CoxHealth Tulip Garden

Hope Is Blooming

As health care workers all over the country cope with overwork, fear, stress and so many unknowns, one of the best experiences they hope for and look forward to every single day is sending a COVID-19 patient home. To celebrate these recoveries, CoxHealth has added a colorful garden of tulips at Cox South.

Each tulip represents five COVID-19 recoveries at CoxHealth, including our locations in Springfield, Branson, Monett and Barton County.

We hope these bright reminders of the progress we've made will serve as a beacon of hope and positivity. Each COVID-19 patient who walks out of our hospital represents countless hours of dedication and support from dozens of people, from health care workers, administrative staff and cleaning and food services to the family and friends who do everything possible to help them recover. We honor and deeply respect the sacrifices made that make these recoveries a reality.

Why Tulips?

As far back as the 1950s, tulips have been part of the CoxHealth legacy. For many years, the arrival of spring saw the grounds of Cox North transformed with vivid hues of red, yellow and orange tulips. The origin of these cheerful flowers is tied to Lester E. Cox, the hospital's namesake and longtime chairman. Over the years, Cox purchased thousands of tulip bulbs in his mission of brightening the hospital. At one time, there were as many as 60,000 tulips adorning the hospital's grounds. Cox saw the tulips as a symbol of beauty and cheer when people most needed it, something that made the hospital more than simply a destination for those seeking medical care. We're carrying forward his tradition to make them a symbol of hope in a time when hope is desperately needed.

There is hope on the horizon. Hope that our community will come together to protect each other and stop cases from rising. Hope that the mortality rate for this virus will continue going down as we get better at treating it. Hope that a vaccine will help us defeat it once and for all. Hope that our tulip garden will keep growing until COVID-19 stops putting our friends and family in the hospital.