University Place

Therapeutic Gardening

[Christina Russin, Senior Lecturer, Program in Biological Sciences, Northwestern University]

Welcome to our September program. I’d like to introduce our speaker. This is Jenny Happ, the daughter of our very own Ken Happ. She has an undergraduate degree in social work and a master’s in therapeutic recreation. She’s a certified therapeutic recreation specialist and social worker in the state of Wisconsin. She currently works at Riverfront in Janesville as the Day Service Coordinator, and she’s been working with individuals with a variety of abilities for just over three years. Over the course of those three years, she’s run three different types of therapeutic gardening programs in a variety of settings. So, without further ado, Jenny Happ.

[applause]

[Jennifer Happ, Day Service Coordinator, Riverfront, Inc.]

Hello, everyone, and welcome. Tonight’s going to be a little bit of a variety of therapeutic gardening. Some of it’s going to be adaptive tools, some of it’s going to be about the different programs, and then I’m going to finalize it with the research that I conducted for my master’s program that involved therapeutic gardening. I was asked to have all questions wait until the end of the presentation because of the TV crew being here. So, write down your questions, and then you can ask me at the end. Ask me as many questions as you want at the end.

So, overall therapeutic gardening, my main goal first, can you hear me well?

[Audience member]
Yes.

[Jennifer Happ]
Okay. Good.

My main dream, passion, purpose is to try and create a happier lifestyle for individuals with disabilities. From my father being in being a master gardener, it really drew my interest to go further and incorporate therapeutic gardening with disabilities and find a way to put the two together to make everyone’s lives happier. Cause I can say that probably you guys know that gardening makes everyone have a little bit of a happier time when you’re out gardening in your garden or helping at a different program.

So, looking at the agenda for today, like I said, I want to go over a couple gardening facts when I did my research to what therapeutic gardening does for individuals, go over some of the different adaptive techniques, and then dive into some of the different gardening programs that I have implemented and discovered some good, some bad, some ugly. And then, lastly, is the raised bed garden research project that I did.

So, some of the facts. Therapeutic gardening, it’s a little bit different than the term horticulture therapy. The reason that is, is because to do horticulture therapy you have to be a horticulture therapist. So, I found a way around it in doing therapeutic gardening. So, you can still do gardening related materials and make it therapeutic, but it’s not horticulture therapy.

So therapeutic gardening is a plant dominated environment purposely designed to facilitate interactions with the healing elements of nature. Interactions can be passive or active, depending on the garden design and user’s needs. Some types include sensory gardens, healing gardens, restorative gardens, enabling gardens, and rehabilitative gardens.

Some of the benefits, I’ll kind of shoot that out to you guys. What are some of the things that you guys get from doing gardening? What are the benefits that you get out of it without even looking at this screen?

[laughter]

[Audience member]

Pain.

[Jennifer Happ]

You get pain? Okay. We’ll talk about some adaptive techniques while we’re here, yes.

[Audience member]

But it’s a good pain.

[Jennifer Happ]

Yes. Its a good pain. What else?

[Audience member]

Exercise.

[Jennifer Happ]

Exercise.

[Audience member]

Stress relief.

[Jennifer Happ]

Stress relief.

[Audience member]

Companionship.

[Jennifer Happ]

Yes, companionship.

[Audience member]

A healthier food.

[Jennifer Happ]

I’m sorry, what was that?

[Audience member]

Healthier food.

[Jennifer Happ]

Healthier food, yes.

So, you guys kind of already touched on some of these. It has been known that it can first, exercise. Make people feel happier. There’s materials that are in dirt that bring out happiness in people. It’s part of the dirt that’s

[Audience member]
Soil

[Jennifer Happ]

Yes, the soil. Yes.

[laughter]

[Jennifer Happ]

That companionship. So, less isolation. That’s one big thing that you’ll see with individuals with disabilities is that they tend to either reserve to themselves or they just want a select few people. So, through gardening you can get them to kind of expand that boundary just a little bit and dive in further.

So, while they’re doing their own gardening piece, there could be a whole group of people around them that’s giving them that socialization. There’s the improving communication. Sometimes you can find that individuals will talk to a plant, but they won’t talk to a human. Sometimes you’ll find they’ll talk to an animal, but they won’t talk to a human. One big thing that I found when I did my research was that exact fact. We had individuals that would talk away to the plants, and the second you’d ask them a question they looked away from you. They didn’t want to talk to you at all. But if you were talking to them through the plant, they had a full-on conversation with you. So, the plant was our conversation piece between us for them to talk to us.

It gives people a sense of purpose. Teaching them that this is a life. This plant is a life. It’s teaching them the process of life. You have to baby it. It’s their baby and then it becomes an adult and then it passes away. So, teaching them that cycle of life through a plant is another interesting piece of it.

Increased concentration. Individuals, there are some individuals when I did my research that when they started, they wanted nothing to do with the garden. They actually enjoyed laying on the cement and enjoying the sun. But then, by the end of the program, they started to concentrate on the actual program and wanting to be there and digging in the garden. So, finding those different concentration piece.

And then boosting their self-esteem. Being a part of a group, being a part of a project, all of those aspects put together can make your self-exteem self-exteem boost self-ESTEEM boost.

And then, lastly, another part that I found was that garden environments can be a powerful healing tool, as we kind of just mentioned above.

Here I kind of broke it down a little bit further of the different benefits between physical, social, emotional and cognitive. For physical, it can help build that muscle strength, encourage healthy eating, movement, energy, exercise, and even lower blood pressure. Social aspects is sharing the knowledge and growing friendships through the different programs. Emotional: the stress release like we were just talking about. It gives a calming technique. It awakens your senses and, again, boosts your self-esteem. And then, for cognitive, it gives you that sense of ownership, that personal initiative. Even the possibility of learning literacy skills.

I have not myself done a program, but you can do programs where individuals will read while they’re in a garden setting. So, you can have sensory gardens where you’re doing a literacy piece, but you’re in the garden, and that calming technique allows them the opportunity to be able to read with you and learn more skills. Literacy skills that myself has learned from my father is there’s all the Latin terms that come from all the different plants that there are that I knew nothing about and learned all about just from him. Numeracy of the number of plants and then the knowledge of plants, what the plants are and what they can do.

So, some of the adaptive techniques, kind of taking a little turn here. The biggest thing can be, for individuals with disabilities, they can have a limited strength, limited flexibility, and limited range of motion. These are the three things that I found through my three different programs that really came to life. Some individuals thought they couldn’t garden because tools were too hard to use. Hoses were too heavy. The I wasn’t able to reach the bed due to my limited range of motion.

So, through the use of adaptive tools, you can really get individuals into the garden and realize that they can garden. One quote that an individual gave to me when I was doing my research, he said that: “My parents always gardened but I’m not able to.” And I asked him why. Why are you not able to? And he said: “Because I can’t reach the gardens, I can’t garden, so I just watch them.” That’s when I showed him this tool here

[Holds up tool]

that he uses a wheelchair. He has very limited range of motion. So, his arms typically are about here

[raises arms to indicate chest height]

and when he was able to move his arms, he can go just a little bit further, almost making that 90-degree angle, but he’s not able to reach out and get into a bed.

When I showed him this tool that,

[Holds up tool]

if you’re sitting in your chair, you can extend it and you can add any of the different devices. So, there’s three different, or four different, sorry. There’s a trowel, there’s a rake, another form of a rake, and then even a cutter to be able to cut some of the produce off. So, using these devices

Can you hear me when I’m not by the mic?

[Audience]

Yes.

[Jennifer Happ]

Okay. When using these devices of you screw them on and now,

[extending tool to full length]

he’s able to reach the entire bed.

So, say this is a bed right here.

[Indicating a table in front of the room]

He was able to reach into the middle of the bed and was able to garden and I’ve never seen him so happy. The smile going from: “I can’t do this” to “Jenny, I can garden. I can do this. I’m a part of this. I’m part of a group. I’m part of a community. I can garden now.” Watching him grow throughout the process of the entire project and then knowing that he took it home and he’s now gardening at home with his family because they bought him adaptive tools.

So, some of the different tools, which I’ll show you guys and I’ll pass them around, is the one that is for somebody that might be not able, again, like to reach to the middle or that they’re standing and want to be able to reach to the ground garden is the extendable tool.

[demonstrating extendable tool]

So, this one will you just twist it and pull it and it makes it that much longer to be able to use. And, again, it comes with four different types of extenders.

[Holding up extenders]

So, if you guys want, I’ll send these around so you guys can look at them.

So, this can definitely help with people when it comes to their range of motion. They’re not able to reach as far in the range of motion.

There goes the microphone. Let’s try that again.

So, it helps them reach further and be able to reach the garden all the way.

One of the other tools that we found useful is we have individuals that might get pain when they’re wanting to garden. So, when you’re using a typical tool, you tend to have to dig with your wrist. So, when you dig into the ground and then you have to lift up. So, your wrist is constantly moving. We have a couple individuals, when I was doing the project, that weren’t able to do that much wrist movement. It hurt too much. They’re not as strong. They’re not able to reach that far. Or, not reach that far, bend that much. So, there’s tools that, one,

[Holding up another tool]

it can be just as a tool like this or

[adding extender to tool]

you can add an extender. What the extender does is it adds extra support. So, when an individual is using this type of tool, if I can get it to come undone, when they’re digging, they just have to do a forward and back motion. When you’re doing that, you can see your wrist is not moving up and down.

If you’re using a shovel,

[holds up adaptive shovel]

there’s less of this

[indicating a wrist bend with shovel]

to dig in. It’s not as much wrist movement that you have to do.

The extender,

[puts on extender with arm brace]

when you put it in, makes it so that if you were hitting a hard surface, this brace allows your wrist not to move. So, you guys can see that when you push on this part,

[pressing on shovel end]

it doesn’t make your wrist move as much.

And this one,

[indicating brace extender tool]

when you purchase the different tools, this one has three different tools that come in to use.

[Hands tool to audience member]

So, here’s this one for you guys to test out.

[Audience member]

Thank you.

[Jennifer Happ]

Yep. There you go. And I have three of this one, so you guys can just pass it up your sections, and it’s easier.

So, that’s a good one that helps with wrists. It also helps if you have limited for your elbow. Not as much strain when you’re using that.

[Audience member]

Where can we get those?

[Jennifer Happ]

I will share all those resources of all the different places at the end. This one is called an EZ Grip. And then, I don’t remember the other name. Really quick I will look it up. EZ Grip and Lee Valley. Lee Valley is the one that’s the long extender. So, EZ Grip is for this size of the wrist action,

[indicating brace-based tool]

and then Lee Valley is the one for extendable.

[indicating extendable tool]

The other adaptation that originally I didn’t think of when I started my program was when you’re looking at a hose so you guys will see on here, this hose right here, or the nozzle. It’s a lot of strength to be able to push that level in and out. I knew right away, and it was a discussion that I had with my Dad, being a Master Gardener, asking him: When I’m pushing that lever, a lot of my participants don’t have that strength. They don’t have that ability to squeeze and push and hold for a duration of time. They need something that they can either flip the switch or they push a button and the water is flowing. If I have to do anything else, they’re not going to water.

So, he showed me this tool here.

[Indicating a lever manipulated spray hose extension]

All you have to do is you flip the lever, and then you’re watering. Another awesome aspect to this is that the nozzle has over 1,000 spigots to come out. And what that does is when you turn it on if you think about when you’re watering and you push that nozzle and you want to spray, sometimes you get pushback from the hose. With this one, when you turn on the lever, you don’t get that pushback because there’s like a disperse of the water that comes out. So, it’s an easier flow that comes out of the nozzle. So, you can see that when you look at this, it’s a lot easier. All I have to do is flip once and I’m done. It’s watering. I can do everything. I don’t have to hold it the entire time. This was a life changer for a lot of our individuals as well because of the fact that they can now water instead of having to carry and lug that watering can. That was all that the program had was a watering can. That’s, again, how are you going to lift up that watering can? This is a lot simpler, a lot faster, a lot easier to allow everybody of any ability the chance to water.

So, here I have a few pictures of individuals using the different tools. This is one of our gentlemen that he had the ability to water. If you had to hold it, there was no way. But if someone turned on the nozzle and all he had to do was put his hand, with help, around, he could hold onto this

[holding up lever-based hose extension]

for hours on end. But if he had to hold it, he wasn’t going to be able to water at all. So, he was able to water multiple times throughout the course of the project.

This individual here, she had a wrist bone that at one point did fracture. And with the ability of having the EZ Grip, she didn’t have to worry about bending that wrist too much to possibly have have another injury.

And, last but not least, it’s the same gentleman as above. He was the one I was talking about. That when he started when he started the program

[fixing the microphone]

There we go.

When he started the program, he was the one that told me that: “I can’t garden.” Look at that smile. Look at that interest. Look at that love for something that we all love. Now he can love because he found adaptations to be able to do it. So, he was able to rake because now he can reach the beds with the extender tools.

Another aspect that you have to look into is the design of the bed. RecPlex, which is where I was able to do my project, is this top part right here.

[Indicating the upper right photo on slide]

They gave me the opportunity to have three different heights of beds. One was three-foot high, one was two-foot high, and one was one-foot high. The nice thing about the different heights is you can allow individuals, again, of any ability to be able to use it.

If you use a three-foot high bed, someone could stand and garden. They don’t have to get on their hands and knees, be on the ground, all of that aspect.

A two-foot high bed is ideal for individuals who use wheelchairs. When they’re using a wheelchair, they can roll up right next to it, and they can be level with the bed and be able to reach in and do the gardening. They don’t have to reach down. They don’t have to reach up. They’re level with it. This is also ideal for individuals that might want to come and use a chair. So, they bring a chair and they set their chair right next to it. They can sit and the garden bed is at their height or their face level.

And then the one-foot high bed is ideal for individuals that, if you don’t want to do a ground garden where you can probably get a little bit messier, some of our individuals wanted to garden but they don’t like dirt. Put the two together. If they had a one-foot high garden bed, some of them would sit on the ground, and they could reach into the bed with a glove on and be able to do gardening, but they didn’t have to touch the dirt or sit in the dirt or kneel in the dirt that, if you used a ground garden, you would have to do.

Another aspect that you can do is, if an individual wants a seating area and just wants a small bed, this picture right here

[Indicating middle picture on slide]

shows that you can have two beds on the side. So little containers. And then they can sit in the middle, and they can enjoy their garden while sitting there during the session.

And then, lastly, one of the programs that I did was for kids with disabilities at a camp. And to get kids interested in gardening was a challenge at first. Some of them were like gung-ho, let’s go dig in the dirt. All they cared about was getting muddy. Some kids, they thought gardening was crazy. They didn’t want to do it. But the second we decided let’s color the bed, let’s make it interesting, let’s make it have some kind of style, the kids wanted to come to that bed. They thought it was cool that there was something that was multicolored that they could interact with.

So, something as simple as painting a bed or designing a bed, letting them paint it, eventually they ended up putting hand prints and caterpillars and stuff on it, and to them that was engaging and intriguing that they had a bed that was decorated to their interests and their enjoyment level.

Another aspect to look at is just the program itself. The location of the beds. When we first started with the RecPlex in that project, they wanted to have the beds be on the opposite side of the lake from where the RecPlex is. So, it’d be at least probably about a 20-minute walk to get to those beds. Not possible. It would have took that hour of our program to get to the beds and then another hour past our program time to get back. Not not feasible. So, they were able to move the beds closer, and they built three brand new beds for us. And all it was, was they walked out the back door and it was a hop, skip, and a jump and they were at the beds.

You can also look at, there’s if if you’re looking at a program that the beds are located down a hill, think about wheelchairs getting down that hill, and you’re going to get your workout going back up that hill. So, really look into where your beds or where your program is and the location of it.

Time of day. We when one of the programs that I did, we ended up doing it in the afternoon. And you could always see, if we started it at 1:15, about 1:45 everyone started to get tired because it was hot, and the sun was beating down on them. If you do a program earlier in the morning, around 9:00, the individuals, it wasn’t as sunny yet, it was a little bit cooler. When do you all like to do your gardening? Earlier in the morning so it’s not as hot and sweaty. That’s definitely a big thing when it comes to people with disabilities as well.

The educational level. Some of the individuals that you could work with could have a cognitive level of two to three years old but are 30 years old. Some of the individuals could be a 13-year-old and have a 20-year-old brain. So, really looking at who are you working with and how are you doing your educational level of the program.

And then, lastly, what do you want to get out of the program? What is your outcome? What is your goal that you want to attain or achieve from that program?

So, here, now, I’m going to kind of switch gears a little bit again and go into the garden programs that I have implemented and some of the different goods, bads, uglies that I’ve seen from it.

The first one is Bradford Woods. Bradford Woods is a therapeutic recreation camp located in Martinsville, Indiana. I ended up doing my graduate internship at this camp. And we kind of, sort of, dig a little bit and see if there were any programs that camps offered. And it was really hard to find anything. There’s not really any camps that offer gardening programs. It’s more adventure, hiking, swimming, canoeing, those kind of events versus gardening. So, we decided to try it out and see what would happen during my internship and see how it was received.

So, what we did is we’d always start our program with doing like a plant anatomy. Teaching them about plants. The kids that came to this camp were anywhere between the ages of six up to 21. We did have one week that was adult campers, but the majority were six to 21 years old. And the campers that came had, again, a range of a disabilities and a range of cognitive levels. So, we’d always start with doing kind of a plant anatomy.

This is my way of testing to see, what did they know? Do they know what a plant is? Do they know that a plant has roots? Do they know that a plant has buds and they have leaves and they have flowers and that a flower can turn into a vegetable? Teaching them all those different skills before even diving into further of the program. So, we’d spend the first part of the session going over that, and then we would do a sensory garden experience. So this was our way of we didn’t yet have the ability to have a sensory garden at the camp where they could go around and experience it within the garden, so we adapted it and made it into a program that taught them about different sensory needs.

So, we would have you can see here there’s, like, cheerleader pompoms, or whatever you want to call it, where you rustle them, showing them that’s what a grass could sound like when you’re in a garden. We had different vibrant colors of fabric to show them the different colors that could be in a garden. We used pipe cleaners to show them what a rose prickly what the thorns would feel like so they could feel the prickliness, because we didn’t have access to all the different plants and materials. So, we adapted it to still show them what could be used and what a sensory garden could look like for them to experience. This was also a way for the camp to see what would it be to put in a sensory garden and have a sensory garden at their facility.

And then, lastly, we used felt to show them what, like, a lamb’s ear would feel like. So, giving them all those different senses. You can see this girl here, she’s smelling a bag of, I believe it was basil or thyme, to experience what it would be like to smell the different herbs and senses that would come from the gardens.

So, after we would do the plant anatomy and then we would do the sensory garden simulation, we then gave them the opportunity to make a terrarium. So, you can see on this left-hand side

[indicating the left side of slide]

the terrariums that we were working on. So, this was our way for them to take a garden home. We were trying to figure out the campers only came for a week. Sometimes campers were there for two weeks, but typically only a week. So how do you teach someone the full cycle of gardening and a full understanding of what gardening is when they only have a week? So we decided that a terrarium would be able to give them that opportunity to take something home, be able to see what would happen, how it would grow, and have it from that point forward and remember that gardening is possible and that I can do it with minimal things.

So, we took a water bottle, you can see in this picture right here

[indicating bottle on slide]

an example. So, we’d cut the water bottle in half, we’d add dirt and rocks, and then we’d put a seed in, and then it would grow. There was one camper, and we found out if it worked or didn’t for this one individual. She came earlier in the summer and we did this project. And then she came again for another camp later in the summer due to her disabilities, and we asked her, like: Do you still have your garden? And she still had her garden. It was starting to sprout. We did cat grass and so the grass was starting to grow, and she could see the white coming out of the soil. And she was so excited that she had her garden still from her first camp that she was at camp. So, it was really cool to see that kind of return because you dont really know what the effect is on them because theyre only there for a week.

But then we also adapted it by using sand. The way that we made it again, theyre all kids. So, how do you get them engaged? How do you get them interested? We took and we dyed sand different colors. So, if youve ever seen those sand castles that are in a glass jar, we let them dye different colors of sands, and then they had different colors of their sand levels to put their seed in to make it more interactive and more engaging for them because they had their own colorful design that, again, is going to grow something and be able to seed the full cycle.

So, thats typically what would come of a whole session is those three different items. Youll see on the right-hand side,

[indicating the right half of the slide]

we did offer a couple more activities. One if time ran longer. They were, kind of, fillers at times. Or when someone had a two-week camp, we offered them more activities. So, we did do bird feeders to show them what else you can do that is involved with nature. Its not really gardening, but its still an aspect of gardening and what you could put at your garden. And then we you can see down here,

[indicating lower right part of slide]

we did painting with fruits and vegetables. This was as really fun experience for them. It was a way to show them one: what are the different fruits and vegetables, be able to cut the fruits and vegetables and see the different shapes. So, you can see here, the orange, when wheres the mouse? There we go the orange, it would have a circle in the middle that would be a big glob of paint, and then it would have like a watercolor effect that would come around the orange.

[indicating the lower left of the slide]

The apple here makes a star effect when you make prints with it. So, it was teaching the kids, one: about the different fruits and vegetables. So, while they were painting we talked about what they what they were good, how they were healthy, and then they got to paint with them and see the different aspects of what a a fruit or vegetable could look like when you painted. A carrot didnt really do much. It was more of a writing utensil showing them how you can take a a carrot and use it as a writing utensil.

The last aspect is two of the camps have to do a volunteer project while they’re at camp. So, they’re giving back to camp. We were trying, again, to figure out how can we incorporate gardening into this volunteer opportunity. So, this is where we let them build, paint, and plant a raised bed.

We were able to get all the materials donated, and then the participants of a hearing camp came and they built the bed. And they thought that was so cool that with the help of counselors and staff members, they got to use screw guns and they got to see how it all goes together and figure out how the whole bed gets put together. So, again, it’s not the full aspect of gardening, but they get to see how to build the bed so that they could possibly do it at home.

We then had the volunteer group that came, and they painted it. And they painted it the colors that they wanted it to be to get people to come. And then, lastly, the planted it and got to see it grow.

Switching gears to another program, that one I’m currently doing right now is Riverfront, and one that I’ve done in the past. Riverfront, they are currently working on this bottom portion right here,

[indicating bottom left of slide]

which is a community food forest. But, currently, before that, we did homemade greenhouses.

[Indicating the top left of the slide]

So, one of our facilities has a greenhouse on site. The facility that I’m at does not have a greenhouse on site. So, we were trying to figure out how do we show them the full life cycle of planting without having greenhouses? So, we made our own, which we took egg cartons. We filled them with soil, and then we put seeds in it, and then they got to see the greenhouse effect. We took Saran Wrap with hoops of hangers to make a greenhouse. And they got to see the moisture buildup and how the plants grow through that greenhouse effect and then we would transfer everything, transplant everything from there to the container gardens, and then they had container gardening

[indicating the right side of the slide]

that they did for the whole summer.

The community food forest, which you guys have a pamphlet about. I’m not going to go too far in depth of the community food forest. But what it is, is a community program. So, for Riverfront is to connect with the community through gardening and offer programs that I ideally would like to have Master Gardeners be a part of schools, be a part of other local organizations, the Rotary Gardens of Janesville, all come together and able to have a food forest.

What a food forest is, is it shows you here you have the ground cover. The ground showing from base to top. So, you have canopies, you have sub-canopies, you have shrubs, you have different climbers, flowers, soil covers, all of that put together, and through our food forest we want to make it a sensory integration experience. So, they can go through the garden, they can smell apples and taste apples and touch peaches, see the colors of red, white, and blue and have an American garden, and then have different scents and sounds that they can experience. Have waterfalls, have bird feeders, and it’s an experience for them to be able to have a full engagement with the community and bring the community together with people with disabilities.

One thing that we see with Riverfront is it’s hard to get individuals with disabilities out into the community. So, we tried to figure out a program that we could bring community to us and have a collaboration together. So, if you have any questions on that, we can definitely talk about it after the program of what a community food forest is. We’re currently in just the developmental stages of the program right now.

And then, last but not least, is the biggest one, which is the therapeutic gardening, enhancing the mood of adults with disabilities. This was my graduate research project that I did when I was attending the University of Wisconsin La Crosse for one of my final semesters. I wanted to do research on how does gardening affect the mood of individuals with disabilities.

So, I partnered with UW La Crosse and the RecPlex of Pleasant Prairie. The RecPlex has a therapeutic recreation department, which offers recreational opportunities to individuals with disabilities in a wide range. They used to do gardening programs there, and it kind of dwindled away. It really depended on who their staff was if if the program was going to happen or not. And so, I decided I wanted to see if I could take another stab at it and give it a try.

So, I partnered with the three at the top.

[Indicating logos on the top of the slide]

So, the University of La Crosse, RecPlex, and the Master Gardener program of Kenosha and Racine and had a Master Gardener with me there the entire process of the program.

Here’s some of the details that lay out the research project itself. So, the RecPlex participants: I was able to gather 16 adults with disabilities. They ranged ranged from the ages of 17 to 32. And the way that the program was funded was the University of Wisconsin La Crosse gave me a grant of $1,463 to implement the program. So, this was at first, I thought I had to build the beds, so it was to be able to build the beds, put the soil in, get the plants, get all the materials for the program as well.

I had a multitude of staff and volunteers. So the facilitator, which was myself, the Master Gardener, which happened to be my Father, the three data collectors to be able to gather the research, and then a photographer to be able to make at the end we made photo books for each individual, one: to remember their experience, and, two: which we’ll go hear in a little bit of their interviews. So, at the end of the entire program I interviewed each person to see what their thoughts were on the different programs or different aspects to the program. So, I had a photographer. The RecPlex aids were the individuals that worked with the participants while they’re out in the garden with us. The La Crosse faculty advisor and then a RecPlex supervisor as well that all helped to make the program possible.

Together those 16 RecPlex participants up here, ranging from 17 to 32, and the disabilities ranged across the board. I sent out interest surveys. So, each individual was that’s part of the program of the therapeutic recreation department got an interest survey seeing who wanted to be a part of this research, who didn’t, who was interested in gardening but didn’t want to be a part, and vice versa.

From those interest surveys, I did get 18 people interested, but two happened to unfortunately have to fall out, one due to scheduling and one due to health needs. So, they were not able to participate in this study.

Then, of those 16 individuals, they were each given an informed consent, one: to be able to participate, two: to be able to use their resources for items like this, of presentations or pictures or any of that kind of stuff, and then any kind of injury that was done wasn’t brought back to this program.

We collected both quantitative and qualitative data through the program. So, the quantitative data was through the data collection, so I’ll pass around the different collection sheets that we did. So, each day when the participants would come, they were evaluated as to how was their mood when they arrived. You’ll see on the back, there’s a behavior coding, and on the front is the actual collection sheet. And when the participants came, they got evaluated as to what is their mood. Are they happy? Are they sad? Are they excited for the project? Are they, you know, bored out of their mind and want nothing to do with it? And then they would get evaluated based on their… …throughout the session. So, in the middle and at the end again. And then we took all those to collaborate together. And then we also used all those adaptive tools that we talked about prior.

We decided to do a salsa and floral garden. One, salsa gardening is one of the simplest forms of gardening. It’s pretty hard to kill a tomato plant and a pepper plant and onions and that stuff. So, we figured that for the individuals, for it being their first experience, I wanted it to be as much of a success as possible. So, we decided to do a salsa garden to allow them the opportunity.

We did put in some eggplant and zucchini and cucumbers and also some of the different herbs. The reason for that is I knew some of the participants wouldn’t have the attention span to wait two months for produce. So, we started the program in June. They’re not about to wait two months to see if something comes. They’re going to get bored of sitting there and digging in the dirt. So, we knew that with pickles and zucchini, they come sooner so that they could get that reward, and it did pay off in the end because some of the participants started to get bored. And then when that first produce I’ll show you here in a little bit when they got that first pickle, they were waving it in the air that they had a pickle, and they were ready for the next produce. They were ready. “Where are these tomatoes? Where are these peppers? I want to see them.” So, they it got their interest back into it and wanting to be a part of it.

So, the layout. It started on June 4th was the first day of the project, and it ended on August 28th. We had the morning time from 9:30 to 10:30, and we typically had about 15 minutes that we’d walk out to the beds, have 30 minutes where they did the gardening, and then 15 minutes that they wrapped up and came back inside.

We’re going to go through the different weeks and show you a little bit of what they did each week so that you guys can kind of see how the program laid out.

So, in week one, it was unfortunately raining outside, and it was a little bit crappy and it was starting to get to be, like I said, June 4th. We need to get plants in the ground. We need to get going so that way we can actually have produce by the end of this project. So, we decided to have a presentation, which Ken Happ, my Father, did a presentation about what gardening is, explaining the different aspects to gardening, how a seed is, how a plant is, how the different thorns are. So, kind of that sensory experience through a presentation.

After we did that presentation, you see here he’s talking about the rose thorns. And then we had grass to show them what the sound effects would be like, and they got to feel a bunch of different materials. We then went into more of the program overview, and we did an activity. All the plants we already had that were transplanted already were bigger plants because it was already June 4th, like I said, so we needed to get plants in the ground. So, we wanted to show them what the step was before we were there. So, we had them plant a seed, which was a marigold, and got to see what it was like to put a plant in and actually see where it started. At that time so, they planted them, they put them by the window, but then we went outside, and we planted all the beds.

So, in week two when we came, they were able to go out and actually plant. The night before, it was pouring rain, so we went and covered all the beds so that we could actually get plants in the ground because now we’re looking at almost the middle of June at this point. And then they were able to come out and they got to plant all the beds. Some of the individuals were gung-ho, wanted to get out there, wanted to plant in the ground, and some individuals thought I was crazy. They wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted to sit inside. They wanted to go swimming. They wanted to sit out and enjoy the sun. So, the reason I say that is because a little bit later those individuals either changed their minds and became a part of it or some of the individuals that were gung-ho, I’m ready to plant, got bored and didn’t want to be a part of it. So, it was cool to see the different aspects that came.

On week three, we were able to get outside for a little bit. There was a big storm coming up. For some reason June and July just wanted to rain for me every week that we had this, like, the project. So, we had to find ways to make the program a little bit more interactive and keep them engaged. So, we decided to do a little bit of weeding outside, and then we came inside, and we decided to make signs. So, we brought in magazines of different tomatoes and peppers and onions, and then we also brought in different coloring objects that they could make a pepper and they could make a tomato. We took all those items and then we made stakes to go into the ground so that they could label their different plants and know which plants were which. So, we had to adapt it a little to make them you can see here

[indicating the middle of the slide]

they’re coloring the different items. They’re cutting out pictures in the magazines to be able to put them on the signs to explain what were what what pieces were which.

Week four did get canceled. I decided I wanted to go on vacation with the family, so we did not have the ability to have the session. And then, again, half the week it rained so we couldn’t really do too much anyway.

On week five, we were able to see you can see this yellow circle right here.

[indicating top left of slide]

We were able to see our first sign of growth. We had a dahlia. Some of the participants wanted to pick it right then. They wanted to take it off the vine or off the stem. And some of the participants were like: “No! Don’t touch it. Leave it there. Leave it there. We want to see it.” So, seeing the differences of people, one: being engaged, and then some people that were engaged on week one that wanted to plant these things, all the plants, and then we showed them, like, hey look at this flower, they were like Okay. Like, “Yeah, there’s a flower. Sounds good.” They didn’t really care at that point. So, it’s interesting to see. They also got the ability, as you can see here,

[indicating the top right of the slide]

we had to do some tilling of the ground to make it kind of spruced back up again.

On week six, this one we found out that now that it, you know, rained all of June, now it’s dry July. And now we actually have to figure out how to water these plants because now it’s dry. Found out that the hoses didn’t reach all the way to the third bed. So, we had to get our strong, muscular men to be able to water with our bucket here

[Indicating the top left of the slide]

at the end of the session. Again, some of the individuals that never through they could water were able to water and hold the wand and be able to water everything because they didn’t have that limited range of just flipping the switch. It was a lot easier and a lot less work. We got to put in all the tomato cages. This gentleman right here,

[Indicating top middle photo in the slide]

he was one that, for the first probably three weeks, wanted nothing to do with the program. Barely even wanted to step foot outside. By week five, he came to the beds but, again, still didn’t want to do anything. But when we started doing the things that weren’t related to the actual plants, so putting in the cages, putting on the trellis, putting in the stakes, he was full-blown engaged. So, you can find, through these programs too, what different people can give you aspects. So, this gentleman really wanted to do more of the hands-on putting on the materials, where other individuals, like this lady right here,

[Indicating the top right photo on the slide]

she would spend probably, no joke, 24 hours a day just digging in the soil. She just loved that constant digging through the soil. And same with this individual here.

[Indicating lower middle photo on the slide]

She loved being just with the gardens. So, finding whose strengths are to use that throughout the program was ideal.

On week seven, I could tell that they were starting to get to that point where they enjoyed it, but now we’re at that point where, okay, we’re not getting anything. We got our first flower. You can see here we got our first tomato coming.

[Indicating photos of pepper and tomato on the slide]

We got some peppers coming, but they can’t pick them. All they can do is look at them. This is boring. What do I do now? So, this week we decided to cheat a little, and we bought store-bought produce to show them what the different items were. Showing them how store-bought produce are really waxy and how the stuff that are in our garden is not as waxy. They’re more dirty and they don’t have that coating on the outside. We let them taste test. So, they got to taste what a tomato tasted like, the onion tasted like, the zucchini tasted like. So, they could get those senses going and get that encouragement back to: “Oh, this is why I’m doing this. This is cool. This is why I like it.” You kind of saw some people that, again, there’s some individuals that, if there’s food involved, they’re there. So, we had this opportunity to show them tomatoes and taste tomatoes, and some of the individuals that wanted nothing to do with it before were like: “Oh, give me that tomato. I want to taste that. Oh, give me that pepper. I want to taste that.” But if you told them, like, do you want to start digging? “Nope, want nothing to do with that. I just want food.” So, you could see some of those differences as well for individuals.

On week eight, we then did our first test of doing salsa. So, we decided that through this program at the last session we were going to have a salsa social. So, it was kind of like a celebration of the research, a celebration of the project. And so, we did a salsa social at the end of the entire program for them to be able to experience their produce and see what they can do with the produce. So, they got experience cutting up all the vegetables, blending the salsa, and then they did taste test and enjoy that as well. You can also see

[Indicating the top left photos on the slide]

there was more produce that was starting to show at this time that was that was coming from the gardens.

On week nine, this is the picture that I was telling you about earlier. This gentleman right here

[Indicating the right hand photo on the slide]

wanted nothing, I mean nothing, to do with the program. He could care less about planting. He could care less about digging. He could care less about tasting. But the second I said: “Hey, guys, there’s something that’s ready to be picked.” Bam, he was there.

[laughter]

He wanted to pick that pickle. That’s all he cared about, that he could pick that pickle. So, he picked that pickle. A lot of the participants that have been a part of the program from, like, day one were not as happy with him because they, you know, have worked this long to get there.

[laughter]

But, it was still an awesome experience to see somebody, again, finding his strength that if you let him watch and observe and be the cheerleader for everyone else and then when that produce is ready he can pick it, you got him fully engaged in gardening. That little bit of aspect.

And then this gentleman here,

[Indicating the right-hand photo on the slide]

he was one that on day one during my Dad’s presentation, he was intently listening to everything, wanting to know every detail, wanting to know what was this, how was that, how do you do this, what is that. But then when it came to, again, gardening, he enjoyed sitting on the grass and staring at the sun and then staring at the water. But then, again, when the produce was ready to be picked, he wanted to pick it, but he didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t know why we were picking this. What do we do with this? So, again, the education piece, teaching them what it is.

On week nine, again, continued. This is where we started to stake some of our peppers so that they could keep growing. It was a windy location, so a lot of the peppers started to bend over. Our trellis was starting to bend over. So, getting everything tied down.

On week 10, because we were able to pick that cucumber and that zucchini, the questions were: “What do I do with these? I understand that a cucumber I can make pickles. What do I do with the zucchini? I’m not going to eat it raw. What do I do with this?” So, we decided to make zucchini bread and show them what you can do with zucchini and how you can have a different aspect that, yes, it’s maybe not the most healthiest option, but it’s still something that you can do and you can have with that zucchini. So, letting them taste test and have that aspect.

This individual here,

[Indicating upper left photo on the slide]

quickly on a side note, she was one that she would sit in her chair, and she had a toy truck. So, the whole program, up until week 10 this is her first time coming to the bed. Up until week 10, she loved coming out. She wanted to be a part of us. The bed would be here, and she would sit about right here. And she would watch everybody do what they were doing, but she never wanted to take that next step. Every week we’d go up to her, say: “Hey, do you want to garden?” No response. No response. This week, she kept reaching for me, and I didn’t know why. So, I decided to go over and just have a little conversation with her. And she pulled me to the bed. And then we got up and she wanted to dig. So, it took 10 weeks. It took 10 weeks for this individual to want to be a part of it, but that constant going at it, getting her to want to be a part of it, she took that 10th week. If you would have stopped at week nine because in nine weeks, she hasn’t done anything, you would have lost her interest, and she would have never been a part of gardening. But because you just kept going, never give up. That’s one big thing, especially with this population. Keep trying. Keep going. You’ll get there. Possibly. Not always but sometimes.

This individual here Oops, sorry. Right here.

[Indicating top right photo on the slide]

She was one, she had a pet snake and a pet ladybug. So, she’d always wear her snake around her neck, and if she if you talked to her and had a conversation with her, she wouldn’t have a single word with you. She wouldn’t talk to you at all. So, like I was saying earlier. If you talked about the ladybug that was on that tomato plant, she would tell you what a tomato is, what a pepper is, what it looks like, what color it is, what size they get, what kind of flowers we were growing. She knew we were growing begonias. But if you asked her: “Hey, what is that?” she wouldn’t talk to you. But if you said: “Hey, what is the ladybug sitting on. What is the ladybug doing?” she would have a full conversation with you. She’d tell you about the begonias. She’d tell you about the flowers. She’d tell you about the plants. Or if you didn’t talk to her, you talked to her snake, she would tell you everything. If you didn’t know any different, you would think that she didn’t know anything about gardening, but the second you talk to her snake or her ladybug, full conversation. So, again, finding those ways around to get that learning experience, is huge.

This lady in the corner,

[Indicating photo on the lower right of the slide]

she was wonderful. She would lay on the blacktop, and I mean lay. Sprawled out like this

[Ms. Happ throwing her arms in the air]

on the blacktop every week. So, this is week 10 again. Every week you could not get her she would beeline and go right to and lay down. That’s all she would do. But if you got her up and got her going, this week 10 she wanted to water. So, she came, and she watered. So, it was huge to see that difference and watch her be a part of it.

Here’s showing you some of the produce that’s coming in week 10.

[Indicating a photo of produce on the top right of the slide]

On week 11, wonderful rain happened again, which is a great thing because we didn’t have to water as much. But it was it rained on the day we needed to do it, and I was unable to reschedule due to they had some outings and different things going on that week so we couldn’t reschedule.

On week 12, we were able to pick the majority of our produce. So, you can see in this bottom yellow section

[Indicating large photo on the bottom of the slide]

all of the produce that we were able to pick from our three different beds that week. So, it was really cool. We were able to pick it all, and then that week we were able to start chopping it up and making that salsa for the salsa social.

So, this is the last week, week 13. We had three days this week. So, on the 26th, we made the salsa and prepped for the social. On the 27th, we had the social, which invited family, friends, anybody in the community could come and see the project and the program. And then on the 27th and 28th is when we conducted the interviews.

So, here’s them making salsa, cutting up all the vegetables, experiencing it. This girl here,

[Indicating a participant in a lower-left photo on the slide]

she thought it was so funny that she didn’t have to use scissors a knife to cut up the vegetables. We just started breaking the peppers in our hands, and she thought that was cool that she didn’t have to operate knives because she’s scared of knives and didn’t want to use them. So, showing her that you can adapt even in that aspect and be able to break it up versus having to use knives.

Salsa social. We all enjoyed the salsa that we made. We made more zucchini bread so they could have that with the zucchini that we had left over. And then we just kind of celebrated the entire experience.

And last but not least, after the salsa social we did interviews. So, like I said, we had a photographer. And the photographer took pictures of each individual each week. So, every day this individual right here

[Indicating a photo on the slide]

got a picture taken of something that she was working on. We then made a book for each individual. The one reason for the book was, one: as a memoir to keep and to remember everything that happened, but the other part was so that when we had the interviews some of the individuals were nonverbal. So, they couldn’t communicate with me the thing that they loved the most or the thing that they didn’t like the most. And this was able to get them to show and point to pictures. You could see their expressions. They pointed to a picture of a pepper, and they were like: Eh. But then if they pointed to the picture watering, they were smiling. So, you could tell what things they liked and what thing they didn’t like. So that was really cool to see that aspect.

Right here

[Indicating a woman in a lower-right photo on the slide]

an individual did signing. So, she would touch her hand, yes or no, and that was the whole way you communicated with her for the entire for the duration of the program. Okay, so going into quickly it’s a lot of words on here, but the two highlighted parts are the parts that matter. So, these are the results from the behavior coding. So, each day they got coded on were they gardening, not gardening? Were they not doing anything? Were they sitting there and doing everything but gardening? Were they happy, sad, mad? And from the results we were able to see that 13 individuals scored above the baseline mood. So, the baseline mood was just a calm state. And 13 individuals went above. So, they were happy, and they were engaged, and they enjoyed themselves. Three of those individuals scored at the baseline mood, and nobody scored below it. So, that was really cool to see that.

And then, when comparing the weeks, we compared week 2 to week 6, week 6 to week 10, and week 2 to week 10. So, when you look at 2 to 6 and 6 to 10, there wasn’t really much difference as to how the program affected the individuals. But when you looked from week 2 to week 10, there was a significant amount of improvement. So, it wasn’t a decline in mood. It was an increase in mood. So, you saw that over the duration of the entire program their mood increased, but if you looked at just partials of it, it did not increase.

And then the results of the interviews. We asked a variety of different questions, but one of the big ones was, did you enjoy the program? All 16 said yes. How did this program make you feel? 11 of them said happy, three said good, one said sad, and one said neutral. And then, did you feel the program was too short, too long, or just right? A couple of them felt that it was too long, a couple felt too short, and 9 of them felt that it was just right. And then, would you do this type of program again? 13 of them said yes, and 3 of them said no. And then, have you ever gardened before? I just wanted to feel it out again to see where they were at. 8 of them had never gardened before this project. So, it was cool to see that for individuals that had never gardened before what their answers were of if they were happy, if it was a good amount, all of that.

So, overall, the conclusion of this, again it was a pilot study so it was a small group. Only 16 people. The findings of the study suggest that therapeutic gardening can positively impact behaviors and mood of adults with disabilities. The findings help support the fact that therapeutic gardening activities could be a useful intervention to motivate active leisure involvement and enhance quality of life. And then, like I said, it was a pilot study so more research is definitely needed, and I definitely want to dig in further as to how it can make a difference for individuals with disabilities.

Some of the limitations. More participants, more aids so that you can have one on one, having more raised beds. We only had three raised beds for 16 people, so it gave people very limited space to be able to garden. It would be awesome if they each could have had their own bed to designate that this was their bed. Increased frequency of meeting times. There was a couple times throughout the program that I had to come and water because we didn’t have enough days in the week. It was only one day a week. So, having more frequency to understand the full aspect of gardening. And then the predetermined schedule to make sure everyone’s schedules matched. And then have a control group. That was one thing that I realized afterward. It would have been good to have a control group that maybe did other activities part of their program to see how it differentiated from the gardening program.

So, overall, that’s a combination of my research, a combination of the different projects that I have implemented, and then where I’m looking at going further with the different gardening aspects. And so, at this time, I’m open to questions, comments, concerns, anything, but that is everything I have to share. Up here there’s a couple different things you can look at, if you’d like. But that is everything that I have for you guys tonight.

[applause]