 And here to talk about the therapeutic benefits of gardening is Esther McGuinness. Esther McGuinness is an extension horticulturist in the Department of Plant Sciences here at NDSU. Esther, welcome to the forums. Thank you, Tom. So gardeners intuitively know that gardening is good for their health. You know, both from a mental health perspective and also from a physical perspective. Oops, I'm hearing a little bit of echo here. Okay, so gardeners intuitively know that gardening is good for their health, both mentally and physically. There we go. Now I learned this when I was much younger. So when my parents were raising me, they were really big into gardening. My mother had an absolutely fantastic flower garden. And my own father would come home from work, he would be stressed out, he would go into the garden. And what he would do is he would pull weeds for 15 minutes. We knew not to bother him. He could certainly have used herbicide, but that wasn't his style. He needed those 15 minutes of weed pulling as essentially horticulture therapy. And then after that he could kind of let go of the stress of his job and move on. Well, I kind of held on to that. Oops, sorry, I'm moving my hand. Well, so we're seeing society brace the therapeutic aspects of gardens. And here we have a photo of Georgia Tech University right on the outskirts of downtown Atlanta, right in the middle of a big metropolitan area. And this is where kids go to school. You can imagine that you've got a junior that has a math tested two o'clock and the student is stressed. He's thinking about all those math equations that he has to recall. But then he goes to the student union up to this rooftop garden. And as he's wandering through this area, the student's blood pressure probably drops a little bit. He starts to think clearer and all in all is probably in better shape to take that test. So we're seeing this sort of response in more and more settings and we're starting to have the science to back this up. So we're seeing that in healthcare settings that patients in hospitals in fact will recover faster in the presence of plants. So Dr. Park did a did a couple of studies in 2008 and 2009. And in both studies, she placed many different house plants in the patient's room. So there'd be about 10 to 12 foliage plants, some flowering plants. And then in the control group, there were no plants. Now she studied some very routine surgeries, you know, appendectomies and thyroid surgeries and then made comparisons. The surgical patients recovered much faster if they had a room that was filled with plants. The control group did not go home as fast. Now with the patients with plants, they reported less pain and this was manifested by the fact that they took fewer pain relievers. There were other objective measures. They had lower blood pressure, lower heart rate and then they reported less fatigue and less anxiety. So we're seeing there are health benefits to plants. You know, here these are indoor plants and the patients were recovering a little bit faster. So we've got scientific evidence for horticulture therapy. Next slide. We're seeing that horticulture therapy has quite a bit of impact for senior citizens. So in a Dutch study from 2012, they looked at a group of 62 year olds. Excuse me, the 62 year olds for the most part were divided into groups that either gardened or didn't. The 62 year olds that gardened had much higher health indices in every category. So we can see this can improve not just your mental health but also your physical health. Now with senior citizens, gardeners are reported to have more hand strength and this is important. We're seeing a lot of gardeners that are actually coping a little bit better with arthritis and some of these other afflictions. But they are maintaining that hand strength through digging and pruning in the garden. Now when it comes to older senior citizens, those that are working in nursing homes, they found that the nursing home residents that worked in the garden were much more engaged in the social life of the nursing home and in life in particular. When it comes to Alzheimer's patients and patients with dementia, we see that if they are working a little bit with horticulture that they have increased functioning and increased cognitive skills. So some fantastic science to support gardening in general. So today we're going to talk about a couple of out shoots of horticulture therapy. We're going to talk about healing gardens and we're going to talk about enabling gardens. Obviously there are a lot of different fields within horticulture therapy but Tom's only given me 25 minutes. So we'll start off with healing gardens. Now technically any garden can have healing properties but we're going to focus on gardens that are affiliated with healthcare institutions and nursing homes. And in this photo we see one that is connected to a cemetery. So I absolutely just love this photo. So you can imagine that you've got some grieving relatives visiting a grave site and then they see this healing garden next door and they feel welcome. They see that arbor, they enter through the arbor and they see all this profusion of plants very life affirming. But we can have similar results with hospitals. So here's a healing garden that is in the courtyard of a hospital. And this is a place of refuge and healing but not just for the patients. Now obviously the patients can look out their windows or even go down to it. But it's also a place of refuge for their family members and visitors that are suffering stress from having a loved one in the hospital. And it's also a place of refuge for hospital workers. Can you imagine the stress they're under? You know they see life and death situations every day. So the healing gardens are every bit as much for hospital workers. So these gardens are designed to provide a feeling of safety. They help reduce stress and then increase overall well-being. In order for the healing garden to be effective it needs to be aesthetically appealing or else it's just not going to work. So there's very much a visual component. And then the visitors need to have some choices. Do they want to sit in the sun or do they want to go in the shade? Do they want to be in the open or do they want a little bit of privacy to talk with a loved one? But overall a healing garden must be quiet because the whole point here is to have that sense of peace. You don't want this place next to a noisy air conditioner system. You don't want this along the street. So when you're situating your healing garden, whether it's in an institutional setting or even behind your house, make sure that it's in a quiet location. A healing garden should have a nice pathway. Now you can certainly customize this for the population that you're serving. Now if you have people that are quite mobile then you can certainly use maybe some gravel or some mulch. However if you have people that are in wheelchairs or walkers or using a cane then it becomes very important to have a pathway that is paved and smooth. The width is very important. If you have one-way traffic around a loop then you want a minimum of five feet for the pathway. If you have wheelchairs that are going to be going in opposite directions then definitely seven to eight feet. For individuals that may be visually impaired you want to make sure that the edge of the pathway is a little different. So that can be denoted by a change in color, a change in texture just so they can see and don't fall off the path. Now make sure you don't have a curb or a raised area because that in fact can be a tripping hazard. Seeding is incredibly important in these gardens. We want people to linger. We want them to take a seat and enjoy the sun on their face, maybe meditate, pray or just have a quiet discussion with a loved one. On the left we have a nice wooden bench. On the right we have this gorgeous cast iron bench so there's a lot of different seating options that you can use. Now I have to admit the setting on the left is a little less calming at least for myself. There's an espalier on the back wall and espalier is when you train a tree to be two-dimensional. So it's flat up against that fence so that happens to be an apple tree. Now if I was sitting there I'd be contemplating, oh you should be pruning that. It's not looking as well as it should so it is very important to have a well manicured healing garden. And then incorporate a water element. So the sound, it's the sound of water that is so calming. So if you can have a fountain, if you can have just some trickling water, it's really the sound people are after. And it's just a child magnet but it also draws adults and senior citizens. If you're doing a healing garden in a smaller setting and don't have the funds for a big fountain, you know there are definitely cheaper fountains that are on the market that can be for $100 or even those tabletop fountains probably for $25-$50. So this can be done at any scale. When you're designing the garden make sure that it's simple and symmetrical. Simplicity is kind of a no-brainer. If the garden is really cluttered that's not going to be a calming environment. You'll also want the garden to be relatively symmetrical because that's going to give you a balanced feel. Now this isn't my favorite garden out of all the slides but it does show you a symmetrical garden and a nice focal point. So you have a pedestal and an urn in the distance. Vegetation is going to be some of the most important elements in your garden. So the more green you can add the better because green is so calming. Now aren't you feeling a little bit more calm as you take a look at this photo? I mean the colors are just so rich and can you imagine yourself walking through a forest and your heart is just, the heartbeat is slowing down and that's exactly what we want. So incorporate some smaller scale trees and shrubs and then have some contrast. Because at the same time if you have a couple of shrubs or flowers that have contrasting colors that will invigorate you and maybe refresh you. Here we have a Japanese maple in the foreground with the red-leaved foliage. Unfortunately not hardy to North Dakota but it does show you an example of some nice contrast. And then engage the senses. These should be sensory gardens. So engage all five of the senses. You want to have beautiful colors like the pink is still on the left. And then you have contrasting textures. You've got the finer texture of the astilby leaf contrasted with the hosta. Now you can incorporate some plants that have unique texture that you can feel with your hands like lamb's ear. In the middle picture we have an ornamental grass. Now ornamental grass is engaged probably all of the senses but they have something unique. As they sway in the breezes they produce this really wonderful rustling sound. And that's called sussuration. So there's a term for that. The picture on the right you've got swedolism lining the pathway. And I can almost smell that the fragrance from swedolism is just so sweet honey like. So just some wonderful things to stimulate the senses. Include some edible herbs because then you can have people taste the herbs. Or at least they can bruise the foliage, release the oils and the scent is just so wonderful. So herbs work really nicely particularly if you've got a healing garden next to a children's hospital then you don't have to worry about toxic plants. This could be next to a psychiatric ward, next to a nursing home where you have Alzheimer's patients. So herbs are a fantastic addition. And then avoid toxic plants in those same situations. So I have a photo of a datura there. Daturas are absolutely gorgeous but very toxic and even the foliage. There's some people that are very allergic to it so avoid those types of plants, avoid caster beans. And you can find a list of toxic plants through the Iowa Poison Control Center. They have a nice list there. Cacti, should we include cacti? Well they're not very calming. They're just kind of pokey plants. And let's face it, nobody can resist touching a cactus. I mean at least just a little bit. There's my daughter, every cactus plant she goes by she has to poke it. So we don't want our visitors to the healing garden getting thorns in their fingers. Now if you're building a healing garden in Arizona, I don't know what you do. I've got nothing there for you. But in North Dakota, no cacti please. Artwork, you can certainly include artwork but be very careful about the artwork that you select. So there's an architect that specializes in healing gardens and he has a special phrase. The artwork should be unambiguously positive. So I've got some examples of what not to use. So we have a few photos taken from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. So you've got a giant praying mantis over my daughter's shoulder. That's a little, it's a little threatening. And then you've got a spider in the right hand that's again lurking over her shoulder. Probably not best to include in a hospital setting. What about abstract art? Well, abstract art can be well done in a garden. However, not for a healing garden. And that's because people that are coping with illnesses, they may be depressed and feeling pain. They may project negative thoughts or feelings into abstract artwork. So therefore it's better to use something that's more representational, something that's non-controversial, something that's calming like the, like the wisteria vine on the left or the beautiful blown poppies on the right. Include wildlife in your design. So it's just great fun for people of all ages to watch birds. You can include these wonderful bird houses like the purple martin house on the left and then feed the birds so they're drawn and remember to plant for hummingbirds. Everybody loves to watch hummingbirds as they come feed on nectar. But above all, the garden must be well maintained. I don't know if you can see the photo on the left. That's a hoster that's been beaten up by some slugs. I'm not feeling calming thoughts when I look at that. I know Tom isn't either. And for those of you that are looking at that, you're probably wondering what caused that? How can you control that? So you're focusing on how you can fix that rather than focusing on calming thoughts and how to improve your health. Same with the powdery mildew on the leaves. So we want to make sure the garden is well maintained and it also reflects on the professionalism of the hospital or the nursing home. If your garden isn't well maintained, you start to wonder, are they taking care of their patients well? So it's just something to consider. So we're now going to move on to the second kind of garden. The first kind of garden, the healing garden is kind of passive. You just walk through and enjoy the benefits. You're not necessarily active in it. Now with enabling gardens, we want people of all ages and all abilities to partake in the garden to get their hands dirty, to water and to weed and to plant so that they can enjoy all the therapeutic benefits of the garden. And this is particularly true as we age. I know I'm starting to feel my age a little bit more. I don't enjoy bending over to garden as much anymore. And I think that's true of large sections of our audience. So we'll talk about all sorts of gardens that will enable you to garden into your 70s and 80s and beyond. So this is a garden that Barb actually mentioned in the previous talk. This is a handicap accessible garden right on the campus of NDSU. And it was built specifically for individuals in wheelchairs. So you've got that nice U-shaped alcove. So you can wheel right into that bay and start gardening. And then you can also lean over to either side and reach plants and pull weeds. We're going to be seeing more and more of these gardens. I'm seeing more of these types of gardens affiliated with nursing homes. Well not all of us are in wheelchairs yet. So we start thinking about raised gardens. Now these are some of the more easily built raised gardens. So this will get you maybe 10 inches off the ground. I think these are 2 by 10s. I'm not good with my lumber dimensions. But it gets you off the ground. But you can think higher yet. So these are some of the raised beds that we take care of at the River Valley Zoo. There's no reason that you can't build these gardens for yourself in your backyard. So as you're getting older maybe contract to have raised beds built where you don't have to bend over at all. Of course you need to consider will this be a standing garden or a sitting garden. You can customize it to however you like. You can add a bench or you can bring in a chair or a bucket. But really easy to garden in this situation. Now you do need to consider dimensions. Now in the previous photo it was accessible from all sides. So the dimensions could be a maximum of 4 feet across. Here we've got a trellis on the back side. So we want that to be a narrower dimension. Now if you don't want to build something there are kits that you can assemble very easily. So these are the one on the left I saw at an expo. And it comes with that beautiful little bench. So a wonderful place. You can even stick a small cherry tomato there. Plant some lettuces. On the right we've got an herb garden. So wonderful for small plants. But they're all different dimensions. You can certainly purchase different dimensions. One that will be a little higher up. So an individual in a wheelchair can just extend their legs beneath that. If you don't like to bend over go vertical. And then look at that tower on the left hand side. Now the planting depth isn't going to be too deep. So you would need to use like a radish or a lettuce. Something that's not deep rooted. But that's kind of a fun one because you can put drip tape at each level. And it becomes truly low maintenance. Or plant something that's viney. So we've got tomatoes. Tomatoes out at Absoraka. They've been trained to grow up that string. You could use a trellis. But you could do the same with cucumbers and melons. Get them off the ground. And that's actually healthier for the plants because you've got more ventilation. And they're less prone to disease. Or consider a gutter garden. So these are kind of new to me. But people are buying gutters. Now you can see they're at an angle. So they will drain. But you can plant lettuces. They're individuals growing strawberries in gutter gardens. But you're getting them up off the ground so you can reach them. One of the concerns though with this is that if you've got them on a fence or located on the back of your garage do consider planting more shade tolerant types of plants. Lettuces are definitely better for that than some of the flowering types of vegetables. Salad tables. They're becoming really popular at nursing homes. So a salad table is actually hydroponics. So you could do this either indoors or outdoors. But with hydroponics there's no soil involved. Instead you have a water solution that has all the nutrients, macro and micronutrients included. Now in this situation if you look at the left table we have three rubber made containers. They're like 10 gallon rubber made containers that are nestled into that table. They're filled up to the top with the solution. The plants are sitting in a little basket filled with perlite. The perlite wicks the water up to the plant. Now the top part of the roots are drier so that facilitates air exchange and the bottom parts of the roots are submerged in the solution. This type of salad table does not require an electrical outlet because there's no bubbler associated with this. But it's very important that a part of the root system is above the water line to facilitate that gas exchange. Now here are a couple of plans. You could certainly customize this to any container you have but if you really want the plans to this my former boss designed this at the University of Minnesota, Tom Michaels he was our department head and if you Google University of Minnesota Salad Table you can pull up a manual that he produced for building these but I think these are great great for nursing homes and then if you have a supplemental light source you can then do this indoors. Now I have a wheel a wheel barrel in this photo so this is a wheel barrel that can come and go so if you have somebody that really can't go much further than the back of the house the wheel, the wheel barrel directly to you and then you can work with it and then it can be then transported back to a direct sun exposure when you're done with it so just get creative so we just want people to continue gardening at all ages and at all abilities and then last of all consider containers containers are so portable particularly if you have a smaller container you can put it on a table you can always work with it do some deadheading and pruning fertilize it so containers are the ultimate when it comes to senior citizens and really to everybody everybody loves to garden in a container so keep in mind there's also lots of different vegetable series that are now more compact and that can be grown in containers so you can search those out so what do you do with a hanging basket I'm going to tell you these are hanging baskets at my own house and I can't reach them so if you know me I'm about five feet tall or maybe a little less which I'll never admit to and whenever anybody needs to be there like darn you're short so I can't reach my hanging basket so I have to ask my husband who's almost six feet tall to water for me and it's kind of a blow to my pride so I'm now thinking why don't you ask your husband to do this so I'm thinking this spring I'm going to invest in pulleys so that I can use a pulley system to lower the plants down to my height so I can check on them I can fertilize them and deadhead them so there are all these really unique solutions for everybody no matter your physical limitations and then consider tools to take some of the labor out of it now if you still have a traditional garden vegetable garden that's in the ground you don't have to bend over to plant you can buy these sowers now I haven't personally used a tool like this but I'm I'd be willing to experiment with it and then on the right we have an auger that connects to a power drill so wonderful if you don't have hand strength you can use instead of using a trowel you can use this to dig a hole and plant your bulbs, plants and terminals so use power tools they're really freeing now if you have carpal tunnel or have problems you know gripping things there are ergonomic tools designed just for you so here we have one where you can kind of grip the handle in a more natural type of hold and you'll then get more leverage but also consider longer handle tools so use the power of leverage instead of exhausting on the right we have this wonderful stool I just love this I'm thinking about investing in this one so instead of kneeling and weeding you can sit and weed and that stool will in fact rotate so you can go from side to side if you've got a sidewalk next to your garden you just kind of roll along the garden now these are all from disability work tools I'm not endorsing that particular company I've never worked with them but these are just examples of tools that are on the market and make sure you have a handy cart so instead of lifting all those heavy containers you know buy yourself a nice cart and then you can just use that to transport your plants and your tools and your grandchildren across your property so I'm hoping that you've learned a little something that your intuition is right there are wonderful benefits to gardening both mental and physical so continue gardening and the longer you can garden as senior citizens the better but instead of hurting your back start thinking about ways that you can continue gardening so thinking smarter but also think spring so I'm hoping that if all of you collectively in the audience if you can think warm spring thoughts you will bring spring to North Dakota instead of this snow that we got today alright thank you and I'll take questions so it's coming oh the snow is gone at least on Monday thanks okay here's a question about healing garden you talked about in hospitals who do you think takes care of those do you think it's on-site personnel or do you think they contract a garden center or help you take care of it I think it's dependent upon the hospital and the sources of funds so larger hospitals do have the funds to come and take care of the gardens however with smaller gardens I would say gardens here in Fargo and Moorhead we do have some master gardeners that are taking care of some of these healing gardens for example the VA hospital here in Fargo so it's probably a combination how about if someone was interested in putting in an enabling garden is there a good resource that you would recommend like how do we get started how do we figure out what would be a good design for a garden is there an organization that has a resource or a good book that you recommend you know probably the best resource that I've seen on enabling gardens is through University of Wyoming extension so you can Google Wyoming extension and enabling gardens or accessible gardens they have probably a 20 page manual on how to go about doing this and there are definitely more and more books on the market about this and people are interested well I'll give you a question with that hydroponic bed do you think the vegetables taste different when they're growing hydroponically versus a raised bed that's a great question I think they do taste differently I remember when I remember when I was in school we actually tried using different fertilizers and such and they had a huge impact on the flavor and I don't think we know enough to necessarily maximize flavor when it comes to hydroponic solutions you know as home gardeners but there are definitely commercial producers out there that grow their tomatoes completely hydroponically I visited one producer and he was selling to James Beard award winning chefs so there are some people that have figured out that it is definitely as much an art as a science but personally I think my veggies would taste better coming out of soil I do notice a difference so if you have a problem while you're hanging basket why don't you just hang it lower sorry oh Tom is picking up y'all let's wait for a question here okay do you have a recommendation for the types of flowers that would grow well in a soil environment mulch with wood chips and has a cooler soil has a cooler soil I would recommend growing lower maintenance foliage type plants now I use hostas like ground covers so I'll just blanket big sections with the different varieties of hostas I like other foliage plants like hukras those tend to be more shade tolerant plants but if you're talking about cooler soils they work very nicely now in sunny locations where it's going to be a little hotter and drier choose something like bee balm choose nepid or cat mint some of these are really tough what I would do is plant them in mass plant three of them or five of them so they form this nice clump and then you could do multiple clumps so that's one way to do it they'll grow together they'll cover the ground they'll be less weed seeds germinating there's a comment about there's an atrium in neurology Samford building that's taken care of by the NPBGS Northern Plains Botanic Garden Society yes so they take care of that atrium it's actually one of our master gardeners that's a member of both so Emily, I'll give her a shout out she takes care of that wonderful garden so all you have to do is sign up for Esther's master gardener class and you can serve your community and learn about horticulture and do a great service for others that person or that society or the West Acres Mall how about that they do a very nice job I mean there's no slugs in the hospice well there aren't necessarily slugs indoors in the mall how about you know straw bale gardening should be enabling because it's off the ground right yes but this gardener hasn't heard much about them straw bale gardens do you have any pros or cons about them yes yes I do I think that they're nice for getting you know getting the plants off the ground so you definitely could you know you could even stack bales and get them higher up now there are some cons to it in that I think the seed started plants don't do as well as the transplants I would also say that the bales are out very quickly so in that situation you might want to run some drip tape across the bales the other con with that would be rodents because you're dealing with straw so they may make that their home but it still can be done but you want to know your source for the straw you want to make sure they're not contaminated with herbicides you want to make sure you don't have a lot of weed seeds so it's really being smart about where you get your bales and any other questions out there people okay no other questions to ask Charlotte thank you very much that's a fascinating talk about poor therapy thank you okay everybody we're going to take five minute break again and then we'll get to our last presentation