Edgerton Hospital, in southern Wisconsin, is a leader in therapeutic horticulture, with a truly remarkable healing garden tended by staff and volunteers.

Each year the hospital's Mark Dwyer, a landscape designer, horticulturist and HTR, organizes a one-day symposium on horticultural therapy, which attracts an intriguing mix of physical and occupational therapists, educators and master gardeners.

This year I provided the keynote, speaking on the therapeutic value of gardens and gardening, plus a seminar on designing a therapeutic garden.

Learn more about the symposium

Contact me to explore educational ideas and opportunities.

A few years ago, we began a transitional jobs program at the Chicago Botanic Garden to help veterans adapt to civilian life. Most take this transition in stride, but we designed the program for those who can use a bit of help.

CBS This Morning did a short segment in 2017 partly about the jobs program, but more about the benefits of engaging with nature for those with stress-related conditions.

It’s a nice introduction to what I do and how the thoughtful use of nature can be valuable to your organization.

Watch the segment

 

Over the last 10 years, we’ve made great strides in understanding the role of nature in our health, our productivity, and our ability to learn. Yet much work remains to be done, and so we need more people to expand and apply our knowledge.

This year is my ninth teaching the Horticultural Therapy Certificate Program for the Chicago Botanic Garden, although it’s my first as an independent contractor.

I took over the program in 2010 and completely rebuilt it. Prior to 2011, the program was residential, with students working at the Garden for 16 weeks to complete the requirements for an HT Certificate. This schedule was difficult at best for those already working full time, for example therapists, nurses and other professionals interested in adding nature-based modalities to an already successful practice.

The current curriculum, consisting of three college-credit classes taught over a full year, is a hybrid of online and face-to-face work. We begin with a three semester-hour online class on basic horticulture, followed by four-hour and five-hour classes which I have taught. These cover the research basis, evidence-based practices, therapist-client relationship, assessment, documentation,  therapeutic, social and vocational models, program development, accessibility, body mechanics, and garden design. Each of these includes four days at the Garden devoted to experiences that would be impossible to replicate online, including conducting sessions with groups of clients, a field trip to several therapeutic gardens, and working in a small group on garden designs.

The class has been extremely well received, growing from seven applicants in 2011 to nearly 70 in 2019. My former students include a neurologist, several teachers, social workers, entrepreneurs and two chaplains. One graduate developed a non-profit nursery center for adults with special needs. Another runs a farm program for special-ed high school students. Many have added horticultural therapy techniques to their therapeutic practices.

With my new company, I hope to expand this vital work to offer new programs with new partners. Possibilities include a new and updated HT Certificate Program, workshops and CEU classes.

Contact me to explore educational ideas and opportunities.

Recently I had a chance to moderate a thought-provoking discussion between two local artists on nature and healing.

It took place in February at the Brushwood Nature Center outside Chicago, at an exhibition of the work of  Stephanie Rose Bird and Gabriella Boros. I introduced each artist, asked them questions and worked to bring the audience into the discussion.

Each artist takes a very different approach. Gabriella spends months researching her detailed, white on black woodcuts, each of which explores a healing plant and its meaning in a specific culture. Stephanie paints colorful, abstract acrylics that express the feelings she experiences in her garden.

My goal was to prompt each woman to open up about how and why she creates her work, and how it can help us understand how we relate to nature.

You may enjoy watching the discussion on YouTube.

And here's a description of the exhibition.

Today, for five minutes, take a mini-vacation for your brain.

It’s as easy as spending a few minutes outside or even at your desk, focusing on some element of nature. It can seem almost magical in the way it restores our brains and some of our capacity to go back to work productively.

How to do it?  Watch this short video.

People flourish when they interact with plants and nature at work, at school, and in their homes. Demonstrating how they can do that was the goal of Flourish Inside and Out at the United States Botanic Garden on the Capitol grounds in Washington, from May through October, 2016.

Creating Flourish was a two-year project. Starting in 2014, my staff and I acted as the principal project consultants. I shared research about the benefits of nature and gardening with the exhibit planners and helped them to think through the exhibit messaging. Our Design Consultant and Manager, Clare Johnson, helped them with the exhibit designs. These consisted of a series of vignettes inside the main conservatory building plus demonstration gardens outside.

I also drew on my career as an Occupational Therapist to help the  US Botanic staff ensure that all areas were accessible to those with mobility or sensory differences or challenges, and that the gardens themselves could be planted and maintained by staff and volunteers with various disabilities.

Finally, I presented two public programs within the conservatory building: How Does Nature Impact Health? and Gardening as We Age, while Clare presented a Therapeutic Garden Design Workshop.

Learn more about the exhibit.

Founded in 2009, MuseumNext brings museum leaders, founders and innovators from around the world together to ask, “What’s next for museums?” In doing so, the group publishes a news and ideas-orientated website and sponsors annual conferences in New York and Amsterdam.

I was asked to make a presentation to their members in New York in November, 2016.

Because I was the director of one of the largest community outreach programs at the Chicago Botanic Garden, they were interested in my views on how a museum can best decide how to serve the community in which it is located.

In my talk, I described the various veterans programs at the Garden, focusing on how we identified a set of needs in our community, identified potential partners, and then found ways to use our own special expertise to serve them.

Watch my presentation.   Learn more about MuseumNext.

One of the things I’m most proud of in my work at the Chicago Botanic Garden was my part in an ongoing effort to serve the veteran community.

In 2013, we launched a monthly program where clinicians and clients from Thresholds, one of the largest mental health providers in Chicago, come for a monthly retreat at the Garden.

In this video, you can watch one of my staff members, Alicia Green, describe the program.

Another meaningful program we offered at the Garden was a Military Appreciation Day, organized through the USO.

On a beautiful summer day, active duty personnel, veterans and their families came to a free day at the Garden complete with admission to the tram ride, Model Railroad Garden, Butterflies & Blooms, and other experiences, plus a luncheon. We helped the children get their hands a little dirty with a terrarium activity in the Buehler Enabling Garden.

It was striking how eager our staff and volunteers were to participate in the program’s planning and implementation. We heard nothing but good things from the families who attended.

Learn more about the day.

Over the last 20 years, nature-based therapies have attracted a great deal of interest in Europe, and there has been a movement to implement the therapeutic use of gardens in clinics and healthcare facilities and add related studies to university curricula.

As part of an effort to understand the value of Horticultural Therapy and related professions, the European Union has funded the Natur im Garden organization since 1999, and they have organized conferences, lectures, webinars and other activities each year. I gave the keynote for their 2013  Conference in Tulln, Austria, just outside of Vienna.

It was a great honor and a wonderful opportunity to meet my contemporaries from around the world.

In the photo, I’m shown with Wolfgang Sobotka, the First Deputy of Lower Austria, and Stefan Streicher, one of the conference organizers.

Learn more about my keynote.