The plant treasure hunt (selecting, shopping for plants for my clients) part of my work is pure pleasure. So thrilling to find the right plants to round out a soulful design experience. I refer to this task as “picking the very best icing for your garden cake” (because I love cake) or “selecting the very best *friends* you’ll ever have” (because it is true).

What makes the plant treasure hunt even better is connecting with nursery people who’ve got soul – who really believe in the power of plants. Wholesale growers (plant caregivers, shall we say) who invest in plant healthcare and sound practice at their nurseries, leave me assured of the *sustainability* of these bright, beautiful symbols of hope and health.  Last week, while on treasure hunt, I had the pleasure of walking, talking and gazing at lovely *babies* at Cascadian Nurseries, Inc., a wholesale only nursery in Hillsboro, OR.  My tour was lead by Mr. Wholesale-Nursery-Wonderful, Jim Larson.  Guess you might say he is the plant nursery *pediatrician*. 

Whilst touring the “trees with European Artistry” we happened upon the espaliered flowing pears.  Now, I must say Cascadian had me at espaliered and though I was a bit too early to see bloom (given our weather this past winter, arggg), let me tell you, these babes are ladders to the heavens!  Officially fell in love with yet *another* tree. The loving care (and true artistry) for these trees was legible. There they stood, strong, aligned, ready for an imaginary climb. I shrieked (Jim jumped), ”Can you imagine what these look like when in bloom?!  How about in their glorious fall color?!” Of course he can, he takes care of them, silly. 

Tree Art

Ladders, calling my eyes (and  heart) to climb up, connecting with appreciation to larger thoughts, ideals, daydreams – of good life, good living, good health – ’cause that’s what quality plants do for us.

Plant nerd's stairway to heaven

“Like the apple, the pear has always had a strong connection with children, fertility and prosperity. But while the apple often appears in male-female customs concerning courtship and marriage, the pear tends to be associated solely with the female gender.”  The Meaning of Trees: Botany, History, Healing, Lore

In January of this year, I received a “tipping point” email from a new therapeutic garden advocate friend:   

Hello Annie, I am a senior Landscape Architecture student at the University of Georgia, and I am currently working on my senior project: a therapeutic horse back riding center in Baltimore that is wishing to expand their services to include a Horses for Heroes program.  This program focuses on therapy for veterans.  I am searching for information and/or example of veterans gardens and post traumatic stress.  Marguerite Koepke, my healing gardens professor, pointed me in your direction.  If you have any information or sources, I would really appreciate it. Thanks so much for your help.  – Samantha

You know, one of those emails that says: “Okay, its time.”

Time to make available the story behind and the growing list of therapeutic gardens at VA facilities that I have been collecting since 2005.  As mentioned in a previous post, while wearing my other hat, (Acer Institute LLC), I teamed up with co-conspirators Alee Karpf & Jack Carman to orchestrate a therapeutic garden conference & tour in 2005 at the Miami VA.

From this event came several inquires as to where and what types of “healing gardens” existed for vets and their families.  We didn’t know so we started to ask, and it is not clear how many “boomers” and/or Afghanistan/Iraq war veterans are currently benefiting from existing therapeutic gardens in VA facilities. At the time of organizing the list (2006), we didn’t have specific statistics of how many therapeutic gardens existed in the 154 VA medical centers, the 1300 “sites of care” nor other non-VA facilities serving veterans. However, through the work of this list, VA colleagues and contributors have noted that indeed veterans requiring VA care, are benefiting from these specifically & sensitively designed gardens and the associated programmed clinical activities, should they find such a garden at their VA facility.

•  •  •

So to you Samantha, other therapeutic garden advocates, our veterans and caregivers of veterans, here’s the story, another resource & list so far posted on Acer’s website (read, scroll, subscribe for the list, then click the download button). I share this resource with the hope that it will benefit many and that we will see more therapeutic gardens in VA facilities.  

•  •  •

You might ask, how can therapeutic gardens support the VA healthcare system and buffer the impending strain of services?  We know this for certain, that therapeutic gardens:

• Aid in clinical treatment (horticultural, occupational, recreational therapies) from injury and illness (e.g. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, physical disabilities) 

• Provide a positive distraction from illness and concerns 

• Reduce stress and blood pressure

• Aid in a more seamless transition from wartime duty in a home-like setting

• Normalize the environment; “de-medicalize” the setting, offer more “real life” application for treatment

• Improve mood, function and socialization, increase natural absorption of Vitamin D, and balance circadian rhythms.

•  •  •

Help grow the list.

Since Red Bird Design’s parent company (a collaboratory called Acer Institute LLC) facilitated the Acer/ASLA/Miami VA event in 2005 with Design for Generations LLC, many inquiries have poured in from allied professionals (Horticultural, Occupational, Recreational Therapists, etc.) and advocates seeking help to create therapeutic gardens for Veterans – a most brilliant, cost-effective intervention closing the gap in services and dealing with a current and anticipated preponderance of need.  Check back this week, Acer will publish a growing list of therapeutic gardens at VA facilities.

How and where do therapeutic gardens and their associated therapies fit into the VA system?  What of the “exterior resources” at VA facilities?  There are “grounds” for a variety of services (recreational and physical rehab, talk therapy, etc.) in these untapped landscapes — they are potential venues of care. With minor alterations, these barren landscapes will become gardens of health, recovery, respite, hope for our older vets, our current vets and the new vets (not to mention families).  In these “healing gardens” vets and military families find more “real and home-like settings” to help with the transition “home”.   

Studies have demonstrated that a sensitively designed garden offers a “demedicalized” environment and provides clients/patients/residents a more comfortable and less stressful place to “be”. In short, when less stressed, better results are noted in “recovery” (Ulrich, 1984; Barnes, 1994).  When designed by those who are trained in the “collaborative therapeutic landscapes design approach” teaming with clinical staff, care givers and patients themselves, a therapeutic (healing) garden offers a more “real life” recovery situation because it is a garden, e.g., various “real life” surfaces to practice walking across with one’s new prosthetic device (leg, foot, etc.); surgery or stroke strength gain recovery by reaching/grasping/holding to pick tomatoes, hand water a plant, or pull a weed; orientation to time, place, situation, season through the use of plants for those experiencing mental health issues.  As Chief Psychologist Dr. Francis S. Gilbert of the VA Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center & Clinics puts it, “In terms of therapy, this is the sort of activity that fulfills body, mind and spirit. It involves the actual work of keeping the garden up and there is a spiritual connection here from working in the ground and raising something.”  

Miami VA Hope Garden sign makes clear the purpose. Photo credit: Jack Carman, Design for Generations LLC.

Ah, what a difference a garden makes.

Like many, my landscape – the different gardens and “rooms” – is underway.  I am somewhere between phase 2 of garden design implementation and phase infinity.   Progress takes a rhumba-like rhythm:  quick, quick, s-l-o-w and with that comes a bit of frustration, from time to time.  To counteract this non-restorative outdoor experience, I delighted in a most wonderful garden experience. I blissed out during a 90 minute (!) massage out-of-doors!  How many times have I had a wonderful massage, only to realize as I rise out of the massage stupor that now I have to get in my car and drive in traffic.  Yuck and incongruous = blissness interruptous.  

Serenity now!

The scene:  my very own deck (which allowed for a provision of privacy) set within my “blues to purples sliver garden”.  Thanks to my wonderful licensed massage therapist, Gypsy (my own Florence Nightingale, advocating for fresh air in the repair of one’s health), I had THE most restorative, healing, rejuvenating garden experience that I have had in awhile.  Why? Because I wasn’t do anything but breathing in and out – in and out. No planting, no weeding, no scheming.  Relishing in the product of that aforementioned hard work, letting nature – my garden – wrap me up in goodness. How delightful to be draped in the surround of my restorative garden with its ambient sounds of bird chatter, distant train whistles, rustle of leaves, and HELLO! silence.  The warm of the early fall sun was quite assistive preparing my soul, muscles and mind for an inward journey of healing and “fueling”.  So with Gypsy’s nurturing guidance to secure the most perfect and private spot, I could just be in my garden afterwards, slowly returning to the larger world. (Deep breath.)  

With the warm sun hitting my arms and face, eyes slowly opening to see the puffs of white clouds set on the backdrop of light blue sky, I was transported back to graduate school days, reminded of Sam Bass Warner Jr., author / historian and his accounting of the role of gardens (and nature) in medicine from the Medieval Times to the beginning of the 20th century.  Together with Gerlach-Spriggs and Kaufman in  Restorative Gardens, the Healing Landscape, he wrote of, among other things, monasteries and convents, caring for the sick, often using courtyard areas for patients and patient beds to wheeled out on to.  And there I was, going back in time… using my garden to “restore” in the most basic sense.   Go call your massage therapist and schedule that restorative garden massage!  Or better yet, talk with Gypsy, who knows how to help.