The Man Behind St. Luke's Beautiful Flowers

  Anyone who visits or drives by the Downtown St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center knows things are a bit chaotic there these days – closed roads, detours, mountains of dirt …

  The disruption isn’t limited to the hospital alone. A nearby clinic where one of my doctors works looks like the last thing standing in a bombing range.

  Amid the turmoil of the hospital’s expansion, however, are islands of beauty and tranquility. The flower gardens surrounding St. Luke’s – literally thousands of tulips, pansies and hyacinths in spring and marigolds, petunias and zinnias in summer – bring “oohs” and “ahs” from passersby and comfort to those dealing with pain and loss. They’re East Boise institutions. 

  Lee Barnard, who grew up in the neighborhood and lives half a block from the hospital, says he’s “always admired St. Luke’s commitment to the tulips and the other flowers. They’re gorgeous. I’ve loved them for as long as I can remember.”

   The grounds are beautiful even in winter. As a black-thumb  gardener who has managed to kill everything but weeds, I’ve often wondered who it is that keeps them looking like something out of “Gardens Illustrated.”

   That would be Jose de Jesus Garcia, himself an island of tranquility. He isn’t the only gardener at St. Luke’s, but he’s tended the gardens there for 26 years – longer than anyone. Gentle, soft spoken, he all but radiates kindness. Ask anyone at the hospital about him and the response invariably begins with, “Jose? He is just the nicest man.”

  Lead grounds worker Pat Allen, who regularly works with Garcia, describes him as “dependable and friendly.”

  And a really nice guy.

  Garcia grew up in a small town in Mexico, where his mother’s rose garden was locally famous, and has loved flowers all his life.

  “I like the way they look and the way they smell, he said. “I like everything about them.”  

  His favorite thing about his job?

  “Being outside. I worked in the laundry for a while when I first came here, but I’d rather be outside with the flowers. And I enjoy meeting people. That’s the beauty of my job. It combines the two things, gardening and being with people and answering their questions. Most of time I reverse the questions. I find out they have more knowledge than I do.”

  Somehow I doubt that. Still, it speaks to his intrinsic modesty. Asked his job title, he avoids overblown terms like landscape specialist or senior grounds work and answers simply, “gardener.”

  His work days begin at 6 a.m, with the first few hours devoted to cleaning the grounds.

  “We do a lot of entrance cleaning. Picking up papers and cigarette butts, things that blow in off the streets, making it look sharp. About 9 a.m. we start doing the actual gardening. This time of year it’s checking for dry spots and weeds and pulling out the spring flowers when they’re finished. Then we’ll start putting in the summer flowers.

  “… Children have a tendency to pick the flowers, but we don’t see much of that anymore because parents tell them not to do that. We don’t like to say anything. We keep our mouths shut. But the parents tell them for us. They want to keep it looking sharp, too.”

  The gardens are a source of accolades for the hospital. Sarah Jackson, who supervises the employees at the lobby’s information desk, says workers there “are frequently reminded by patrons of how beautiful our courtyard, the route up to the circle drive and the flowering planters are … I often see oncology patients in the courtyard, relaxing and enjoying the quiet, peaceful setting.”

  Garcia’s part in creating all that was considered significant enough that last year he was awarded a St. Luke’s President’s Award. Dr. Jim Souza, the hospital’s chief medical officer and the person who nominated him, noted that he “is routinely the first groundskeeper onsite during bad weather. In the particularly bad winter we just had (last year’s “Snowmageddon”), there were lots of opportunities to see Jose and his work. His long hours and commitment to getting it right made our campus safer for everyone.
  “He always did it with a smile and a pleasant attitude, which is what made it really stand out. Patients, staff members, runners and walkers … Nearly everyone in Boise has at one time or another been moved by Jose’s meticulous flower beds, brilliant spring tulips and the fall foliage he has nurtured.”

   His reaction to receiving the award?

  “I was overwhelmed.”

  Now 60, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1979. 

  “There were some Americans in the town where I grew up. From the time I was a little boy, I loved listening to them speak English. I thought it sounded really cool and wanted to be where I could learn that beautiful language.”

  He worked as a gardener at naval stations in California for nine years before moving to Boise.

  “I came here with a friend and liked the slower pace,” he said. “I thought it would be a great place for my wife and me to raise our children (a son and a daughter, now grown). Four months later, I was here.”

  I was surprised to learn that patients and visitors have a say in what’s planted  on the hospital grounds.  

  “We used to have daffodils, but a lot more people told us they liked the tulips so now we have tulips instead. People tell me which colors they like the most, what they think is beautiful. They comment about certain plants, and little by little we start cultivating those kinds of plants.”

  And not just flowers. Ornamental cabbage and kale in the winter, trees, ornamental grasses, shrubs … 

  Pansies, tulip bulbs, and ornamental cabbage and kale are planted in the fall. When the tulips fade, they’re replaced with summer flowers – mainly profusion zinnias and marigolds. 

  “Profusions are easy to grow, they’re tolerant to mildew and they cover the ground well so they don’t allow weeds to pop up,” Allen said. “We try to keep everything as low maintenance as possible.”

  Low maintenance, high public approval.

  “Every day ten to 15 people stop to talk about the flowers or take pictures of them,” Garcia said. “Pat jokes that we should charge $5 a picture.”

  The construction has taken a toll on the grounds. Several flower beds, including the prominent one at Broadway Avenue and Idaho Street, have been lost. 

  “That one will be replaced and will be triple its size,” Allen said. “As the construction progresses we’ll put in some other areas to make up for what we’ve lost.”

  No one is is looking forward to that more than Garcia. He takes pride in the grounds looking their best. Gardening may not be his life, but it’s a big part of it. He grows flowers and vegetables at home, volunteers to do gardening work at his church. When he and his wife want to relax, they take a picnic lunch to a park end enjoy the flowers there.

  One of the best parts of his job, he says, is making blossomy interludes available to those who need them most. 

  “I like knowing that this is here for the people who have loved ones in the hospital. They can come outside and enjoy the colors. They don’t have to go somewhere else to find beauty.”