Healing Garden

An important element of a healing garden is wildlife. Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, authors of The Experience of Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), have studied environments that elicit “soft fascination,” which “occurs when there is interest in the surroundings sufficient to hold one’s attention while allowing room for reflection.” (You can view the abstract for “The Monastery as a Restorative Environment” on the InformeDesign website, at www.informedesign.umn.edu/Rs_detail.aspx?rsId=2191).

Supporting and observing wildlife invites soft fascination, which can reduce stress and restore cognitive function. Songbirds and hummingbirds to watch and listen to; butterflies to observe as they float on the breeze and glide from flower to flower; honeybees and bumble bees to nurture as they buzz around gathering pollen. Not to mention all of the smaller creatures like ladybugs, praying mantises, and earthworms that keep our gardens healthy. The Therapeutic Landscapes Database lists a few good references on their Plants and Links pages for creating wildlife habitat, but the National Wildlife Federation website is also a great place to start.

In fact, The NWF has a certification program for creating wildlife habitats; they’ll even give you this cool sign to post in your garden once you’ve completed the four basic steps of providing food, water, cover, and places to raise young. Go to www.nwf.org/backyard for more information.

Last October when I was in Chicago, I drove to Evanston (a suburb adjacent to Chicago) to see the house my mother grew up in. I was delighted to see that its current owners are avid gardeners who have one of those NWF signs. Below are a few images from the house. Note their clever solution to a blank, windowless wall!

Arugula grown from Seeds of Change organic seeds; swiss chard and other herbs and vegetables bought as seedlings from a nearby certified organic farm.

This may be forehead-smackingly obvious to many of you, but I’m going to say it anyway:
In my opinion, a healing garden should be good for the earth as well as for us. What does this mean, exactly? Here are some thoughts, and I welcome additional suggestions from my readers:

1. Go organic, or at the very least, don’t go toxic with your “raw materials” (soil, compost, plant material) and how you treat them (e.g., companion planting or permaculture instead of ChemLawn). It’s better for us, it’s better for the birds and other wonderful creatures we’re trying to attract, and it’s better for the earth. There are lots of good websites, companies, and organizations out there with information about acquiring and growing plants without the use of pesticides and herbicides. Sometimes it takes a little more work, or you might have to deal with some unsightly holes in your leaves. I wasn’t wild about the look of netting on my strawberries last year, but I sure was wild about the taste and knowing that they were 100% chemical free.

And is my own garden 100% organic? Honestly, no. That Hamemelis I mentioned on 1/21/08? I seriously doubt that it was born and raised without chemicals. But now that it’s in my garden, it’s in a pesticide-free zone.
2. Save water. Especially in drought-riddled areas like New Mexico, where I lived before I moved to soggy New York, it’s just downright irresponsible to plant things that need a lot of water to grow. Or to install a fountain that doesn’t recycle its water or that sprays huge jets that evaporate before the water lands back in the pond. And even in New York, I strive to plant things that, once they’re established, can manage fine on their own.
3. Reduce waste. Create a brush pile and/or compost pile for leaves and other garden debris and for kitchen scraps (no meat, nothing cooked). Brush piles make excellent wildlife habitats; compost piles make the best plant food around, and it’s free! And you’re keeping that much more waste out of the landfill, thus reducing your overall “footprint.” Everybody wins.
For hardscaping and planters, use natural materials such as stone and wood that won’t fall apart after a couple of years, or that can be recycled.
4. Use materials that don’t negatively impact the earth. Those pvc picket fences may be cheap and cute, but they are toxic to make, they can’t be recycled, and they can cause serious problems if they catch on fire, creating carcinogens that get into our groundwater supply. Imagine the ironies of a healing garden for cancer patients surrounded by a pvc fence. The mind boggles.

And again, am I the perfect “zero carbon footprint” example? No. The stone and soil used to create my raised vegetable garden, in the photo above, did not come from the site, they were trucked in from somewhere else. As with almost anything in life, designing a healing garden is about balance. Maybe you’re a small non-profit that relies on donations from a big box nursery for your plant material; maybe the house you bought already had a pvc fence when you moved in; maybe you don’t have the space or the time for a compost pile. We all have to make choices about what we can and can’t do. The important thing, in my opinion, is to at the very least be aware of your impact on the earth, and to strive to reduce your negative impact and to increase your positive impact in whatever ways are possible and feasible to you.

It’s 23 degrees Fahrenheit outside, the warmest it’s been all day, and this is the view from my office window here in Beacon, NY. Now, to some of you this may look rather bleak – the last windswept vestiges of last week’s snowfall, the winter sunlight just barely lighting up that north side of the garden, and a puny tree with no leaves, only bare branches. Well, let me tell you, that tree is a witch hazel, Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena,’ and every time I look at her, a smile creeps across my face. You see, “Jelena,” as I like to call her, holds great promise: The promise of spring, and soon. I learned to appreciate witch hazels in Providence, RI on wintry walks to and from work, and have wanted one (at least one!) in my own garden ever since. I knew when I planted Jelena that long before anything else was even thinking about emerging from dormancy, this intrepid tree would begin to bloom, pushing forth bright red (or yellow or orange, depending on the variety) fingers of delightfully scented blossoms from soft, velvety buds. And today I checked and sure enough, inside of those tight fists of buds are bright red spots promising blossoms in a month, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. Spring in February/March in New York, not too shabby. My camera’s “macro” feature is nonexistent, but you get the idea:

Your Healing Garden

There are so many ways to make your outdoor space–be it hundreds of acres, a city lot, a fire escape, or a window box–into more than just a place for the occasional backyard party or weeding/raking session. Being in and connected with nature has myriad benefits, with stress reduction being at the top of the list. This is a new series on this new blog, aimed more at the home gardener than the academic or the seasoned designer, with the goal of inspiring people to start treating their immediate outdoor environments as places that can facilitate health and well-being. I’ll touch on important design considerations; reasons for creating a backyard sanctuary; my favorite books, articles, and links on the subject; as well as examples and anecdotes.
More again soon.