Aging in Nature - It's Never Too Late to Play Outdoors!

"Mac" in his garden in Santa Fe, NM

In my next few posts, I'm going to focus on the over 60 set, as there's a lot of great research and design about therapeutic landscapes for seniors. This is such an important area of our field. Having access to and being active in the outdoors is good for everyone, but I would venture to say (backed up by research) that it's especially critical for the youngest and oldest generations.

Young kids need fresh air, sunlight (remember rickets? It's coming back because kids aren't getting enough Vitamin D!), exercise, and the sense of discovery that only the natural world can provide; it's essential for physical, mental, and emotional development.

And much later in life, as getting out and about becomes more difficult, interaction with nature becomes all the more important - perhaps even more so than in between youth and old age. Exercise maintains health by stimulating blood flow, keeping muscles strong and ligaments flexible, and by maintaining bone density and strength. Staying interested in the outdoors provides continued sensory stimulation, which keeps the mind as well as the body active and strong. Getting outside also facilitates social interaction, a critical factor in maintaining well-being. More specifics on all of this, and mentions of good resources, in the next few posts.

In the meantime, a personal story: Above is a picture of Mac. He was my neighbor in Santa Fe, before I moved to the Hudson Valley, and he hired me to design a garden for him and his wife. They both had loved to garden in their younger years, but due to her very limited mobility and his near-blindness (that's black tape over his glasses lens, before he got an eye patch), they had stopped. Their back yard was a wasteland of weeds and gravel that was impossible to navigate. We worked on a plan that would provide a smooth walking surface (colored concrete) with several places to stop along the way, as well as destinations to move toward; plants that provided shade, seasonal interest, sensory stimulation, and that attracted wildlife; and a design that they could also see and enjoy from inside the house, and that would entice them outside (in sight = in mind).

And we were pretty successful. The week that the garden was finished, Kay - who had not been in her back yard for years, and who hardly went outside period - ventured out with her walker, with Mac by her side. After that, they walked through the garden every day, several times a day. In good weather (which in Santa Fe is most of the time) they walked to "their" apple tree (they had planted it as a sapling decades ago), the farthest place from the door, and sat side by side in its shade, gazing out, commenting on the darting hummingbirds, or what was blooming, or how much water the mossrock boulders had collected in the afternoon's rainstorm. After a few months, I started to see them walking up and down the sidewalk on the street as well - Kay had gotten strong enough to venture out of their small back yard garden and take on the more challenging slope of our street. This was especially encouraging because it meant that she had the opportunity to interact with neighbors, thereby broadening a social circle that had gotten pretty darn narrow.

So, this is but one of many, many examples of the power of one healing garden to change and improve someone's quality of life. It's never too late to play outdoors, and it's up to us to help make that happen. Do you have a good example that you'd like to share? Please leave a comment! I would love to start gathering more of these stories, because as convincing as the quantitative research is and as much as we need it, I think it's the personal stories that resonate and motive individuals. If you can share images, too, all the better.

Photograph by Lee Anne White

TKF Foundation Seeks Firesoul Guide & Office Manager

Image courtesy of Robert Rodriguez Jr.

The TKF Foundation, a wonderful organization based in Annapolis, MD, is seeking a "Firesoul Guide" and Office Manager.

Firesouls are the "sparks behind the creation of sacred spaces. Their energy, enthusiasm, patience, and persistence inspire communities to come together around the creation and use of public greenspaces." The TKF foundation is a private grant-making foundation whose purpose is to create "Open Spaces, Sacred Places." It partners with organizations to create sacred places which increase a sense of community and contribute to a deepening of human connections." They do excellent work, and they're looking for the right person to help.

For the full job description and contact details, visit the TKF website.

Other TLN blog posts about the TKF Foundation include a review of their book Open Spaces, Sacred Places, and a link to a good article by Anne Raver in the New York Times.

The Seeds That Are Watered Frequently (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Image of bur oak courtesy of Henry Domke Fine Art

Your mind is like a piece of land planted with many different kinds of seeds: seeds of joy, peace, mindfulness, understanding, and love; seeds of craving, anger, fear, hate, and forgetfulness. These wholesome and unwholesome seeds are always there, sleeping in the soil of your mind. The quality of your life depends on the seeds you water. If you plant tomato seeds in your gardens, tomatoes will grow. Just so, if you water a seed of peace in your mind, peace will grow. When the seeds of happiness in you are watered, you will become happy. When the seed of anger in you is watered, you will become angry. The seeds that are watered frequently are those that will grow strong.

- Thich Nhat Hanh in Anh-Huong & Hanh, 2006, 22

Tomorrow! Making Space for Therapeutic Horticulture

Image courtesy of Anne Dailey

If you are a horticultural therapist or a designer of healing gardens and other restorative outdoor environments and you live in or near NYC, don't walk - run - to this tomorrow:

"Making Space for Therapeutic Horticulture"

Therapeutic Horticulture Network Group Meeting

Friday, November 13, 1-4 pm

"Making space for therapeutic horticulture - at our institutions, on our grounds, and in our busy schedules - can be a challenge. Come prepared to share your stories about making space for therapeutic horticulture in your work. There will be lots of time for networking, so don't forget to bring your business cards!"

At the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1000 Washington Avenue between Parkway and Empire Blvd.

The afternoon will feature networking activities and will include brief presentations on local therapeutic horticulture projects. Refreshments will be served throughout the meeting.

Thanks to Anne Wiesen, the beautiful brains behind the Restorative Commons, for sending information about this meeting.

"Defiant Gardens" and Other Resources for Veterans

Image courtesy of Gardening Leave

For this post, on Veterans Day in the United States, I'd like to share some information about resources specifically for veterans.

While many veterans returning home from war have to deal with physical trauma, almost all suffer from emotional trauma and strain. On the extreme end is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can be debilitating for not just the individual veterans but for their entire family and community. More and more research has been coming out about gardening, exposure to nature in a safe setting, and horticultural therapy as effective tools for fighting PTSD and other stress-related problems.

Here are some resources about work that is being done around this issue:

Gardening Leave (gardeningleave.org) is a UK charity, founded by Anna Baker Cresswell, for ex-Servicemen and women with PTSD and other mental health troubles. The goal is to combat stress through horticultural therapy activities - growing fruit and vegetables - in a walled garden setting, where people feel safe and protected. The program has been developed in accordance with plans by Combat Stress (Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society).

The Acer Institute, founded and directed by P. Annie Kirk, teamed up with the ASLA Healthcare and Therapeutic Design Professional Practice Network in 2005 to host a day-long conference, "Therapeutic Garden Design and Veterans Affairs: Preparing for Future Needs" at the Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center. You can download most of the presentations, see photos and movies, and even request the CD, on which all of the information is compiled, from Acer's website.

Since that conference, Annie has been creating a list of therapeutic (healing) gardens at VA Facilities. You can access this list from Acer website's VA healthcare page (you just have to fill out a short form first). You can also add to the list, helping Acer to keep building this knowledge base.

Another great resource is the website Defiant Gardens, which came from Kenneth Helphand's book by the same name. I am so impressed with Helphand's scholarship, and my admiration goes beyond his consistently good research and writing. In this case, it's truly inspiring.

What are "defiant gardens?" They are, in the words of the author, "...gardens created in extreme or difficult environmental, social, political, economic, or cultural conditions. These gardens represent adaptation to challenging circumstances, but they can also be viewed from other dimensions as sites of assertion and affirmation." Helphand's book focuses on "Trench Gardens" on the Western Front in WWI, "Ghetto Gardens" in Nazi Europe, "Barbed-Wire Gardens" created by allied prisoners of war and civilian internees in Europe and Asia in the World Wars, gardens in Japanese internment camps in the United States during WWII, and gardens following WWII.

What I appreciate most about the website is that it includes information from the book, but also keeps going from there, encompassing prison gardens, community gardens, and gardens in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Guantanamo. The most recent post is the text from a New York Times article on gardens in Afghanistan.

And here's another really nice post by my fellow landscape architecture and blogger colleague Rochelle Greayer: "I Gardened for My Life: The Defiant Gardens of POWs on Veterans Day." Thanks for the mention, Rochelle. Always happy to inspire:)

And finally, here's a link from the Farmer-Veteran Coalition (Farmers helping veterans, veterans helping farmers") to a post about Nadia McAffrey, a Gold Star Mother (she lost her son in the Iraq war) who founded Veterans Village "to provide compassionate healing and living environments for returning veterans damaged by their war experience." They are expanding to sites in Minnesota and New York, "where land is available for farming and gardening - important components for both the healing and the livelihood for the communities." Thanks so much to Sharon for these links!

Green Walls for Healing Gardens

Patrick Blanc's 'Mur Vegetal' in Paris -Quai Branly

One of the key elements of a healing garden - a garden designed to facilitate and even improve people's health and well-being - is a high ratio of plant material ("softscape") to paving, walls, stairs, etc. ("hardscape"). More plants, less paving.

And especially if we're talking about hospitals and other healthcare facilities, which is where healing gardens are needed most, people like a lot of softness and greenery to balance out the hard, sterile surfaces indoors. People also prefer a feeling of enclosure; it makes them feel safe and secure.

So, what better design element than a green, living wall? Patrick Blanc made a big splash with his (absolutely gorgeous) vertical gardens a few years ago, and since then, the market for green walls has exploded. I've been surprised at how slowly it's catching on in the healthcare environment. Seriously, wouldn't it be great if all of the hospitals and clinics and hospices and nursing homes had soft, green, living vertical surfaces instead of concrete walls and vinyl fences and strange partitions that don't really work in delineating space?

Image courtesy Annabel Harrold from Echo Studio's post on Blanc

Another plus about vertical gardens: They are easily accessible to just about everyone. Whether you're standing on two feet or wheeling in a wheelchair or a stroller, the plants are at your height where you can reach out to touch and smell, or even to garden in. What a fantastic tool for horticultural therapists!

Here's an example of a custom-designed vertical wall by the Hitchcock Design Group for a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) in Hyde Park, Chicago:

Photo by Naomi Sachs

If you're interested in the confluence of plants and architecture, definitely check out Jason King's blog Veg.itecture (their tagline is "investigating green architecture.").

And if you know of any healthcare facilities with vertical green walls - fixed or freestanding - please leave a comment. We're trying to build a list for the Therapeutic Landscapes Network.

Here's one last image, from a new company called Woolly Pocket Garden Company. Check out their blog. I especially like the posts about the Edible Staircase and the Edible Schoolyard, two programs with kids in Los Angeles schools.

Image courtesy of Woolly Pockets

Extending the Healing Garden's Season: Fall Foliage

Fall foliage season has definitely wound down here in the Hudson Valley, but other parts of the country are still in full swing, so here's a post about extending the healing garden's season with fall foliage (and late-blooming flowers).

Autumn crocus at the High Line

Designing for fall color is an excellent way to keep people interested in the garden long after many of those summer blooms have faded. Of course, late-season bloomers like asters, mums, blanket flower, autumn crocus (pictured above), some kinds of roses, and anemones (to name a few) are great, and all the better for pairing with bright-colored foliage like the asters and serviceberries at the High Line (below). A great book for inspiration is Late Summer Flowers by Marina Christopher.

I also think there's something poetic, inspiring, and strangely reassuring about something burning so bright just before going into dormancy.

Below are some of my favorites. All of these photos were taken by me (Naomi Sachs) in late October in Zone 5.

Serviceberry (also called Juneberry and shadbush)

Japanese maple

Trees

• Serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.)
• Maples, especially Japanese, red, and sugar (Acer spp.) - not all maples put on a good show, so do your research before-hand
• Black gum, or sour gum (Nyssa sylvatica) - brilliant red
• Sassafrass - incredible range of reds, oranges, and yellows. Hard to transplant, but worth trying.
• Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) - brilliant yellow. One of the things I miss most about living in Santa Fe, NM.
• Gingko and honey locust are two more great trees for bright yellow splendor
• Dogwood (Cornus florida and C. kousa, to name just two) - and those beautiful red berries that attract all kinds of birds; Cornus species is one of my favorites for multi-season interest (beautiful flowers in spring, nice foliage in summer, great fall color, red berries that attract wildlife, and a lovely form even without leaves).
• Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) - deep red with long frothy white flowers for contrast.

Oakleaf hydrangea

Climbing hydrangea, happily co-existing with an oak, at Stonecrop Gardens

Shrubs

• Sweetspire (Itea virginica, especially 'Henry's Garnet'); I have heard that they perform well even in part shade, which is great - many plants depend on full sun for a good show
• Blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) - yes, delicious berries AND red fall color, too.
• Several (but not all) Hydrangea species, including oakleaf (Hydrangea quercifolia), climbing (H. anomala subspecies petiolaris). Many hydrangeas, such as oakleaf and Pee Gee, also sport blossoms that turn to soft roses and buffs in the fall, and they often stay on after the leaves have fallen.
• Fothergilla - let's just say "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat"
• Most of the sumacs, including Rhus typhina - they also get nice fuzzy red seedheads that persist through the winter and attract birds.
• Witch hazel (Hamamelis spp.) - Some kinds, like 'Arnold's Promise' and 'Jelena' vary from year to year. Last year, mine were bright reds and oranges, this year they were much more yellow. Go figure!

Geranium macrorrhizum

Perennials, grasses, ferns

• Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) - low groundcover; leaves turn bright red
• True geranium (esp. Geranium macrorrhizum and G. sanguinium)
• Hosta (leaves turn a brilliant yellow, if only briefly before they look like they've melted into a strange puddle)
• Several kinds of ferns, including Dryopteris erythrosa and Osmundia regalis
• Bergenia - gorgeous bright red
• Most ornamental grasses. Some personal favorites for brilliant autumn display are switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), big bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and some kinds of maiden grass (Miscanthus spp.). For more inspiration on ornamental grasses, see Planting the Healing Garden: Ornamental Grasses.

Some plants have tried-and-true stellar autumn color, while others vary depending on geographic location, the amount of sun they get, and even microclimate. To make sure something is going to be as bright as the books and websites say it is, I like to visit as many gardens, nurseries, and parks as I can in my area to see for myself. I did not list burning bush and barberry for two reasons: First, they are both overused in the landscape--those of is in the trade call them "gas station plants" because of their boring ubiquity; and second, they are both invasive in the northeast because they seed prolifically (birds carry the seeds everywhere and deer don't eat them, so they are taking over our forests).

Resources: Though googling is always an option, some good books for reference and inspiration include: Fallscaping: Extending Your Garden Season Into Autumn; Autumn Gardens by Ethne Clarke; Gardening with Foliage Plants: Leaf, Bark, and Berry, also by Ethne Clarke; The Year in Trees: Superb Woody Plants for Four-Season Gardens; The Autumn Garden; and Fall Foliage: The Mystery, Science, and Folklore of Autumn Leaves by Charles W.G. Smith isn't so much a planting guide but looks like a really fun read. Michael Dirr's Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs is one book I use all the time because each plant gets several images, giving you a sense of what it looks like through the seasons.

Many thanks to @yardhalf (http://www.ayardandahalf.com/) for some great suggestions on twitter! Have other suggestions for fall color or resources? Leave a comment!

All images in this post are by Naomi Sachs.

A Garden is a Grand Teacher

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches us patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.

~ Gertrude Jekyll

Upcoming Talk (and a PBS show!) by Esther Sternberg

If you liked my interview with Esther Sternberg about her excellent book Healing Spaces: The Science and Place of Well-Being last month, here's your chance to see and hear her in person:

Dr. Sternberg will be speaking at Trinity Church in Boston, MA on Sunday, November 8th. See details in the Arnold Arboretum press release below.

Sternberg is also going to be hosting the PBS show called "The Science of Healing." It airs in Washington, D.C. on November 28th and will probably air repeatedly after that, so check your local stations for dates and times. More on her website, esthersternberg.com.

Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being

Esther M. Sternberg, M.D., Chief of Neuroendocrine Immunology and Behavior and Director of the Integrative Neural Immune Program National Institute of Mental Health
1 Session
Sun Nov 8 2:00–3:30pm [Trinity Church]
Can a pleasant view speed healing? In this lecture, Dr. Esther Sternberg will present the science of mind-body connections and human perception as it relates to place. Using examples from her book, Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being, to explain the neurobiology of the senses, she will explore how a theme park, concert hall, cathedral, labyrinth, or garden can trigger or reduce stress, induce anxiety or instill peace. Dr. Sternberg will provide clues to how and why we respond to our surroundings that could influence the places we create in the future.

Fee $10 members, $15 nonmembers
Register for this class online or by phone/mail.

Co-sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum and Trinity Church in the City of Boston

Upcoming Conference: Healthcare Design 09

Image of dogwood leaves courtesy of Henry Domke

Healthcare Design 09 is probably the largest national conference addressing the intersection of healthcare and design. It is founded and produced by the Center for Health Design (CHD) in association with the American Institute for Architects (AIA) and the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). CHD's focus is primarily for architects, but there's plenty for landscape architects and designers to sink their teeth into. I can't go this year, but if I could, here are some of the sessions I'd be attending:

• A Practitioner's Guide to Evidence-Based Design
• Environmental Influences That Improve Outcomes: Biophilic Healthcare Design (Roger Ulrich)
• Participatory Contextual Research for Ambient Experience Design of Healthcare Facilities
• The Scandinavian Example - Four Different Projects and Patient Focus
• Do Positive Distractions Influence Human Behavior? A Study of Pediatric Patients in Two Waiting Areas
• Incorporating Labyrinths as Components of Optimal Healing Environments
• An Overview of Recent Psycho-Social Research on Environments for Seniors
• The Role of Sustainability in Creating Healing Environments
• TAMU First Look Colloquium: Active Living Environments
• Experiment to Study How Nature Images Impact Physiological and Psychological Responses to Pain
• Green Roofs for Existing Hospitals - A Case Study
• Healing Gardens and Horticultural Therapy - Creating Outdoor Environments for Healing

And these are Facility Tours I'd be interested in attending:

• Tampa General Hospital Bayshore Health Pavilion: Hospital has a "landscaped internal courtyard."
• Shands Hospital - University of FL: "The hospital was designed around a 'Central Park'-style healing garden, where a water feature leads patients and families to the main entry."
• Florida Hospital - Altamonte: "The new lobby and chapel are surrounded by a reflecting pool and haling garden."

For those of you who are going, please report back! More landscape architects need to be involved with CHD, for our and their sake and - most importantly - for the benefit of patients, family members, and health practitioners who occupy the indoor and outdoor spaces we help design.

Blog Action Day '09: Climate Change and the Nature of Nature

Image courtesy of Henry Domke

Today is Blog Action Day, and the subject of this year's Blog Action Day is Climate Change.

Hm, what do therapeutic landscapes have to do with climate change...? Well, apart from the obvious (green spaces mitigating the built environment), here are some thoughts:

Why is nature, and our interaction with it, so restorative? Erich Fromm, and then E. O. Wilson, called it "biophilia," the attraction to life. Research by environmental psychologists has shown repeatedly that people respond especially well to plants and water. The more heavily planted the garden, the more positive the outcome for the users (in other words, people using the garden feel better when there is more, rather than less, plant material). The ideal ratio is 60% softscape (plants) to 40% hardscape (paving, etc.). The presence of water also seems to have a positive effect on people.

Of all of the elements of nature, why especially plants and water? Here are some of my thoughts on the subject:

We know, intuitively, that we need nature - and especially air (oxygen), plants, and water - in order to survive. And thus we experience them as beautiful, and comforting, and inspiring. Being in the presence of plants and water makes us feel good because we know that they sustain us. They don't need us (in fact, they would be better off without us, by all accounts). But without them, we would quickly perish. Without oxygen, water, and plants, our planet would not be earth, that beautiful blue sphere that you can see all the way from the moon. Plants are living, breathing things. They not only symbolize life; they are alive. And through their living and breathing - as they breathe, taking our carbon dioxide and replenishing it with oxygen - we breathe and are sustained. And one big thing that we have in common with plants: they, too, need water in order to survive and thrive. Which is maybe why we respond so positively to water, its sound, sight, even smell and taste. Water = life.

To most people, plants and water are beautiful because they embody life. And in a world where there is a goodly amount of ugliness, pain and suffering, beauty is a comfort because it reminds us that life is worth living. Beauty is comfort and inspiration because beauty is life.

Design Inspiration from the Huntington Children's Garden

This year, the American Horticultural Therapy Association's annual conference took place in Pasadena, and we were so fortunate to have the Huntington Library and Botanical Garden as our host and conference setting. Designers of children's gardens for healthcare could take a few (or more) pages out of the Huntington Garden's children's garden. I'm going to keep the verbage to a minimum with this post and simply provide you with images from my recent visit to this inspiring place of discovery, learning, and play.

This door, and the footprints leading up to it, say "this place is for kids!"

A child-sized "green house"...

...window boxes and all.

Green animals! Many of the plants in the garden are what I call "Dr. Seuss plants" - trees and shrubs that are strange and fun. Also lots of plants, such as lamb's ears and Artemisa Powis Castle, to touch and smell for sensory exploration.

Myriad fountains. Upon seeing some leaves in one fountain

(see the short video below), a youngster (probably about ten years old),

exclaimed, "Look at the leaves are swirling around in the fountain! That's so COOL!"

This sculpture might look a bit imposing for a children's garden,

until you see - or I should say hear - it in action. See video, below:

Comfortable, shady places for parents and grandparents to relax.

Beautiful combinations of plants for even the most sophisticated plant-lover.

But most important, plants designed for young people to

run, explore, and play under, over, and through.

Morton Arboretum's New Children's Garden

Image courtesy of LandscapeOnline.com

The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL (25 miles west of Chicago) has just opened a new Children's Garden, and it's getting rave reviews, including this one by Leslie McGuire for LandscapeOnline.com, "The Best Backyard in the World."

Designed by Herb Schaal of EDAW Fort Collins, the four-acre garden is intended to "spark children's curiosity about the natural world" in a safe place that "combines different experiences that challenge physical, cognitive, and emotional development in delightful ways while teaching all about natural systems."

McGuire goes into depth with descriptions of the various areas of the garden, including Backyard Discovery Gardens, Tree Finder Grove, Kid's Tree Walk, Adventure Woods, and the Central Plaza. It's a good read, with lots of pictures to spark the imagination.

Children's gardens in arboreta, botanical gardens, and other parks are often so creative. Unlike your average playground with a bunch of plastic equipment on some rubber surface, these children's gardens are all about making discovery and learning full of fun, wonder, and delight. I just visited the one at the Huntington Gardens and was so impressed. I'll be blogging about that soon. I only wish that that same imagination could be employed more often in children's gardens in healthcare facilities. Why is it not? Do we lack the budget? Are we scared about litigation? Are we creating generic "healing gardens" that are designed as contemplative spaces instead of as places where kids can run around, play, be distracted, and blow off steam? What do you think, dear reader? Also, if you have a favorite children's garden, in a healthcare facility or not, please share by leaving a comment; we'll add it to our growing list on the (new improved!) Therapeutic Landscapes Network website.

Image courtesy of LandscapeOnline.com

Nature Makes Us Nicer!

Image courtesy of Sarah Olmsted at Imagine Childhood

Nature makes us nicer. And more community-oriented. And more generous. I know, some of you are thinking "Duh-uh, we knew that all along." Well, now you have your proof.

A new study by the University of Rochester found that even after just looking at pictures of nature, people felt closer to their community, were more willing to give money to a charitable cause, and cared more about social outcomes than they were after looking at "man-made" scenes. Researchers explain that connecting to nature also helps people to connect to their basic good values. Just imagine how much more exponentially multiplied the results would be if people were to experience nature in person rather than just by looking at pictures. See the Treehugger article for the full story.

So go on, pat the bunny! Imagine Childhood is one of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network's Wonderful Sponsors. Visit their website and show them some love. The have all sorts of wonderful things to make the most of you and your kids' outdoor experience, and Sarah's blog is filled with beautiful images of nature. One of these days, I'm going to buy the same camera that she has.

And if you're feeling generous after reading this post, donate to the TLN. We will put your gift to good use! Here's another picture for inspiration:

Image courtesy of Sarah Olmsted at Imagine Childhood

Dirtworks' David Kamp on "Nature for Everyone" at NYBG

Image courtesy of Dirtworks, PC

The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) has a great lineup for their Landscape Design Portfolio series this fall.

On October 26th, David Kamp, Principal of Dirtworks, PC will lecture on "Nature for Everyone." David will begin with an overview of the concept of creating restorative spaces and will then outline the collaborative approach used to incorporate nature, healing, and design. It will also explore specific site design issues unique to “special needs” populations. Several internationally recognized projects will be presented, notably the Elizabeth and Nona Evans Restorative Garden and the Keene State College Natural Sciences Courtyard. Dirtworks has been a long-standing member of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network, listing their firm with our Designers and Consultants Directory.

The next talk, on November 2nd, is Walter Hood on "Sampling and Enmeshing the Urban Landscape." I admire Walter's work because not only are his designs aesthetically pleasing and intellectually stimulating, they are also humanly functional; he has a knack for listening to the clients and the community he's designing for. Walter recently won the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in the category of Landscape Design.

For 90 years, The New York Botanical Garden (www.nybg.org) has been helping people achieve their horticultural education goals. Many students are career changers who come to the Garden from a variety of occupations including marketing, information technology, law, and medicine to explore horticulture job opportunities. The Garden offers 500 different courses each year comprising seven certificate programs.

All lectures are at Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY on October 26, 2009. For more information on The New York Botanical Garden, please visit www.nybg.org or call 718-817-8700.

The image above is of the Natural Science Center Courtyard at Keene State College in Keene, NH

Live! Therapeutic Landscapes Network Launches New Site, HealingLandscapes.org

Our Echinacea "mascot" image, courtesy of Henry Domke

The Therapeutic Landscapes Network is pleased to announce the launch of our new website.

Same url, HealingLandscapes.org, same great content (actually we've added more), and many new features, including:

• Search function within the site;
• Blog and site under one virtual roof;
• Larger, richer images, with more on the way;
• Updated Designers and Consultants Directory with a map for geographic as well as alphabetical search (contact us if you'd like to be added to our Directory);
• Expanded Therapeutic Gardens Directory (map coming soon, too);
• Sponsors who help fund the work that we do (individual donations are also most welcome);
• Sound! Click on "play birdsong audio" on the left-hand side of the home page;
• And coming soon, a Network Forum within the site for members to share information and ideas.

And that's just the beginning. We're pretty happy with our new site, and we hope you will be, too. Take a spin around, and let us know what you think.

Sign up for our (free) newsletter to join the Therapeutic Landscapes Network.

Many thanks to our "early adopter" Sponsors Landscape Forms, Imagine Childhood, and Lee Anne White Photography. Contact us if you would like to become one of our Wonderful Sponsors.

And many thanks to Wayne William Creative for their beautiful design and to Randy Caruso for his technical magicianship. Please visit our Credits and Thanks page to see all of the talented people who helped us get off the ground.

The Therapeutic Landscapes Network is the leading resource for information, education, and inspiration about healing gardens, restorative landscapes, and other green spaces that promote health and well-being. We are a knowledge base and gathering space for a global community of designers, health and human service providers, scholars, gardeners, and nature enthusiasts. Connecting people with information...people...nature.

Essential Design Elements for Therapeutic Gardens

Hulda B. and Maurice L. Rothschild Garden, Evanston, IL

On the the first day of the ASLA Conference in Chicago this year, I went on a Field Session where we toured three therapeutic gardens in three different locations. It was a great day, and I'll be blogging more about that soon.

But in the meantime, I've been thinking a lot about essential design elements for therapeutic gardens. Much research has been done about features that are important in healing gardens, such as the presence of lush vegetation, movable seating, sensory stimulation, and so on. But before we even get to that, there are a few really important rules for creating successful and safe therapeutic gardens in the healthcare setting. I'm talking less about other Landscapes for Health like parks or private gardens or nature preserves, and more specifically about gardens in hospitals, nursing homes, treatment centers, hospices, and other places where people go to either get well or die gracefully in good, loving, capable hands.

So, here goes:

1. Design for the client (the "user").

Cookie-cutter doesn't cut it. Who will be using the garden? In a general hospital, sure, you have to design for lots of different people. But for a children's garden, or a retirement community, or a cancer center, your clients' needs will be very different and the garden must address those specific needs. Listen and pay close attention to those clients and to the staff (including horticultural or other types of therapists - they are your absolute allies). Do the research to find out what types of gardens and what design elements are most important for a particular population. Hire a consultant who is an expert in this area. Design for the client.

2. Design for comfort.

You're designing an environment for people who are extremely vulnerable. Patients are sick or are awaiting diagnosis or treatment; family members and friends are worried and may have their own issues with hospitals and other health care facilities; staff and caregivers are under extreme pressure. So make the garden comfortable! Physically and emotionally. I'm all for modernist, avant garde, cutting-edge design in the right context. But in a therapeutic garden, you want to design for physical and emotional comfort. Remember the basics from site planning 101 about temperature, sun and shade, protection from wind and noise, etc.. Here again, knowing who your client is will enable you to really design for that specific population. Design for comfort.

3. Design for safety.

When talking about design for therapeutic gardens, Roger Ulrich likes to quote part of the Hippocratic Oath, "to do no harm." This is the physician's #1 priority, and it must be the designer's as well. So make sure your pathways are smooth and easy to navigate (but also slip-resistant). Make sure you're not using poisonous or prickly plants, especially in gardens for children and the developmentally disabled. Make sure benches are easy to get in and out of. Make sure the door leading to the garden is easy and safe to get in and out of! Design for safety.

4. Design for maintenance.

There's no point in designing an amazing garden that looks great in the first year for the magazine photos and then looks terrible - or even worse, is dangerous - because it can't be maintained. Again, this is about designing for the user. Talk to the administrators, find out who will be maintaining the garden, what sort of budget is alloted, who will be coordinating. This is not the fun stuff that we designers went to school for, but it is an essential component of what we do. Design for maintenance.

So when designing a garden for palliative care, we should ask these questions every step of the way: Is the space being designed for the people who will use it? Is the space comfortable, both physically and emotionally? Is the space safe? Can the space be maintained over many years? If yes, yes, yes, and yes, we're well on our way to creating a successful healing garden.

The new website has lots of good information on Evidence-Based Design (EBD) in the Resources section, and we'll be adding more soon in the EBD area.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback. Have another essential element? Leave a comment for me and our other readers.

Today's Healing Garden: Sitting Quietly, Taking Nature In

I've been pushing myself a little too hard lately. Getting the new website up and running (yes! www.healinglandscapes.org), preparing for the ASLA meeting (it was great - blog posts about that coming soon), getting sponsors for the new site (see who we have so far), and seeing to the needs of my design clients. And what happens when we push ourselves too hard? Our bodies push back.

So, here I am with a miserable cold. Today, despite still feeling like I have way too much work to allow me to take any time off, I forced myself to spend some time in the garden. Not gardening - I did that a few days ago, for several hours, and wore myself out! Gardening is a great way to stay healthy, but if you're already compromised, take it easy. Gardeners, myself included, are so used to working in the garden that we often forget that we should just be in the garden from time to time. Today, I seriously needed to convalesce. My health depended on it.

So that's what I did. I sat in the garden. I felt the sun and the breeze on my skin. I listened to the rustling leaves, and the birdsong, and the crickets, and the distant hum of traffic. I watched the light and shadows echoing around me, and took in the greens and yellows and greys and browns of the landscape. I smelled the faint tinge of autumn, which for me always brings a bittersweet mixture of excitement and sadness. I watched and listened to my dogs snuffling around, and petted their soft fur when they stopped by to say hello. I rested and let the world in.

A healing garden - a therapeutic landscape - should be, and can be, many things. It depends what we (the "user") need. Designers must listen carefully to determine the needs of their clients so that they can design the most therapeutic garden possible. We can create places for positive distraction, or quiet contemplation, or family gatherings, or exuberant play, or even a careful orchestration of all of these in one space. And we who use the garden must know what we need, in general and day to day. I'd wager that most of us work too much, and that we don't give ourselves enough time to enjoy what we work so hard to maintain. So today or tomorrow, if you can, I encourage you to go into your garden, or out onto your front porch or your back fire escape, or over to your nearest park or nature preserve, and just sit quietly and take nature in. Sometimes this is the most healing thing we can do.

Interview with Dr. Esther Sternberg, Author of Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being

Esther M. Sternberg, M.D. is the author of a new book, Healing Spaces: The Science and Place of Well-Being (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press). The book has been reviewed extensively by a broad range of publications and blogs. So rather than write yet another review, I asked Dr. Sternberg for a telephone interview to discuss some the topics specific to landscapes and health. Before joining the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Sternberg was on the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She is also the author of The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, is a regular book review contributor to Science magazine, and lectures nationally and internationally for lay and scientific audiences. You can learn more about Dr. Sterberg on her website, www.esthersternberg.com, and you can watch an author interview here. Many thanks to Dr. Sternberg for this illuminating conversation.

Who was your audience for this book? Everybody! This is a crossover book, meaning that it’s for everyone from scientists to “educated laypeople” – non-scientists, anybody who might want to find a healing space. It’s also for architects, designers, students, and other young people - which is why I used more populist language, metaphors, and examples. One of the crucial steps in bridging different disciplines is learning each other’s language. The book has been favorably reviewed across a wide spectrum of journals, magazines, and blogs, from The Lancet, The Scientist, and New Scientist to the L.A. Times and New York Times, to People magazine – which tells me that the book has been successful in reaching a broad audience.

You refer in your book to Roger Ulrich’s seminal “View from a Window” study that was published in Nature in 1984, which made the scientific community take notice of environmental psychology as more than just a “soft science.” Since then, Ulrich and colleagues have been documenting the physiological effects of people’s experience of nature by measuring blood pressure, heart rate, temperatures, etc. How have recent technological advances in neuroscience changed the ways that research on environmental influences is carried out? There are two kinds of research in this area: First, studying whether something works (and under what circumstances), and second, studying how it works. Ulrich’s ‘View from a Window’ and other clinical studies are the former, and neurosience focuses more on the latter. We may already know that people benefit from being in or looking out onto a garden. But why, and how? Is it the light, the color, the movement, or something else? We can now use technology such as MRIs, PET scans, and other brain imaging to try to answer those questions, and to try to tease out which environmental factors are creating which responses.

Is stress reduction the primary reason that passive experience of nature (rather than active experiences, like gardening or exercise) is restorative? Or is there some other way that it is also beneficial? There are two ways that nature (and other environmental factors) can have beneficial outcomes. First, yes, by reducing stress and its negative effects; stress itself does not cause disease, infections, and so on, but it reduces the body’s resistance to illness and disease, harmful viruses and bacteria. So reducing stress can help foster health and healing. But there’s a second important way that nature works: By enhancing the positive. Positive sensory experiences trigger positive responses and reactions. They turn on parts of the brain that are rich in endorphin receptors (and endorphins make us feel good). We can’t actually measure the level of endorphins in a person’s body, but through brain imaging we can see that parts of the brain that are rich in endorphin receptors become active when there is positive stimulus, such as seeing a beautiful vista, or smelling a fragrant plant, or hearing birdsong. Therefore, we can assume that more endorphins are being released. And perhaps this is why gardens and other natural landscapes are so restorative: They provide a multisensory experience in which more than one positive response is triggered – light, color, sound, scent, touch - all combine to a create a rich positive experience.

Can neurological studies now “prove” theories such as those by Stephen and Rachel Kaplan? They argued that we are less stressed by nature than we are by, for example, being on a crowded city sidewalk, because nature elicits “soft fascination” rather than the extreme concentration needed in less naturalistic environments. Yes, theories like the Kaplans’ make sense on a neurological level, because different parts of the brain are activated when you are in a threatening vs. a non-threatening “focused attention" situation. A non-threatening situaton is less emotionally charged, thus requiring less vigilance. In the book, I use the analogy of the maze vs. the labyrinth. The maze is stressful. We don’t know how to get out, we have too many choices, we might get trapped inside – the body’s stress hormone axis [see pg. 98] kicks into high gear. But with a labyrinth, you are not faced with stressful choices. You enter and exit through one point, you can see the whole thing, and you are led on a simple, calming path.

Has any research been done yet on the effects of people walking labyrinths? Not yet. Probably the closest is Eduardo Macagno and Eve Edelstein’s study at UCSD using StarCAVE technology (virtual reality) combined with measuring brain activity through EEGs to study how people negotiate space. In one study, they found that in navigating a building without the usual landmarks, people who could see light and shadow were still able to navigate. When those clues were taken away, people lost their ability to find their way. This kind of study may be able to help with discovering better wayfinding clues for hospitals and nursing homes, even for people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

All of it is fascinating and it’s very important for general health, for maintaining health, and for personal health. A lot of data out there in neuroscience research tells us that place matters. We are affected by our environment, and if we manipulate our surroundings to reduce stress and to provide positive responses, we will benefit.

Song for Autumn - A Poem by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is my favorite poet right now. I picked up New and Selected Poems Volume Two after reading a piece about her in the New York Times Travel Section. So many of Oliver's poems - most of them, in fact - are about her observations of and interaction with the natural world. This one seems appropriate for at least half of the world right now:

Song for Autumn

In the deep fall

don't you imagine the leaves think how

comfortable it will be to touch

the earth instead of the

nothingness of air and the endless

freshets of wind? And don't you think

the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,

warm caves, begin to think

of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep

inside their bodies? And don't you hear

the goldenrod whispering goodbye,

the everlasting being crowned with the first

tuffets of snow? The pond

vanishes, and the white field over which

the fox runs so quickly brings out

its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its

bellows. And at evening especially,

the piled firewood shifts a little,

longing to be on its way.

I found this poem online at Poetry Daily. Visit their website to see many more poems and to learn about who they are and what they do.