Skip to content
  • Home
  • Product Lines
    • Whips
    • Branched Flowering Trees
    • Branched Shade Trees
    • Light Branched Trees
    • Weeping & Head Grade Trees
    • Multi-Stem, Clump and Singles for Clumping
    • Birch Singles for Clumping
    • Balled & Burlapped Trees
    • Containerized Trees
    • VigorLiner®
    • Root Bags
    • UtiliTrees™
  • Trees
    • All Trees
    • JFS Introductions
    • New Trees
    • UtiliTrees™
    • Fruit Trees
  • Resources
    • Stock Availability
    • Photo Galleries
    • JFS Catalogs
    • Reference Guide
    • Order Forms
    • Retailer Locator
    • Videos
    • Request JFS Materials
    • Blog
    • Newsletter
    • Publications & Services
    • Tree Information Charts
    • Trunk Wraps
    • USDA Zone Hardiness Map
    • for Employees
      • Employee Newsletter
      • Employee login
  • About
    • About JFS
    • Family History
    • Team
    • Job Openings
    • Internship Program
    • Contact
  • Home
  • Product Lines
    • Whips
    • Branched Flowering Trees
    • Branched Shade Trees
    • Light Branched Trees
    • Weeping & Head Grade Trees
    • Multi-Stem, Clump and Singles for Clumping
    • Birch Singles for Clumping
    • Balled & Burlapped Trees
    • Containerized Trees
    • VigorLiner®
    • Root Bags
    • UtiliTrees™
  • Trees
    • All Trees
    • JFS Introductions
    • New Trees
    • UtiliTrees™
    • Fruit Trees
  • Resources
    • Stock Availability
    • Photo Galleries
    • JFS Catalogs
    • Reference Guide
    • Order Forms
    • Retailer Locator
    • Videos
    • Request JFS Materials
    • Blog
    • Newsletter
    • Publications & Services
    • Tree Information Charts
    • Trunk Wraps
    • USDA Zone Hardiness Map
    • for Employees
      • Employee Newsletter
      • Employee login
  • About
    • About JFS
    • Family History
    • Team
    • Job Openings
    • Internship Program
    • Contact

1-800-825-8202

[email protected]

Bill Pay
  • Home
  • Product Lines
    • Whips
    • Branched Flowering Trees
    • Branched Shade Trees
    • Light Branched Trees
    • Weeping & Head Grade Trees
    • Multi-Stem, Clump and Singles for Clumping
    • Birch Singles for Clumping
    • Balled & Burlapped Trees
    • Containerized Trees
    • VigorLiner®
    • Root Bags
    • UtiliTrees™
  • Trees
    • All Trees
    • JFS Introductions
    • New Trees
    • UtiliTrees™
    • Fruit Trees
  • Resources
    • Stock Availability
    • Photo Galleries
    • JFS Catalogs
    • Reference Guide
    • Order Forms
    • Retailer Locator
    • Videos
    • Request JFS Materials
    • Blog
    • Newsletter
    • Publications & Services
    • Tree Information Charts
    • Trunk Wraps
    • USDA Zone Hardiness Map
    • for Employees
      • Employee Newsletter
      • Employee login
  • About
    • About JFS
    • Family History
    • Team
    • Job Openings
    • Internship Program
    • Contact
  • Home
  • Product Lines
    • Whips
    • Branched Flowering Trees
    • Branched Shade Trees
    • Light Branched Trees
    • Weeping & Head Grade Trees
    • Multi-Stem, Clump and Singles for Clumping
    • Birch Singles for Clumping
    • Balled & Burlapped Trees
    • Containerized Trees
    • VigorLiner®
    • Root Bags
    • UtiliTrees™
  • Trees
    • All Trees
    • JFS Introductions
    • New Trees
    • UtiliTrees™
    • Fruit Trees
  • Resources
    • Stock Availability
    • Photo Galleries
    • JFS Catalogs
    • Reference Guide
    • Order Forms
    • Retailer Locator
    • Videos
    • Request JFS Materials
    • Blog
    • Newsletter
    • Publications & Services
    • Tree Information Charts
    • Trunk Wraps
    • USDA Zone Hardiness Map
    • for Employees
      • Employee Newsletter
      • Employee login
  • About
    • About JFS
    • Family History
    • Team
    • Job Openings
    • Internship Program
    • Contact

1-800-825-8202

[email protected]

  • Home
  • Product Lines
    • Whips
    • Branched Flowering Trees
    • Branched Shade Trees
    • Light Branched Trees
    • Weeping & Head Grade Trees
    • Multi-Stem, Clump and Singles for Clumping
    • Birch Singles for Clumping
    • Balled & Burlapped Trees
    • Containerized Trees
    • VigorLiner®
    • Root Bags
    • UtiliTrees™
  • Trees
    • All Trees
    • JFS Introductions
    • New Trees
    • UtiliTrees™
    • Fruit Trees
  • Resources
    • Stock Availability
    • Photo Galleries
    • JFS Catalogs
    • Reference Guide
    • Order Forms
    • Retailer Locator
    • Videos
    • Request JFS Materials
    • Blog
    • Newsletter
    • Publications & Services
    • Tree Information Charts
    • Trunk Wraps
    • USDA Zone Hardiness Map
    • for Employees
      • Employee Newsletter
      • Employee login
  • About
    • About JFS
    • Family History
    • Team
    • Job Openings
    • Internship Program
    • Contact

Trees are good medicine

  • JFS
  • June 15, 2023

The healing power of trees and gardens will be celebrated at the Portland Memory Garden in southeast Portland on Thursday, June 22. The 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. event marks the 21st anniversary of a public garden that is uniquely designed to serve people living with dementia, their families and the community at large. Located at Ed Benedict Park, it is one of a hundred gardens developed across the country to honor the 1999 centenary celebration of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). Major partners included Legacy Health, ASLA, Alzheimer’s Association, Center of Design for an Aging Society, Portland State University/School of Urban Studies & Planning, and City of Portland Parks & Recreation.

Postponed for a year due to COVID-19 concerns, the anniversary gathering is spearheaded by the Legacy Health Therapeutic Garden team that has developed over a dozen therapeutic gardens in the Portland Metro area over the past 30 years. Attendees are invited to bring pictures, storytelling and memories of the garden, and to bring a lunch and take a break in nature. Located near the intersection of I-205 and Powell Blvd., the garden address is 10401 SE Bush St.

Evelyn Schmidt and her grandson, Sam Barkley, attended a celebration of the Legacy Mount Hood garden in 2011. Sam, who now manages our container operation, had delivered and planted the Redpointe® Maple and other donated trees three years earlier during the garden’s construction phase. Teresia is on the right, and a garden volunteer on the left.

JFS is proud to have played a small part in the creation of the Portland Memory Garden by providing some of the trees that now play a big part in the success of this healing environment. Donating trees to this and to the Children’s Garden at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center introduced us to the magic of healing gardens, and (more importantly) to Horticultural Therapist Teresia Hazen, HTR. One donation led to another, to some tree sales, and to a decades-long, mutually beneficial, enjoyable relationship with Teresia and her team. We’re delighted to learn from Teresia that our trees can be found in all 12 of the Legacy Health healing gardens. Over the years, partnering mostly with Portland landscape architect Brian Bainnson, of Quatrefoil, Inc., Teresia has developed a winning formula for maximizing the healing power of trees.

Although Teresia has retired from her 30-year career with Legacy Health, she continues to share her passion for therapeutic gardens via the Legacy Volunteer program – assisting her successor, Meghan McKiernan, HTR, as needed. Respected internationally as a leader in the field of horticultural therapy and garden-making, Teresia stresses the vital connection between trees and good health as she lectures across the country.

“Trees, trees, trees are essential for the well-designed therapeutic garden,” Teresia declares. “They signal seasonal changes and are intentionally placed through the garden to carry the visitor intuitively through the sensory and seasonal experience. Different timing of leaf emergence, flowering, fragrance, fruit, fall color and other characteristics draw people through the garden space for more activity and movement.”

A Golden Raindrops® Crabapple struts its bright fall color combination of golden foliage and sparkling yellow fruit in the Stenzel Healing Garden at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in Northwest Portland.

Trees play an important healing role in all of the Legacy gardens, and especially at the Rehabilitation Institute of Oregon (RIO) garden, according to Teresia, who selected each tree for every garden to serve a therapeutic role.

“The RIO garden tree collection supports cognitive work with awareness of shape, color, texture and tree form,” she explained. “In observation and discussion, the HTR guides the patient in talking about the shape of a columnar tree, a vase-shaped and a layered tree. This compare and contrast activity aids in cognitive retraining of patients recovering from stroke and brain injury,  and so much more!

“All of this may be happening from a wheelchair or while a patient practices standing at a raised bed wall,” she added. “Patients go home with improved cognitive and safety skills and an excitement for choosing the correct tree for their home.”

Over the years, Teresia has developed a list of favorites, including the three featured below. All are thriving in the Legacy gardens including the Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center Healing Garden in Gresham, pictured at the top of this article. June Snow™ Dogwood graces the central garden bed, while Redpointe® Maple serves as a shady sentinel in the background. All are thriving and contributing to the beauty and healing power of this peaceful, leafy oasis. You’ll also find them in many of the garden centers of JFS customers across the country. A generous dose of good health and well-being is included with each tree.

Redpointe® Maple

Acer rubrum ‘Frank Jr.’ PP16769

Teresia finds this JFS introduction to be an excellent performer in her gardens as a fast-growing source of cool shade and dependably bright red fall color. A Redpointe® Maple planted in the Mount Hood Medical Center healing garden in 2009 now towers over the garden and provides cool shade. Noting that “trees are a major contributor of essential shade,” she adds that “patients, and all of us, need protection from the sun. Shade provides not only protection, but places to rest, contemplate, and be grateful for our blessings.”

Learn more about our best-selling tree 

Golden Raindrops® Crabapple

Malus ‘Schmidtcutleaf’

Declaring that “every garden should have a Golden Raindrops® Crabapple,” Teresia has included this top-performing garden tree in many of her therapeutic garden designs. Deeply cut leaves, exceptional disease resistance and bright yellow fall color are among its many attributes. The tree pictured above blooms bright at the entrance of the Legacy Mount Hood garden. Its fragrant, starlike blooms attract pollinators in springtime, and birds find its sparkling golden fruit to be irresistible in autumn

View its multi-season magic

June Snow™ Dogwood

Cornus controversa ‘June Snow-JFS’

Visitors to the Legacy Health gardens will spot this elegant flowering tree in the many of the Legacy gardens, including the Stenzel Healing Garden at Good Samaritan Medical Center. Its white blooms, perched above green leaves on horizontally layered branches, etch a striking pattern on the red brick hospital walls. The springtime scene made it a perfect choice for the photo on our color picture tag and custom trunk wrap. Learn more about its all-season appeal.

Additional resources for learning more about the health benefits of trees and healing gardens:

Green Cities: Good Health

Healthy Trees, Healthy People

Health Benefits of Nature – ASLA

Legacy Health – Therapeutic Gardens

 Characteristics of Therapeutic Gardens

American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA)

Recent posts

Summer blooms please people and pollinators

June 12, 2025

Pollinator Week 2025 is coming right up, June 16-22. In recognition of the event, we’re

Read More »

Slim and shady for tight spaces

June 5, 2025

Columnar, fastigiate, slender, narrow, or skinny: By any name, columnar oaks are perfectly suited for

Read More »

Syringa blooms signal summer’s arrival

May 30, 2025

Ivory Silk® Japanese Tree Lilacs blooming at the Polk County Courthouse in Dallas, Oregon, inspired

Read More »

New frontiers for Japanese snowbells

May 21, 2025

Japanese Snowbells are in the news this spring – featured on the cover of the

Read More »
  • 9500 SE 327th Ave, Boring, OR 97009
  • P.O. Box 189 Boring, OR 97009
  • (800) 825-8202

Recent Blogs

Summer blooms please people and pollinators

Slim and shady for tight spaces

Syringa blooms signal summer’s arrival

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Product Lines
  • Trees
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Contact

Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter to get updates on what’s happening here at JFS.

Subscribe

Connect with us on

Facebook-f Youtube Twitter Instagram Linkedin

Copyright: © J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co. All rights reserved. Web Design by Lithium Marketing.

  • Home
  • Product Lines
    • Whips
    • Branched Flowering Trees
    • Branched Shade Trees
    • Light Branched Trees
    • Weeping & Head Grade Trees
    • Multi-Stem, Clump and Singles for Clumping
    • Birch Singles for Clumping
    • Balled & Burlapped Trees
    • Containerized Trees
    • VigorLiner®
    • Root Bags
    • UtiliTrees™
  • Trees
    • All Trees
    • JFS Introductions
    • New Trees
    • UtiliTrees™
    • Fruit Trees
  • Resources
    • Stock Availability
    • Photo Galleries
    • JFS Catalogs
    • Reference Guide
    • Order Forms
    • Retailer Locator
    • Videos
    • Request JFS Materials
    • Blog
    • Newsletter
    • Publications & Services
    • Tree Information Charts
    • Trunk Wraps
    • USDA Zone Hardiness Map
    • for Employees
      • Employee Newsletter
      • Employee login
  • About
    • About JFS
    • Family History
    • Team
    • Job Openings
    • Internship Program
    • Contact
  • Home
  • Product Lines
    • Whips
    • Branched Flowering Trees
    • Branched Shade Trees
    • Light Branched Trees
    • Weeping & Head Grade Trees
    • Multi-Stem, Clump and Singles for Clumping
    • Birch Singles for Clumping
    • Balled & Burlapped Trees
    • Containerized Trees
    • VigorLiner®
    • Root Bags
    • UtiliTrees™
  • Trees
    • All Trees
    • JFS Introductions
    • New Trees
    • UtiliTrees™
    • Fruit Trees
  • Resources
    • Stock Availability
    • Photo Galleries
    • JFS Catalogs
    • Reference Guide
    • Order Forms
    • Retailer Locator
    • Videos
    • Request JFS Materials
    • Blog
    • Newsletter
    • Publications & Services
    • Tree Information Charts
    • Trunk Wraps
    • USDA Zone Hardiness Map
    • for Employees
      • Employee Newsletter
      • Employee login
  • About
    • About JFS
    • Family History
    • Team
    • Job Openings
    • Internship Program
    • Contact