Healing Garden « Therapeutic Landscapes Network

Essential Design Elements for Therapeutic Gardens

September 28, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

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

September 25, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

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.

Guest Blog Post by Shawna Coronado: Ball Horticulture Teaches Employees How To Tend To Nature and Their Health by Building a Community Garden

September 11, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

Thanks to conservation/green/community/health guru Shawna Coronado for this excellent guest blog post about Ball Horticulture’s transition for lawn to employee-run community gardens.

Think about this – across the globe many businesses, churches, synagogues, mosques, and community centers are surround by a sea of an utterly useless plant – grass! What positive effect does acres of grass have for an organization? You cannot feed people on grass. American businesses and organizations use tons of chemicals to maintain the grass, which then cause damage to our water tables nationwide. If we are not mowing grass with carbon producing equipment, we are wasting water on it. This is such a tremendous and inane waste of our resources. It simply makes no sense.

My proposal to you dear reader – follow Ball Horticulture’s example of ditching some of the grass and building a healthy community. Ball Horticulture’s exciting move has been to do something about all that useless grass. They have created one of the first employee-run community gardens in the nation.

There is an unfathomable connection between nature and health. Healthy veggies grown with no chemicals; sunshine which produces good mood endorphins in our brains when we are exposed to it; fresh air which is a welcome escape from the confines of the typical closed environment office. This is just the beginning of what Ball Horticulture hopes to encourage with the creation of the Ball Horticulture Employee Community Garden.

Susan Schmitz, Trials and Education Manager, gave me a tour of the community gardens. Overflowing with every vegetable imaginable, 120 employees have come together to grow their own fresh food in 5’ X 8’ plots. According to Susan, half of those participating had never grown a vegetable before in their lives.

While Ball Horticulture is obviously experienced with plants, they realized that their various employees might not be. Therefore, to assure a higher success rate, Susan and her team came together to host seasonal training workshops. Knowing that veggies can quickly get out of hand in size, Susan felt the first step was having the employees understand what a 5’ X 8’ plot would look like. She taped the plot out on the floor and set out a couple plants on the imaginary plot to demonstrate spacing.

Education soon expanded to planting, weeding, and maintenance concerns, eventually growing into what veggies might be planted late in the season after the spring veggies peaked.

Susan also had a bi-weekly email resource and a company bulletin board established for further assistance with seasonal Ball Hort Veggie Plot Board suggestions and questions which might help the employees have a better chance of succeeding.

Soon employees were growing masses of veggies and feeling very proud of themselves. They weigh each garden’s harvest on a produce scale so they can keep track of just how much locally grown and healthy food was produced. Many individuals choose to give all their veggies to the Giving Gardens Program, which donates the food to local food pantry’s.

While visiting the gardens, I was astounded at how truly beautiful they are. Each plot is labeled with the “owner’s” name, giving the employees a strong sense of ownership, responsibility, and accomplishment. Therefore, they are all wonderfully maintained.

Please make a difference in your community by helping people in this difficult economic time. All you businesses, churches, synagogues, mosques, and community centers do your community a favor – DITCH THE GRASS and BUILD A GARDEN. Make a difference today!

Shawna Lee Coronado is an author, locally syndicated newspaper columnist, health, and greening expert focused on teaching and living a green lifestyle. Shawna has been featured on ABC News (Chicago), WGN 9 News (Chicago), Oklahoma Gardening TV and Local Access 10 TV.

Special written features on Shawna can be found on CNN Health,

Chicago Tribune Local,and The Daily Herald (see Media Coverage).

Visit Shawna’s prime website for more information on her books and other media – www.thecasualgardener.com. Be sure to visit www.gardeningnude.com for lots more conservation, greening and health tips.

Almost there! Therapeutic Landscapes Network gears up to launch new website

| by Naomi Sachs

The Therapeutic Landscapes Network is working feverishly to launch our new website in time for the annual American Society of Landscape Architects Meeting and Expo next week (and the American Horticultural Therapy Association and Healthcare Design 09 conferences soon after that).

Above is a sneak peek at our beautiful homepage. Oooh. Ahhh.

This isn’t just a superficial makeover. We’ve reconfigured the TLN site to offer

improved searchability and richer imagery;
an expanded Designers and Consultants Directory;
an expanded Directory of Therapeutic Gardens;
sponsorship opportunities for businesses and organizations to promote their products, services, and expertise;
an integrated blog (website and blog all under one virtual roof);
an interactive Network Forum where members can meet and share information and ideas;
and more information than ever before on gardens, landscapes, and other green spaces that facilitate health and well-being, for an even broader global community of designers, health and human service providers, educators, students, gardeners, and nature enthusiasts.

Want to get in on the action before the launch? Easy:

Email us at info@healinglandscapes.org if you’d like to list in our Designers and Consultants Directory or be one of our fabulous sponsors.
Sign up here (or with the form in the right-hand column – same thing, different look) to become a member and get on our mailing list. It’s free, and we’ll put you on our newsletter list so we can tell you right away when we launch the new site.

Oh, and if you aren’t following us on twitter yet, join us there, too! We’ve got 2,000 followers so far, with more coming every day.

Edible Gardens are Healing Gardens

August 30, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

Image courtesy of Anne Dailey

I can’t believe summer’s almost over. It flew by this year. Depending on where you are in this country, or in the world, your growing season is coming to a close (or just beginning, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere – lucky you!). Here in the Hudson Valley, we’ve got a couple of months left before a hard frost hits, with end-of-the-summer treats like corn, tomatoes (though many fewer this year due to the blight), peppers, and melons. In my own tiny raised bed garden, I’ve got tomatoes, chard, arugula, and lots of herbs.

I’ve been thinking a lot about edible gardens as healing landscapes. After all, food is life. What could be more nurturing than good, healthy food? And not just nutritionally, though most of us know by now that the closer our food source is, the more nutrients (and flavor) it has to offer. On top of all that, there is something nurturing to the spirit about growing and eating your own food. Whether you have a few pots of herbs and tomatoes on the deck or fire escape, or an acre of land to tend, or a plot in a community garden or CSA (community-supported agriculture), an edible garden is a healing garden for body and soul.

Alice Waters, Deborah Madison, Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and even Martha Stewart, to name just a few, are some of the more well-known advocates of eating locally, slowly, and sustainably. The locavore/backyard (and front yard!) farmer/victory garden movement has exploded, and lots of individuals, families, schools, communities, the New York Botanical Garden – heck, even the first family – are getting in on the grow-and-eat-your-own action. And there’s a plethora of information out there. On twitter alone, I’m following over two dozen people and organizations devoted to small-scale/local farming and agriculture and edible gardens. Not sure when to plant radishes? Debating about sowing a cover crop? Thinking of saving seeds from your heirloom squash? Just google it. A great example low-tech analog and high-tech digital living happily ever after.

And what a great learning experience for children, to know not only what real zucchini or blueberries or carrots taste like, but how they grow (vine, bush, in the ground below those frilly green tops).

Image courtesy of Allison Vallin and A Tasteful Garden

This New York Times “One in 8 Million” piece on Buster English in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood really touched me, and hits on several of the ideas in this post.

To really get the most out of your edible garden as healing garden, here are some suggestions:

1. Grow organic: Avoid pesticides and herbicides. After all, a big part of growing your own food is creating a healthier alternative for you, your family and friends, and your neighbors. The people and the soil and the creatures who live in and around it will thank you.

2. Start small: If you’ve never “farmed” before, don’t take on too much at once. Plant what (or maybe even less than) you think you’ll need or that you have time to tend. Nothing puts a damper on your enjoyment of a garden like feeling overwhelmed, guilty, or inept. You can always do more next year.

3. Grow stuff you really like, or that you can’t get enough of locally (for example, even if I wanted to buy sorrel, it just isn’t available around here; and the first thing I’d plant if I had more space would be a fig tree); or that’s expensive to buy at the store/market (another example: I don’t grow potatoes or onions because I can get them cheap. Arugula, on the other hand…).

4. Teach the children: Put your kids to work! Or better yet, set aside a part of the garden that’s just for them. Radishes, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, peas, and many herbs are easy to grow, even from seed. Here’s an article on the “top ten” kid-friendly veggies (and fruit) and another on the ones that might be a bit more of a challenge. What magic, to put a tiny radish seed into the ground, to water and care for it, to see a tiny shoot emerge, to tend it some more, and then pull it out of the ground and savor its bright pink, spicy peppery crispness. And what joy to be a part of that discovery and delight.

5. Include your elders. Maybe it’s your parents, or your grandparents, or other relatives, or the elderly couple that lives down the street. Maybe it’s residents of a nearby senior center. Many people from earlier generations grew up farming, or at least tending a kitchen garden, and they have knowledge and stories to share. In return, you can share some of your bounty with them. If I had my druthers, intergenerational gardening would be the next big thing.

6. And speaking of which: Share! If for no other reason than to impress your neighbors with your farming acumen, give some of your harvest away. What a truly generous gift.

7. And last but not least: Enjoy. Every time I bite into one of my home-grown tomatoes, I’m blown away not just by the taste; I also feel a deep sense of wonder and gratitude. Such beauty, such flavor, such nourishment. To me, that’s about as healing as it gets.

Image courtesy of Claire Brown and Plant Passion

The High Line: A “Landscape for Health”

July 24, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

If the definition of a “Landscape for Health”(TM) is “any outdoor space that facilitates health and well-being through connection with nature,” then the High Line, which opened about three weeks ago and which I visited for the first time yesterday, definitely fits the bill.* New York City already has many wonderful parks, from small community gardens and vestpocket parks to the many-acre pastoral settings of Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. And many of these could also be considered Landscapes for Health, in the Therapeutic Landscapes Network’s broad definition (the definition for healing gardens, therapeutic landscapes, rehabilitation gardens, and restorative gardens and landscapes is more specific – see this and this previous TLDBlog posting on the subject). But a linear park on an abandoned elevated railroad that glides above the city streets? This is a first for NYC, and a truly inspiring addition to an already pretty great city (for more information about the High Line’s history, designers, construction, and so forth please visit the Friends of the High Line website, www.thehighline.org).

Bill Cunningham of the New York Times On the Streets‘ latest slideshow expresses the same kind of unfettered, unabashed enthusiasm I felt when I got up there among the high-rises with my fellow revelers. As one might expect, I was less focused on fashion and more on plants and design, as you’ll see from the accompanying TLN Flickr set. People were strolling, talking, taking pictures, looking at the plantings, pointing to things within the park and outside (amazing views of the river and the near and far Manhattan skyline), eating the gelato and drinking the coffee sold from the two intra-park vendors (now that’s gotta be a good business!), resting on or just trying out the many varied and inventively designed park benches, and of course, watching other people do the same. Bill Cunningham talks about the park as a “fashion promenade,” and though there was less of the fashion going on on a drizzly Thursday afternoon, it certainly has the promenade feeling.

When we refer to outdoor spaces as “healing gardens,” we are usually talking about the positive, salutary effect that they have on people. However, I’m also a firm believer that the best kind of healing garden, or restorative landscape, or Landscape for Health, is one that is also healthy for the planet. Taking a brownfield site, cleaning it up, planting trees and shrubs and perennials and grasses that exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen, and providing a landscape that people can benefit from in a multitude of ways is a win-win scenario that I wish more cities, healthcare facilities, and other institutions would take a cue from. To get a sense of what I’m talking about with this particular park, see images of the High Line pre-construction on theHigh Line’s and Piet Oudolf’s websites.

But there’s plenty of grunge still there to remind us of the High Line’s past. I think what makes the park so successful is a very artful combination of gritty and refined. When Joshua David and Robert Hammond first saw the high line back in 1999, they loved the wildness of it – the tracks overgrown with weeds felt like a magical wild secret garden floating above the city streets. That weedy character has been retained, under the guidance of the master of the “new wave” planting style, Piet Oudolf. Yet the wildness has been gently reined in; I’m sure some people will look at the grasses, and coneflowers, and shrubs like sumac and chokeberry, and think it all still looks like a bunch of weeds. To me, it felt like walking through a beautiful meadow in full bloom without having to worry about getting covered in ticks. James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro have also successfully blended the gritty with the urbane. The linear “tracks” of the paving surface that die into the planting beds, the wooden benches that rise from those tracks, the wooden decking and the benches that rise from said decking, the black-painted railings, the sleek but unobtrusive lighting, and of course the existing tracks, sometimes covered and sometimes exposed, sometimes on the path and sometimes wending their way though the plantings, are all composed in a delightful dance…

…okay, I know, I’m gushing. But if Bill Cunningham can gush, so can I! The main point is that I’m in good company. I saw so much delight and joy on the faces of people up there on the High Line, and it’s sure to be a big attraction for a long time to come. A major construction, a swath of public open space in the heart of the city, that gets people outside, walking, talking, smiling, interacting with each other and with nature in a truly urban environment – that sure sounds like a Landscape for Health to me.

Mountain Laurel and Russel Wright

June 6, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

Native mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) at Manitoga today

I’m lucky enough to live in the lower Hudson Valley, home – among many other wonderful things – of the Russel Wright Design Center in Garrison, NY. When Wright found the property in 1942, it was a former quarry that had been marred by a century of quarrying and lumbering. He made it his home, and began to “heal” the damaged landscape where he lived and worked. He named the place “Manitoga,” which means Place of the Great Spirit in Algonquin. “Over the next three decades, until his death in 1976, he carefully redesigned and re-sculpted Manitoga’s 75 acres using native plants, his training as a theater designer and sculptor, and his innovative design ideas. Though the landscape appears natural, it is actually a careful design of native trees, rocks, ferns, mosses, and wild flowers.”* (He also built a beautiful house and studio there, and made some pretty cool dishware as well).

My favorite examples of healing gardens are those where the designers have done their part to heal the site, and in so doing, have created a place that restores and rejuvenates us, as well.

It’s a beautiful site throughout the year, and when the native mountain laurel is in bloom, it’s simply stunning. Wright once said, “When in full bloom, the mountain laurel reminds me of fields of strawberry ice cream.” Yum. But of course this wouldn’t be the TLDBlog without a caveat, so here goes: Mountain laurel may be beautiful, but it’s also quite toxic! Not for planting in gardens for children, the developmentally disabled, and people with dementia. You can read more about what plants use with caution on the Therapeutic Landscapes Database Plants page.

Beech sapling emerging from quarry stone

*Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center

Scent as emotional memory trigger in the healing garden

May 14, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

Lilac image courtesy What Do I Know? blog http://whatdoiknow.typepad.com/photos/flowers/lilacs.html

Image courtesy What Do I Know? www.whatdoiknow.typepad.com/photos/flowers/lilacs.html

Lilacs. Roses. Jasmine. Gardenia. Freshly mown grass. Chaparral. Depending on where you grew up, these scents probably conjure up some pretty powerful emotions and memories. In fact, of the five, our olfactory sense is the strongest emotional memory trigger. According to a June ’09 issue of Organic Gardening, “That’s because the part of our brain responsible for basic memory evolved out of the tissue that makes up the olfactory cortex.” For a slightly more detailed explanation, see this article on the psychology of scent, “Whisking up a memory with a whiff: Rachel Herz explores the psychology of scent.“) And here’s another good one, from Science & Tech: “Can you really smell memories? How childhood scents get ‘etched’ on the brain.” See also our next blog post, a guest post by Wendy Meyer that includes a link to her thesis “Persistence of Memory: Scent Gardens for Therapeutic Life Review in Communities for the Elderly.”

Fragrance in the healing garden

For this reason, using plants with fragrant flowers and foliage is an important part of designing the healing garden.* Especially in nursing homes, dementia gardens, and other landscapes for people with memory loss, scent can be very powerful. Consider this story, from Martha M. Tyson’s wonderful book The Healing Landscape: Therapeutic Outdoor Environments, about our colleague Vince Healy:

Vince’s grandmother was in her nineties. For quite some time she had not recognized Vince and was not really fully aware of what was going on around her. Since it was Easter time, Vince decided to pay her a visit. During his drive there, Vince came upon a roadside stand that advertised lilacs for sale. In southern California, lilacs do not grow well. This stand, however, had great quantities of them, and they were cheap. So Vince brought an enormous number of the lilacs and put them in the back of his van…By the time Vince arrived at the nursing home, the lilacs were looking very sad. When Vince walked into his grandmother’s room, she looked at him as always, blankly, and then she looked at the flowers. “They’re wilted! Throw them away!” After all this effort Vince was not about to throw them away, so he moved the lilacs closer, right under her nose. She drew in the fragrance with a deep breath and a sigh and said, “Lilacs….” Then she looked up at Vince and said, “Vinnie, how are you?”

Designing with fragrance as an emotional memory trigger

But even with less miraculous results, scents that elderly people remember fondly – “old-fashioned” flowers like lilacs, honeysuckle, gardenia, mock orange, roses – can evoke positive feelings and often facilitate conversations, thus providing something important but often lacking in places like nursing homes: Personal connection. Because our sense of smell often decreases as we age, strongly scented plants have a better chance of triggering a reaction than something subtle. I highly recommend Tyson’s book for more information, and Clare Cooper Marcus and Marni Barnes’ book Healing Gardens: Therapeutic Benefits and Design Recommendations is also valuable, especially the Chapter 8 on nursing home gardens and Chapter 9 on Alzheimer’s treatment gardens. Several other books have been published on gardens for the elderly, including Jack Carman et al’s new book Recreating Neighborhoods for Successful Aging. If you know of books that specifically address this issue of scent as a memory trigger in healing gardens, I’ll add it to our list!

*One caveat: In some cases, such as with gardens for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, even a good scent may be too overwhelming, and even nauseating. I don’t know of any specific research on what to steer clear of – if anyone reading this knows, please pass the information my way and I’ll list it on the Therapeutic Landscapes Network’s website.

Planting the Healing Garden: Medicinal Herbs

April 12, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

Lavender fields image courtesy Oregon Lavender Festival website, www.oregonlavenderdestinations.com

One of the most frequently-asked questions at the Therapeutic Landscapes Network is about what grows in a healing garden. Many people assume that a “therapeutic landscape” is a garden filled with herbs grown and harvested for their medicinal properties – in essence, that the healing comes from the plants in the garden. And this is certainly true some of the time (for a more thorough explanation about and definition of healing gardens, therapeutic landscapes, and landscapes for health, see this post and this post). More often, though, a healing garden is simply a garden filled with plants; research has shown that the more heavily planted a garden is, the more restorative it will be. The type of plant seems to be less important, though a variety of flora that stimulates the senses is a good start.

That said, many healing gardens contain at least some medicinal herbs, which are grown for a variety reasons: Their scent, or texture, or aesthetic qualities, or for their symbolism (for example, Topher Delaney designed the Carolyn S. Stolman Healing Garden at the Avon Foundation Breast Center in San Francisco, CA with plants that were traditionally used to treat cancer). Are they always harvested, processed, and used for salutary purposes? Nope. The fact is that especially in a healthcare setting, there often isn’t time or knowledge or the right equipment for, say, distilling Echinacea flowers into the tincture that you would use to boost the immune system. Are they beautiful, native, easy-to-maintain flowers that attract butterflies and symbolize health? Absolutely! Do they get harvested to ward off the common cold? Not usually.

The wonderful thing about herbs is their versatility. Lavender, for example, is easy to grow; drought tolerant; beautiful; attracts honeybees; smells wonderful; and is easy to harvest for a variety of uses, including in tea, cooking, baking, and potpourri. Lavender is known for its calming properties, and, if distilled in a tincture, is an excellent anti-bacterial disinfectant.

Some other reasons to grow herbs:

1. Herbs are great for children’s gardens because they tend to be easy to grow and are a delight to the senses.

2. Many herbs do well in containers and small spaces, as they don’t take up much space and often need less water than other annuals or perennials. For many years, the only gardens I had were herb gardens in pots on steps or front porches.

3. To the delight of gardeners with deer, rabbits, and other ravenous garden invaders, many herbs are not attractive for nibbling. In fact, sometimes they can even act as a deterrent and a “mask” for other more inviting flora.

4. Herbs often do “double duty” as culinary and medicinal herbs. If you have a kitchen garden, you may already be growing medicinal herbs: Rosemary improves memory and circulation and relieves sore throats and gums; peppermint aids digestion and treats sore throats, colds, and toothaches; parsley cures urinary tract infections and also helps to alleviate bad breath; marjoram treats tonsillitis, asthma, and bronchitis; thyme is used to treat gastrointestinal problems as well as sore throats and coughs; lemon balm is calming; basil reduces fever, lowers blood pressure, and is also an analgesic.

Sometimes you don’t even have to grow medicinal herbs – you can simply find them in your backyard or woods; those dandelions and pursane plants that are “ruining” your lawn? Think of them (or better yet, use them!) as medicinal herbs and/or delicious, nutritious greens and maybe your grass will look greener on this side (who needs a full-blown victory garden when you can just graze from your weedy lawn, right?). Worried about the stinging nettle at the edge of the garden? Harvest it – carefully! – to treat a whole slew of ailments, as well as for delicious meals like nettle soup.

With any herb, a little research may be needed to find out what part of the plant to use and how to prepare it for use in an herbal remedy. Sometimes it’s as simple as harvesting the flowers (chamomile, lavender) or leaves (lemon balm, peppermint) and making tea, other times preparation may be a bit more complex.

There are so many good books and websites about medicinal herbs, but here are a few resources that we list on the Therapeutic Landscapes Network. If you know of a great book, website, organization, or garden as resource about medicinal herbs, please share it with us! We will gladly add it. We are also looking for more examples of healthcare gardens and horticultural therapy programs that use specific plant material, including medicinal herbs. Use the comments section at the end of this post to submit suggestions, ideas, and information.

To get you started, here’s a nice article from About.com about common medicinal herbs that are easy to grow, harvest, and use.

And here are a few fairly comprehensive websites to bookmark as references:

Herbs to Herbs

Plants for a Future (Includes a 7,000 plant database for US and UK, and they have a book, too. Very impressive!)

Traditional Chinese Medicine Database System

The University of Washington Medicinal Herb Garden

And thanks to WMassHerbGarden on twitter for this recommendation: Growing 101 Herbs That Heal.

Planting the Healing Garden: Bring on the Bees!

April 4, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

This image is courtesy of sciencemuseum.org.uk

I haven’t been able to keep up with the regular blog posts lately (hm, same thing happened last spring, I wonder why?), and today is not much of an exception. I’m actually going to direct you to a great article on bumblebees and honeybees on the Fine Gardening website (“Bring the Buzzzzz Back to Your Garden”); it’s got some great information about various kinds of bees and what you can plant in your garden to attract them. And here’s another great website that I stumbled upon while looking for good bee pictures: The Science Museum’s “Bumblebees like it hot.”

As a landscape designer who specializes in restorative gardens, I have the funny experience of some clients wanting gardens that attract bees, and other clients wanting gardens that don’t. After a nasty yellowjacket incident when I was five (involving over 25 of the beasts attacking me after I accidentally stepped on their nest), I’ve struggled to master my stinging-insect phobia. I can relate to people who would be happy if the bees just stayed away. Nevertheless, I like to educate clients about the fact that honeybees and bumblebees rarely sting (something I’ve learned from my own gardening experience – I’ve been stung by many a wasp in my life, but never by a bee), and I also stress the importance of providing food and habitat for our wonderful pollinating friends who’ve been having a bit of a tough time lately (you can read about Colony Collapse Disorder on many websites and blogs, but here’s the Wikipedia article to get you started). Incidentally, beekeeping has really taken off in the past couple of years. A friend in Beacon has a great blog called Beacon Bee, and I’ve been learning a lot from her. There are even urban beekeepers; in france, they call it “concrete honey.”