Fianna’s Healing Garden
The Story Behind Fianna’s Healing Garden
Fianna’s Healing Garden is a peaceful outdoor space at Renown Regional Medical Center. It was created to honor Fianna Dickson Combs, a local businesswoman, gardener, and advocate for healing environments.
After Fianna passed away from ovarian cancer in 2008, her family and friends honored her wish to create a peaceful outdoor space for healing. In 2009, together with Renown Health, they opened Fianna’s Healing Garden to support patients, families, and caregivers.
Today, the space spans more than 28,000 square feet, featuring walking paths, sculptures, native plants, a pavilion, and seasonal flowers. People visit to rest, reflect, and reconnect.
This healing garden is entirely donor-funded. Every path, plant, and piece of art exists because of community generosity.
Share Your Garden Story
Have you found comfort, peace or healing in Fianna’s Healing Garden? We’d love to hear how this special space has touched your life, brought you hope, or helped you or a loved one during a difficult time. Share your story.
Why I Give
Rebecca Dickson helped bring her mother’s vision for Fianna’s Healing Garden to life and led its 2020 expansion. Thanks to local philanthropy, over $800,000 was raised to grow and enhance this peaceful space for healing.
Trembling Leaves: A New Mural
In May 2025, a new interfaith mural, Trembling Leaves, was added to Fianna’s Healing Garden. The artwork was created by Reno-based, internationally recognized artist Erik Burke and conceptualized by Patricia Meidell.
The mural features aspen trees transitioning through the seasons of nature, symbolizing the human journey through life.
The use of aspen trees was intentional. Aspens are unique plants as each grove is often connected by a single root system. They are especially resilient trees due primarily to their extensive root system—that is, their interconnectedness.
Aspen trees are also culturally significant to northern Nevada, which has a rich Basque heritage dating back to the mid-1800s. Basque sheepherders were known to pass their time while in the high country by carving on aspen trees, leaving what are referred to as arborglyphs.
The mural includes arborglyphs of 17 religious symbols on the aspen trunks representing the world religions reflected in our community. Named “Trembling Leaves” by Meidell, the piece is an outward symbol of the unique interfaith community in which we live—one in which we are of common root and interconnected.
The mural was made possible in partnership with and supported by the Nevada Interfaith Association, Renown Health, and in collaboration with the family of Fianna Dickson Combs.