Horticultural Therapy Services at the Chicago Botanic Garden

Horticultural Therapy Services at the Chicago Botanic Garden

During the last 40 years the Chicago Botanic Garden has been committed to the theory, practice and evaluation of people/plant interactions that encourage improved human health and well-being. The Garden’s Horticultural Therapy Services program is an internationally known resource for the design and application of plant and nature based programs that assist the health care and human service practitioner’s in launching and sustaining therapeutic indoor and outdoor gardening programs. These programs are adapted to the participant’s functional abilities and interests as well as desired agency outcomes.

All therapy professions are based on providing service that results in a beneficial change in the service recipient. Horticultural therapy uses people/plant interaction as its primary agent of therapeutic change. Horticultural therapy is activity driven. A therapy session consists of therapist and participants engaging with plants or plant products. It is in the process of doing a horticultural therapy activity that the participant experiences opportunities to change his physical, cognitive, and/or psychosocial level of function. It is the therapist’s responsibility to provide activities that have the physical, cognitive, and emotional demands to match the goals of the participants.

Garden horticultural therapists have worked with hundreds of healthcare professionals as well as thousands of individuals in their care over the decades. The staff members are experts in creating and evaluating plant and gardening activities that are engaging, therapeutic, and readily adaptable to a wide range of functional abilities. Depending on the planned outcomes desired by the institution, these activities are modified to support clinical therapies, vocational/educational skill development; and/or simply to offer safe, comfortable, and engaging leisure activities for participants.

Over the past 25 years the Garden Horticultural Therapy Services program has emerged as one of the country’s preeminent public service, education, and training sites within the field. The Buehler Enabling Garden, dedicated in 1999 as the country’s leading example of enabling garden design and programming, won the American Association of Museum’s (AAM) Accessible Design award for 2000. The garden is a mecca for the fast-growing field of health care garden design and is used as a living laboratory for the Garden’s Healthcare Garden Design Certificate program. Research focusing on the impact of horticultural therapy on human health and well-being is planned for the near future.

Programs for Health at the Chicago Botanic Garden

The Buehler Enabling Garden Programs

The award-winning Buehler Enabling Garden within the Chicago Botanic Garden exists not only as an attractive and relaxing space for people of all ages and abilities, but as a resource for introducing visitors to universal garden design, tools, and techniques that make gardening a practical and healthy pastime for everyone. The Buehler Enabling Garden is staffed—May through September—by trained volunteers who can explain the special features of this unique garden and demonstrate gardening techniques.

A horticultural therapist is available by appointment to visitors to the Buehler Enabling Garden for:

• General guided tours
• In-depth design tours
• Group programs
• Study tours

Therapeutic Gardening Program

Agencies contracting with Garden horticultural therapists are able to work together to develop a garden program at their site.All materials are provided or specified and expert guidance ensures success. All gardening is done by clients of the agency themselves.

Examplesinclude the following:

• Enriching the science curriculum for students with learning disabilities and/or physical disabilities
• Teaching gardening paired with specific relaxation techniques to alleviate stress and its negative impact on health for veterans and others
• Providing such pre-vocational experiences as punctuality, following directions, and working as a team for adults with developmental disabilities
• Pairing with grief support group leaders to enhance the process through engagement with the natural life cycle of plants
• Helping individuals with sensory loss (such as blindness) or sensory processing disorders (including autism) engage in a sensory-rich experience
• Empowering individuals living with disabilities to raise and harvest some of their own food
• Encouraging social interaction by providing productive, functional gardening tasks for small groups
• Improving the quality of the physical environment of a residence by increasing the opportunities for enjoying living plants

Life Enrichment Series

This series of 12 monthly sessions provides activities that are seasonally based, therapeutically grounded, and adaptable to a wide range of individual physical and cognitive abilities and interests. Garden staff provide leadership and all materials. The main goal is to enrich the lives of residents through the sensory stimulation, socialization, and physical exercise enjoyed while creating dish gardens, flower arrangements, and plant-based craft projects.

Professional Training and Continuing Education

The Garden offers opportunities for horticultural therapy students and professionals, healthcare providers, healthcare garden designers, teachers, and all other professionals who serve people with therapeutic needs to learn the practice of horticultural therapy. Coursework and practical experiences teach participants how to maximize the therapeutic benefits of the plant world.Many of these experiences are accredited and may meet continuing education requirements.

Healthcare Garden Design Certificate of Merit

This program is open to garden designers, landscape architects, healthcare facility managers, horticultural therapists, medical professionals, and other professionals who work with clients in healthcare settings.Students learn essential principles of designing gardens for specific populations. The internationally known faculty are among the top experts in the field.

Horticultural Therapy Certificate of Merit

The Garden’s certificate program is offered in partnership with Oakton Community College and earns 12 hours of college credit. Delivered in a hybrid format, most of the three required classes are completed online. For two of the classes, a five-day immersion experience at the Garden is required. These immersion experiences allow students to interact face-to-face, expose them to at least six examples of therapeutic gardens, and enable small-group design teams to proactice what they have learned. This course is ideally suited to the working professional who would like to add horticultural therapy techniques to their treatment alternatives.

Educational Resources

The Horticultural Therapy Services program publishes two volumes of tested activity plans for indoor and outdoor use, and fact sheets for health care workers. These are available for ordering through the Garden web site

Consulting Services

The Horticultural Therapy Services program at the Garden actively consults with health care and human service agencies and design firms that wish to develop restorative and/or enabling gardens and landscapes. Staff members are skilled at optimizing garden design for use by multiple stakeholders with varying levels of function and to integrate therapeutic programming that brings maximum benefits to the minds, bodies, and spirits of all.