The Power of the Flower - Horticultural Therapy
12/12/2011 00:21
Okay you flower addicts, nature lovers and freeloaders, sit on the couch and listen up. it is time for therapy! The consultants have confirmed that gardening, my favorite addiction, is therapeutic. Hallelujah! "Horticultural Therapy" may be a multidisciplinary program of study involving fields like horticulture, psychology, landscape design, education, gerontology, sociology and concrete designing.
Here's a shallow example of HT at work in my superficial life: several moons ago, I worked with the actor James Woods on a movie shoot. Let's simply say he was "high maintenance." I came home on Friday nights in tears, mumbling obscenities as I rehashed "another week at the office" to my kind, patient boyfriend. Saturday mornings, i could not speak until i might cleansed the demons. i might pay 2 hours sitting in my garden, alone, meticulously and fiercely pulling weeds, in a very silent ethereal trance. Monday morning i might be able to face the egos once more . . .
Last week I visited the wondrous garden at The Cedars Textile Art Center to visualize horticultural therapy at work, right here in Marin County. Since 1919, the Cedars has provided a special community for over 2500 people with developmental disabilities. In 1981, the Cedars Textile Art Center was created by founder and Director Connie Pelissero. Her dream was to mix her interests in textiles and special education. With the assistance of longtime Co-Director, Denise Colwell, over seventy shoppers each day are supplied with coaching and employment in textile weaving, organic gardening and animal husbandry on twenty one spectacular rural acres.
And it all appearance therefore organized, peaceful and healthy! (Nothing sort of a film set . . .)
I met with Amy Whelan, the Garden Coordinator/Queen Bee, who has been teaching and dealing at the garden for over sixteen years. She refers to the land as a "mini-garden of Eden." once you initial enter the Cedar's garden, traveling along the winding path down the hillside, you recognize you have got simply crossed the edge to a sacred place. Fruit trees, wild roses, hollyhocks, iris, lavender, penstemon and numerous tall, climbing beans and peas surround you. A painted sign reads "The Earth Laughs in Flowers." Here new shoppers are taught a way to create compost, grow seeds, water plants, weed, prune and nurture the world. several of those shoppers can proceed to show these same valuable skills to schoolchildren who return visit. The cycle of life is demonstrated here beginning with compost, a seed, a flower, a wilted flower and back to the compost pile to start once more.
In the Cedars garden, shoppers of all ages ranging fro twenty to eighty yrs. previous use horticultural therapy to push healing and learning. operating within the garden provides a positive sense of wellbeing, drawback solving, teaches new skills, social interaction and communication. Whelan sees the advantages from operating in a very garden initial hand along with her shoppers. "Everyone who enjoys gardening is aware of that operating with plants fulfills basic human desires. Through horticultural therapy, you'll be able to facilitate these edges with individuals on several levels."
She explains the 3 main areas of horticultural therapy: social development, psychological and physical.
Social Development:
Gardening teaches new skills and vocabulary, helps individuals gain independence, helps them create new friends as they work cooperatively towards common goals, and will increase attention span and concentration in simply distracted people.
Psychological:
Gardening meets nurturing would like through taking care of living things (plants), encourages creativity, vanity and responsibility by project choice and style, and reduces stress, anger and aggressiveness.
Physical:
Gardeners fancy activities as they increase strength and vary of motion using fine and gross motor skills. They even have access to close limitless opportunities for year-round exercise and relaxation in serene garden settings.
Whelan adds, "In the spring we've many colleges visit the garden. the kids observe people with developmental disabilities teaching, working, planting and caring for a garden. there's an awareness of healthy eating and living. It's fun, stunning and outdoors!" Schoolchildren who visit could also be taught by Todd Williams, a shopper who is supervising the greenhouse on the morning I visit. we have a tendency to bond immediately over the magic of seedlings. "I wish to teach the kids regarding planting seeds. I share their excitement with what might sprout. and that i like their high energy!," says Williams.
The schoolchildren additionally visit the friendly sheep and goats, and also the stunning Angora rabbits, whose cages sit on the worm composting bin below them! The Angora rabbits are groomed daily by the shoppers and also the fur is employed in weaving. The fruits and vegetables grown within the garden are used to serve a daily homemade lunch, created by the shoppers, to everybody at the Cedars.
Whelan adds, "Over the years at the Cedars garden, I actually have observed and heard shoppers say things regarding the garden such as: increased happiness, it's relaxing, fascinating, there is continually one thing to try and do, productive, you'll be able to continually see one thing growing and it is a place that they're happy with being a vicinity of."
You can be a vicinity of it too! If you would like to own your classroom visit The Cedars, or become a volunteer, contact the most workplace at 454-5310. return on all the way down to the Cedarchest in San Anselmo, at 603 San Anselmo Avenue to shop! There are beautiful crafts (rugs, blankets, belts, napkins) the gifted weavers at the Cedars have created.