The Benefits of Enabled Gardening By Jerry A. Chenault, Urban Regional Extension Agent, Lawrence County

Research has proven that gardening helps people time and time again. But what about those individuals that are physically disabled and/or wheelchair bound? Can gardening help them in any measureable way? Gardens can be created with all types of people in mind.

Do you recall feeling more peaceful after a neighborhood walk outdoors or in a wooded area? Ever felt like you had more energy after pulling weeds in a flower bed? The seemingly magical benefits you felt interacting with nature are the same benefits that help others to relieve stress. Even gardening with individuals with disabilities can show surprising results in reducing stress and improving motor skills. Just 20 minutes of weeding or watering plants produces measureable and visible stress reductions in many individuals.

Gardening also produces some real emotional benefits. Interacting with plants has given individuals a different sense of their place in life and can often divert thoughts of self and negative situations. Gardening stimulates the senses while empowering the gardener with some real creative and controlling opportunities. This pleasure combined with the socialization that gardening often brings, creates changes in behavior, emotional expressions, and feelings of self-esteem. Disabled gardeners often feel a huge change in dependency due to the independent functioning gardening allows.

It's no small wonder that following both World War I and II, veteran hospitals found garden therapy to be successful in treating disabled soldiers. We've known it for a long time, but it seems too simple to be true! As early as 1699 Leonard Maegar, writing in the English Gardener, advised his countrymen "to spend their spare time in the garden either digging, setting out, or weeding; there is no better way to preserve your health."

Dr. Benjamin Rush, pioneer psychiatrist, researcher, and signer of our Declaration of Independence, declared even in his time that "digging in the soil has a curative effect on the mentally ill." Dr. Rush also found that people who stayed busy with gardening and other endeavors were less likely to need medical treatment.

Gardening is an activity that can be adapted to all sorts of special needs from raised flower beds for people in wheelchairs or on walkers, to gardens for the blind that utilizes the five senses. Just remember to start small to avoid feeling overwhelmed by a new garden to maintain.

The Bill Stewart Center in Moulton, Alabama has developed a good example of an enabled garden for the developmentally disabled. Built as a project of Extension's Urban Affairs & New Nontraditional Programs unit, this garden utilizes 4'x8' or 4'x16' raised wooden bed areas that are accessible by Stewart Center clientele. As a result of their involvement in this project, self-esteem and empowerment grow right alongside the plots of vegetables and flowers.

Here are some tips for successful enabling gardens:

• Handle sizes can be adjusted by utilizing foam tubes or other commercially made grips or tools. Foam tubes may be purchased from medical or plumbing supply stores as hot water line insulation. Medium to jumbo foam hair curlers may also be used to slip over tool handles for easier grip and use.
• Tools with arm splints can be used to assist with gardening, and these may be a tax deductible expense.
• Pathways for wheelchairs need to be smooth and at least 3-ft wide. Wheelchair accessible bed areas need to be no more than 5-ft wide if accessible from all sides, or 2.5 feet wide if used from only one side. Height will be determined by the user (approximately 24" if used from a chair) and may be as high as 30" if used for a standing gardener.
• Hanging baskets can create planting areas where none exist, and can even be housed "double-decker" style. They can also be lowered by a ratcheting pulley system or by a long metal pole with a curved top hook.
• Deep boxes, barrels, and tubs can be used to make bed areas and normally need to have at least 12" of potting soil/bed depth.
• Water accessibility is a must and needs to be close to the site. The area cannot be muddy if wheelchair accessible, and needs to have a spigot at 24" to 36" above ground. Hand levers should be used rather than round spigot controls that must be hand-turned.
• Mulch around plants will greatly reduce the need for weeding and watering. Soaker hoses or drip irrigation help to eliminate the need to drag water hoses, and are more efficient watering methods.

The following tips on enabled gardening come from the Washington State University Master Gardeners:

• Choose plants that appeal to senses other than sight. For instance, use plants with differently textured leaves that are soft as lamb's ears or rough like heliotrope. Use scented plants such as herbs and fragrant flowers, as well as plants you hear when they rustle in a breeze.
• Tie a cord around the handles of small tools to make retrieval easier if they are dropped.
• Use gloves to protect hands and to help maintain your grip on tools.
• Use a large magnifying glass to aid in seeing small plants and seeds.
• Wear an apron or smock with large front pockets to carry seed packets and tools.
• Use a piece of light-weight plastic pipe to help you sow seeds without bending over.
• Carry a whistle. A short blast can alert others if you need help.
• Rig hanging planters with a pulley to lower them for watering.
• Grow vining varieties of peas and beans that can be trained up a trellis to make harvesting easier.
• Use containers or raised beds for planting to limit bending and stooping.
• A tool storage shed, cabinet, or just a mailbox mounted on a fencepost or raised bed edge, are also ideal features for an enabling garden. Tool pouches hung on a wheelchair or a walker can be real assets to gardeners, according to Joyce Schillen, author of The Growing Season. Schillen says that arthritis, disabilities, injuries, or other health problems can make gardening difficult without some special consideration, and those gardeners are ironically the ones that could benefit most from gardening. We couldn't agree more.
  

Kinney, A. M. (n.d.). Creating an enabled garden. Nature's Way. Retrieved April 21, 2009.

Larson, J., Hancheck, A., & Vollmar, P. (2009). Accessible gardening for therapeutic horticulture. University of Minnesota Extension. Retrieved April 21, 2009.

Levenston, M. (1988). Gardening with disabled individuals. Urban Agriculture Notes. Retrieved April 21, 2009.

Schillen, J. (1997). Horticultural therapy: Create an enabled garden. Garden Forever. Retrieved April 21, 2009.

Washington State Master Gardeners. (2005, January). Gardening for life. Retrieved April 21, 2009.

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