Healing Gardens open for the season in St. Charles
Nature was at the core of Deborah Marqui's healing process when she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in 1995.
After a year of treatment, she stopped practically everything to focus on recovery and rejuvenation of her body, mind and soul. So for three years, Marqui gardened.
And then she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“With the breast cancer diagnosis and more of the same I knew I wanted to open this property to the public,” Marqui said Sunday from a section of her Stone Hill Farm property known as the Healing Gardens.
Since 2005, Marqui has welcomed the community to the St. Charles property from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the second Sunday of the month from April to October. The gardens are open for anyone to come soak in nature's beauty and enjoy the meditative sanctuary.
Marqui said when she was sick, looking at and observing nature and then writing about what she saw brought her to a deeper understanding of God and who she was. It's that connection she hopes to offer the public one Sunday each month.
Among those taking advantage Sunday was Bonnie Fruendt, a St. Charles resident who volunteers at the Healing Gardens. A cancer survivor herself, Fruendt said she loves nature and everything that is abundant on the Marqui property.
“It's just a nice place to connect with the earth, sit and have the quiet,” Fruendt said.
Visitors to the garden often come with a sense of spirituality similar what ties Marqui to nature, and many use the solitude as a means to cope with their own cancer diagnoses. Some have left mementos in the memorial garden, Melissa's Place, to honor loved ones who have died.
Marqui said the early onset of warm weather this year brought blooms earlier than she has ever seen in the 35 years she has lived on the 2.25-acre property. Waves of daffodils and tulips are fading as the Virginia blue bells hold on a little longer and hydrangeas prepare for their entrance.
Marqui's gardens get more extensive every year as she is struck with a new vision for the landscaping. A garden for her mother, and all mothers, is new. And Marqui is already thinking about a children's garden in what she calls “the clearing” and a moon garden where an old farm silo stood.
The gardens have varied attendance rates throughout the season, depending on weather or holidays, Marqui said. Starting in July, visitors are invited to pick bouquets of her flowers for a small fee, but enjoying the gardens is free.