Herb, Shrub, Butterfly, Annual/Cutting, Keyhole, Bulb, Vegetable, and Grass garden.  There are many beautiful things to see.  We encourage you to visit the garden and explore the different areas.

Pictures

Keyhole Garden

A keyhole garden is a raised bed, lasagna garden, composting and recycling system all rolled into one. The design creates a garden that uses recycled materials, less water and maintenance.

Cottage Garden

This distinct style uses informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants.

Rock Garden

Also known as a rocketry or an alpine garden, are a small field or plot of ground designed to feature and emphasize a variety of rocks, stones, and boulders.

Ornamental Grasses

These are grasses grown as ornamental plants. Ornamental grasses are popular in many colder hardiness zones for their resilience to cold temperatures and aesthetic value throughout fall and winter seasons.

Cutting Garden

A cutting garden is planted with flowers suitable and intended for a table arrangement, These gardens can provide a variety of flowers that are long-lasting when cut.

Children's Garden

The children's garden was planted for children to explore the world of plants, investigating, touching and smelling various child friendly plants.

Herb Garden

The herb garden is planted with a wide variety of attractive plants used in culinary or curative purposes.

Vegetable Garden

A vegetable garden is a traditional kitchen garden planted with a variety of vegetables grown for household use.

Shrub Garden

Shrub gardens contain deciduous or evergreen woody plants that provide a variety of fragrant flowers, berries, and autumn color.

Bulb Garden

Bulb gardens contain plants that have underground, fleshy storage structures. The functions of the underground structures is to store nutrient reserves to ensure the plants survival.