DANVERS — The Planning Board has approved two projects that could soon soothe North Shore patients: the Hospice of the North Shore's eight-bed expansion and a healing garden at the new Mass General/North Shore Center for Outpatient Care.

Danvers Attorney Nancy McCann, who represented both projects at a recent Planning Board meeting, said both won approval last Tuesday.A tear-drop shaped healing garden will be installed at the $140 million, 202,000-square-foot medical center and doctor's office complex, which is being constructed on Endicott Street, adjacent to Osram Sylvania.

The center is expected to open in May.The garden will be installed "right outside the infusion bay where our cancer center is going," said North Shore Medical Center spokesman Kevin Ronningen. The North Shore Cancer Center is moving here from Peabody.The garden is to be installed at the back of the center toward some wetlands."Obviously we want to respect the marsh and wetlands that are there, and it is constructed on ground that is a bit higher than the marsh," Ronningen said.

The garden will contain a paved path, benches, a millstone water fountain, a trellis with climbing flowers and willow trees."We did this at Union Hospital (in Lynn) and we got an amazing response," Ronningen said. "It's one of the little things you can do to promote healing." The cost of the healing garden is wrapped into the cost of the project. "The foundation department is working to find a donor to make it even better," Ronningen said.

The Planning Board also approved an eight-bed expansion for the Kaplan Family Hospice House on Liberty Street, a facility run by the nonprofit Hospice of the North Shore, an organization that cares for terminally ill patients. The plan would bring the number of beds to 20.Diane Stringer, Hospice's president and chief executive, said the organization has the approvals it needs from Danvers, but it is awaiting approval from the state Department of Public Health, a process which could take several months. She expects the project will break ground in June.There's a need for more beds, Stringer said, as the hospice house was expected to serve 300 patients last year, but wound up serving more than 500.

Stringer did not have a cost estimate for the project, given an economy in which construction prices are expected to drop."We've just really been overwhelmed with the level of support we have received from the community since it's opened," Stringer said, "and the generous support we've received since the expansion was announced."