From a therapy trail to an outdoor staff corridor to a private NICU garden, the possibilities for how creative landscape designs can enhance the healing environment—for patients, staff, visitors, and even the neighboring community—are as bountiful as the flora that decorate these spaces.

Offering plenty of inspiration are the Silver and Bronze winners in the acute care category of Vendome Healthcare Media’s (parent company to Healthcare Design) 2013 Landscape Architecture for Healthcare Communities awards program, which showcase how specific needs can be answered, challenges can be solved, and beauty can be created.

For details and photos of these spaces, please see the photo gallery here.

To read about the Gold winner for acute care spaces, the Betty Ruth and Milton B. Hollander Healing Garden at Yale-New Haven’s Smilow Cancer Hospital in New Haven, Conn., see "Garden Brings Tranquility To Cancer Center’s Urban Locale".

For more information on and coverage of the 2013 program and for details on entering this year’s competition, visit HCDmagazine.com/landscape.