stress relief Archives - Horticultural Therapy Healing Centre

Healing power of Nature

Plants are the ultimate healers in nature. Nature can heal your mind as well as the body for controlling all the limitation that you facing and suffering within your life. Last week I got a mail from a friend in USA. She shared a great story about how nature influenced her life and inspired her to live. It’s really inspiring and so I want to share this with you readers with her permission. Read and enjoy.

“I would love to learn, participate and help. I adore my plants! I make a tisane tea from my hibiscus flowers.

It is wonderfully delicious and healthful. My plants respond to me. They flower when I am happy. I know it sounds wierd, but I began gardening as therapy when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005.

At first, afraid, knowing nothing about gardening or flowers, (I am still soooo learning), I would just buy things that were on the dying rack and purple, for some subconscious reason.

They grew in spite of me. I was thrilled. I bought others and lovingly watered them at night on their feet, when it was cool, as I could not stand the heat.

Now birds and bees come to my garden. I buy perennials and put sweet smelling annuals in pots. I am now growing some edibles…much to my surprise and delight, one banana pepper plant has produced many, many peppers. I love to grow tomatoes. I planted horseradish root and I have basil of many types (it loves me and I love it), sage, chocolate mint, spearmint, lemon balm, hyssop, chives, parsley, rosemary and I had lavender, but oddly, it died. So did my girlfriends. For two years it flourished and then it just died. I got more and it died again.

I have what I call my sweet fairy patch of thyme – oh it smells so divine, and tons of coneflowers- all pink. Every year I plant mammoth sunflowers for the birds. I have a few roses and pansys, wild ginger, tons of marigolds, -they repel snakes and ants, calediums, and things like tulips in the spring and tons of morning glories.

I will attach some photos – I live in east Tennessee in the mountains. We have four seasons, but our winters are not quite as harsh as some areas further north. We do freeze, so I planted lilacs -my FAVORITE FLOWER OF ALL TIME.

IT SMELLS HEAVENLY IN THE SPRING WHEN IT BLOOMS! I bought the tree as a seedling from the Arboretum Society- they send you ten trees for a small donation and membership. They are all even looking like trees these days, on my property!

P.S. I live on a corner. The city decided one day to ‘plant’ a stop sign in my yard. I responded in kind! That is my therapy dog Buuddee (like us on Facebook with Therapy Dogs International ) and my son Cameron, who is now away at college, studying to become a physical therapist!”

Credit: Penny Richards, USA

When you are working with nature you learn how to alleviate your sorrows, how to heal your self. The more sincere and regular your interaction is with the plants, the greater will be the benefits you receive.

ArtyPlantz is conducting workshops and one to one consultation on Horticultural Therapy for various populations. If you want to know more send a mail to karthik@artyplantz.com or give a call at 8762679127

Horticultural Therapy for Stress Management

Gardening always gives pleasure to the person, who is engaged in it. It is indeed difficult to find a person doing gardening being stressed. If this is happening, it means that his approach to plants needs a change. Here I want to share some points that will help you to do gardening in a relaxed manner.

Do gardening as a hobby, not a task: Most of the gardeners enjoy the time they are able to spend in the garden. But some of them do not and you know why. This is only because they consider gardening to be a task or a job. People who enjoy gardening really get many physical as well as psychological advantages, unlike others who do not enjoy it.

Credit: Unknown

Don’t take your mobile with you while doing gardening: People can’t avoid mobiles because most of them are somewhat addicted to them. The result is that you will not be able to concentrate on the work that you are doing, if you are also preoccupied with the mobile. If you do not take the mobile while gardening, you will get free from unnecessary thoughts and so you will be able to enjoy the gardening. This will help you to become more connected with nature.

Fast growing vegetables: Keep one patch in your garden for vegetable cultivation. Use only the fast growing vegetables to begin with. The sowing, caring, maintaining and harvesting involved give you new experiences each time. Use of fast-growing vegetables enhances interest in gardening, because you reap the produce faster.

Butterfly plants: It will be good to use some butterfly plants in each corner of your garden. The presence of butterflies make your garden more lively and soothing. While watching butterflies in the garden, your mind will be distracted from all unwanted thoughts and you can enjoy yourself while you are in the garden.

Credit: U.S.-Fish-and-Wildlife-Service, Flickr

Feel the garden and explore their scope with your neighbors: Gardening does not mean only that you are growing different kinds of plant, but it also mean that you are caring for some lives there. You can feel proud about yourself and consider each plant in your care with love, kindness, and physical support. Plants in return also support you. Whenever you are stressed, share your thoughts with your plants. You will find that you are immediately relaxed. Make your garden unique in some respects and talk about it to others, whenever you get a chance. Invite your neighbors and friends to your garden for a visit. It will really work to de-stress them from unwanted thoughts and worries.

ArtyPlantz is conducting workshops and one to one consultation on Horticultural Therapy for various populations. If you want to know more send a mail to karthik@artyplantz.com or give a call at 8762679127

Benefits of gardening through Horticultural Therapy for Children

While providing Horticultural Therapy for children, it is important that how much they are interested in that. If they are not interested in doing gardening work, the therapist/educator/parent or facilitator should choose some options or activities for improving their interest in gardening and plants. Making a vegetable garden would interest them enormously as it satisfies them to watch a plant quickly grow into food that they can harvest within 3-4 months. In Horticultural Therapy fast yielding crops are used for giving instant gratification for participants. Recently I read an article about vegetable gardening for children. I would like to share some of the important portions from the article. Hope you all enjoy the excerpts.

“Gardening, in addition to being pleasurable, is a surprisingly healthy activity for adults and children alike. The Center for Disease control considers gardening “moderate cardiac activity” and forty-five minutes of gardening can burn as many calories as thirty minutes of aerobics. The National Institute of Health recommends gardening forty-five minutes a day three to five times a week to combat obesity.

Gardening benefits you more than as just exercise. Studies have shown that gardeners have higher energy levels, optimism, zest for life, and physical self-concept than non-gardeners. They also rate their physical health and activity level as higher than non-gardeners.

Children benefit from gardening, too. Gardening improves children’s attitudes towards vegetables and helps them to understand where their food comes from. It also allows them to socialize with their peers in a positive manner when done as an activity at school or a club. It can be used to give them lessons in science and math that are fun and show how these disciplines relate to the real world. In addition, children who participate in extracurricular activities such as a garden club do better in school. Children benefit from the same exercise that gardening gives adults. This helps fight childhood obesity, which has reached epidemic proportions in the United States.

Gardening benefits those who are disabled or considered elderly and frail, as well. Studies have shown that gardening helps stroke victims rehabilitate by having them use their arms and legs while engaged in a pleasant activity. Indoor gardening activities increase activity level and social engagement in a nursing home setting.

Finally, gardening benefits communities. Community gardening improves the attitudes of individuals about their communities and improves community cohesiveness.”

Do you have children at home? Are you a teacher who would love to give special experiences to your children? Then go ahead and plan for starting a vegetable garden for them. You can call us to find how best to do it if you are having beginner’s block. But let me tell you, it is easy, fun and a great boost for enhancing children’s self-worth. Wish you all many hours of vegetable gardening!

Credit: http://garden.lovetoknow.com/

ArtyPlantz is conducting workshops and one to one consultation on Horticultural Therapy for various populations. If you want to know about more send a mail to karthik@artyplantz.com or give a call at 8762679127

When you love Gardening

When I was a child, my main hobby was climbing trees. I had many friends and we would together make up many games all played outdoors. Those days I helped my mother while she engaged in gardening. She had a special garden around our house. She treated all plants like she treated us. She loved plants that much! My mother never allowed me to pluck flowers from the plants. She would ask me to let the flower be there for it to show off its beauty for some days, for many people to see and enjoy. I still remember those beautiful days. I want to share an article about gardening that I recently read. The author beautifully narrates how he loves gardening. Happy reading.

“What is the point of gardening? Why do so many people spend so much time and effort digging, snipping, mowing, pruning, sowing and reaping? What is the attraction of fossicking about in the cold and muddy outdoors? Surely it would be easier to just go to the supermarket rather than struggle through briars and bindweed? Some people (and almost all teenagers) really do not get the point of all this taming of nature.

I came late to gardening. I left school with no real idea about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I toyed with acting, photography, journalism, bar tending, selling encyclopedias, advertising, washing up, cloakroom attendant and Father Christmas. But it was not until I was persuaded to stop lying on the sofa for long periods of time that I found myself in my sister’s garden holding a spade. It would be going too far to say that I was struck by a sudden epiphany and that the skies echoed to the sound of green fingered angels singing Alleluia but it just felt right. From that moment on, through a mixture of complete bluff and endeavour, I have succeeded in making a living in and around other people’s gardens.

Therefore I feel that I am in a reasonable position to try and answer my own question: what is the point of gardening? There are so many reasons ranging from an urge to grow pumpkins the size of camels to a wish to make the world more beautiful. Some people garden because they wish to raise plants of great rarity, some treat the whole thing as a physical challenge that must be met (a more domestic version of trudging across the tundra). Many house owners consider gardening a chore that has to be endured in order that they can barbeque untroubled by invasive vegetation while others do it because they want a lawn as smooth and blemish free as the coat of an otter. Perhaps they garden just to impress the neighbours with their expertise or in order to make sure their families eat vegetables unsullied by nitrates and pesticides. Gardening has an interesting mixture of control and complete resignation. It is the pleasure of allowing some things to grow wild and untrammelled while others are pruned and persuaded to do precisely what they are told.

I garden because I love plants and the innumerable ways in which they come together – either through skill or serendipity. Of course there is a certain satisfaction in concocting a perfect conjoining of paths or creating an idyllic place to sit and enjoy the sunset but, no matter how exquisite, a patio never stirred the soul. Instead every plant, no matter how humble, can be capable of bringing warmth to the heart and a spring to the step. From the ridged bark of the grandest oak smiling down upon a scampering of nodding Anenomes, a lacy leaf fluttering coquettishly around the knees of a perfect rose or a scalding red flower surrounded by a chorus of ruffled green. Not forgetting a muddied new potato, a brittle green bean or the juice of a dripping pear: these are the things that give meaning to a gardener’s toils.

The purpose of gardening is to make people happy: not just the gardeners but those who enjoy the things they create. The destiny of garden designers is to help people see the great frothing blur of potential that begins just outside their back doors. The secret of successful gardening? That I cannot tell you but if you are enjoying yourself then you are very close to finding out for yourself.”

I am sure the article makes you want to start your own garden as well! Just do it! Yes, it is like nurturing a child, but don’t you enjoy growing another life? The joys of watching things grow is indeed worth the trouble taken to grow them. Happy gardening!

Credit: http://www.finegardening.com/

ArtyPlantz is conducting workshops and one to one consultation on Horticultural Therapy for various populations. If you want to know about more send a mail to karthik@artyplantz.com or give a call at 8762679127

How Horticultural Therapy Benefits Children

Connecting with nature is very important for everyone. Especially for children. Studies show that while children play in the outdoors, many of the brain cells get stimulated and their mental health becomes sharper. Today parents are trying to make their children become a performer in many areas. More than a child who is taught several skill sets one after the other under a stressed environment, it would be the child who is allowed to play outdoors for long who will grow to be a balanced child. Children under undue stress stand a chance of getting depression, stress, imbalanced emotions and irresponsible behavior. There are many benefits your child will learn and gain from gardening. I would like to share one beautiful blog that I read recently. Sharing it with you below. Hope you will enjoy this.

“In recent years, gardening with children in schools has become more and more popular. But does taking kids outside and teaching them how to grow vegetables and how to weed really benefit them and teach them valuable life skills?

Here are three very good reasons why gardening is great for your children.

1: Cognitive Benefits

In a study by the Royal Horticultural Society it was found that gardening increases children’s alertness, concentration levels and can even help to prevent Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Being able to react to change and solve problems in a creative way, thinking out-of-the-box is something that children unknowingly learn in the garden. These skills can be transferred into the classroom, and into their future too. By engaging in problem solving in the garden, a child can take this skill into their studies and eventually, into the workplace.

Whether they’ve been killed by weeds, they’ve not been looked after properly or they’re just out of season, plants and flowers do eventually die. This teaches your child that sometimes things just don’t work out, and that the best thing to do is to replant and try again. Again, this is a valuable and important life lesson that is learnt in a light-hearted way.

2: Physical Benefits

Along with increasing brain activity, there are many physical health benefits to gardening that can not only benefit your children, but benefit you too. Gardening is great for children and helps them grow, encouraging the body to build muscle volume and strength, making pulling up weeds fun!

There are no foods healthier for your children than organic fruit and vegetables grown in your own back garden, and although it might be a messy process for little hands and feet, it really is worth every muddy footprint to teach your children that food can be grown instead of being purchased from the supermarket. It’s a perfect way to get your kids on the path to a healthy diet.

A recent study also revealed that men who gardened were 62% less likely to be overweight, and women who gardened were 46% less likely to be obese. It has also been proven that performing a moderate-intensity level activity (such as gardening) for 2.5 hours each week can significantly reduce the risk of high blood pressure.

One hour of gardening, performing tasks such as digging, weeding and watering plants burns the same amount of calories as taking 10,000 steps or walking around five miles. So get digging!

3: Social Benefits

Thirdly, gardening increases and enhances children’s social skills.

Looking after a communal vegetable patch or flower bed with others gives children a sense of responsibility and team work – teaching them to take care of something if they want it to flourish. A sense of responsibility increases motivation to succeed and desire to put in the effort and team work to make it work. Again, this is something that can be taken into the classroom and the workplace.

Community gardening and gardening in schools is also a great opportunity for kids to meet and interact with different children in a fun and healthy way. In life, your child will meet many different people, so the ability to make friends and interact with different people from different backgrounds is a great skill to have.”

Personally we have seen how happy kids can get in a garden amidst trees and plants. To grow children who are balanced and to enable patients to get their balance even if they have some ailment or the other is the best we can do as caretakers. If you would like to know more how you can bring balance to your wards, do contact us.

Credit: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/

ArtyPlantz is conducting workshops and one to one consultation on Horticultural Therapy for various populations. If you want to know about more send a mail to karthik@artyplantz.com or give a call at 8762679127

Horticultural therapy for Multiple Sclerosis

When you plant a plant, some kind of responsibility and hope will stir in your heart. Each time you water or care for the plant, you will become closer to the plant. Once the plant starts to give gifts like flowers or fruits, it will become an inseparable friend for life. Horticultural Therapy gives a platform to patients to experience such bonding which will help them to enhance physical, mental and cognitive skills. I came across an interesting blog which explains about the possibilities in Horticultural Therapy. Hope you will also enjoy!!!

“Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease that affects the brain and spinal cord, which results in the loss of muscle control, vision, balance, and sensation. Recent research has established the importance of daily activities that exercise the body, mind, and soul for those living with MS.

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Horticultural therapy is practiced by millions around the world for various reasons, such as exercise, mental solace, relaxation, or self-esteem that is enhanced by the activity itself. Gardening is the number one outdoor pastime in the United States, likely due in part to the fact that it can be an enjoyable and therapeutic activity for anyone, regardless of age, gender, or disabilities. Gardening activities are so many and varied that there is bound to be a gardening activity suitable for anyone, regardless of ability or experience.

For those participating in horticultural therapy, it can be very therapeutic. Gardening can help alleviate depression, improve motor skills, and teach problem-solving. Additional benefits include social interaction and the development of self-confidence. It’s is a safe, quiet pursuit that provides a respite from everyday stresses.”

Credit: Believe@magee

ArtyPlantz is conducting workshops and one to one consultation on Horticultural Therapy for various diseases and conditions. If you want to know about more send a mail to karthik@artyplantz.com or give a call at 8762679127