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What’s a healing garden?

January 9, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

For all you twitterers out there who have just started following the Therapeutic Landscapes Network Blog, this posting’s for you:

What’s a healing garden?

Short answer: A healing garden is any outdoor space that facilitates health and well-being through contact with nature.

It’s that simple. Sort of. If you want the longer answer, see an earlier two-part posting: (http://tldb.blogspot.com/2008/08/isnt-every-garden-healing-garden-part-i.html and (http://tldb.blogspot.com/2008/08/isnt-every-garden-healing-garden-part.html).

I haven’t written much about planting the healing garden yet, but I think it’s time to start doing so. I’ll devote at least two posts a week to this topic, and more if people want more. If you’ve been following this blog for a little while, you know I try to span the various bridges between design and healthcare and academia and home gardening – we’re all interested in the same thing: Learning and exchanging information about how nature improves health and well-being. We just sometimes talk about it in different ways.

For those of you new to twitter, you can follow me and the Therapeutic Landscapes Network there at: http://twitter.com/healinggarden. And please, if you like this blog, please become a follower here as well! Just click on “Follow this blog” in the right-hand column.

Like this blog? Show your support!

January 4, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

Prothonotary warbler, courtesy Henry Domke Fine Art

Ah, the lonely life of the long-distance blogger. We sit in our offices or houses or cafes, typing away, sending off missives that – we hope – others will read and be informed or amused or inspired by. For me, as Director of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network, blogging is a way to convey the most current information, research, and news about landscapes for health. The blog keeps things fresh. It also makes me feel more connected with the far-flung international community of designers, health and human service providers, scholars, and others interested in this exciting and rewarding field of therapeutic landscapes. There are quite a few of us, but we don’t get to talk or meet very often, and that in itself can make one feel isolated at times. I’ve received many emails over the years thanking the TLN for being there, like this one from a student in China: “The materials and information you offered encourage me a lot and I am not feeling lonely in what I am doing now.” I love getting these emails because they remind me that the Therapeutic Landscapes Network and Blog do, indeed, make a difference.

So: Like this blog and want to show your support? Clap your virtual hands and let me know!

Research has shown that in the healthcare setting, choice gives people a sense of control, and therefore reduces stress. With that in mind, here are three choices of how you can support this blog. Choose one, and/or two, and/or all three. All of these options will let others know that you think this blog is important, and will let me know that you want me to keep blogging away. Bet you’re feeling less stressed already!

Here are your options, all located on the right-hand column of this blog:

1. Become a Follower (click on “Follow This Blog” just below the fern image): This shows other readers and the blogger (me) that you are following this blog (rather than just looking at it once and never coming back). You can follow publicly or anonymously. Click HERE to read more about how it works.

2. Subscribe to have blog updates emailed to your inbox (located just above the Followers) or sign up for RSS feed (scroll down for this). Click HERE for the best explanation I’ve found about RSS, or see this Wikipedia entry or What Is RSS?

3. Donate money! Every little bit helps (and a lot helps even more). Right now we’re raising funds to update our website; one of the first goals is to combine this blog and the Therapeutic Landscapes Database website under one virtual roof. Help us get there by clicking on HERE or on the “Donate” icon at the top of the left-hand column, or by sending a check, made out to TLRC, to P.O. Box 728, Beacon, NY, 12508.

Oh, and perhaps it’s time I put a face to the name:

Naomi Sachs, ASLA, Founder and Director, Therapeutic Landscapes Network

Thank you, and keep in touch!

Thanksgiving comes to the Therapeutic Landscapes Resource Center

November 26, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

An enormous THANK YOU to those who have donated to our fundraising campaign so far–this bouquet of thyme and sage is for you!

TLRC fundraising campaign: See that button on the right, just below van Gogh’s irises? That’s where you click to support the Therapeutic Landscapes Resource Center. Big changes are afoot here, and your support makes it happen. For nine years, the Therapeutic Landscapes Database has been a free, online informational resource for anyone and everyone interested in landscapes for health. Did you know that the TLD and Blog get over 5,000 hits a month? This is a valuable resource, used by people all over the world. We are now working on some important improvements that will enable us to make even more of a difference, including:

1. Combining website and blog under one virtual roof;

2. Providing an online forum so that members of this vibrant community can communicate directly with each other;

3. Adding search functions; and

4. Adding lots more information and images.

We can’t do it without the support of generous people like Betsy and others who have donated to the campaign so far. And we’ve still got a ways to go; so click on that lovely green button and donate. And again, to those who’ve given so far, an armload of flowers for you!

Our mission: The Therapeutic Landscapes Resource Center provides information, education, and inspiration about healing gardens and other spaces that foster health and wellness through contact with nature. We serve a multidisciplinary community of designers, health and human service providers, scholars, and members of the general public, acting as a resource and a virtual gathering space where people can obtain and share information, inspire each other, and collaborate to design, build, fund, study, and benefit from therapeutic landscapes.

Welcome to the Therapeutic Landscapes Database Blog

January 1, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

Welcome to the Therapeutic Landscapes Database Blog (TLDB).

This blog is a companion to the Therapeutic Landscapes Database website, an online bibliography of information about landscapes that promote and facilitate health. The TLD serves as a virtual bibliography of published references, built landscapes, designers and consultants, links, and related information.

The TLDBlog serves two important functions:

Rapid posting of new information (upcoming conferences, recently published articles and books, etc.);
Acts as a virtual meetingplace for landscape designers, healthcare providers, and other interested people to exchange thoughts, ideas, and knowledge.

Both website and blog are operated through the Therapeutic Landscapes Resource Center, Inc. , a non-profit organization founded by Naomi Sachs, ASLA.