Horticultural Therapy

Lesson Structure

There are 9 lessons in this course:

1. Scope and Nature of Horticultural Therapy
   • Why Horticultural Therapy?
   • Who uses Horticultural Therapy?
   • Where can we use Horticultural Therapy Programs?
   • What are the Benefits of Using Horticultural Therapy
   • General Benefits
   • Physical Benefits
   • Psychological Benefits
   • What do you need to be a Horticultural Therapist?
   • Typical Jobs or Career Paths
   • Liability
2. Understanding Disabilities and Communicating with people with disabilities - Communication, Teaching and Counselling Skills
   • The significance of communication skills to interacting with clients in a horticultural therapy situation
   • What are Intellectual disabilities/ intellectually challenged/ learning?
   • What are mental illnesses /mental health issues/ mental disorders?
   • What is Communication?
   • Effective Communication Skills
   • Self-Awareness
   • Self-Esteem
   • Listening
   • Teaching Skills
   • Learning Principles - What is Learning?
   • Teaching Strategies
   • Teaching Models
   • Recognising Learner’s Needs
   • Writing a Program
   • Counselling Skills
3. Risk Management - Hygiene for vulnerable people; what extra risks are to be considered in a therapy situation - chemical, physical
   • Identifying potential risks to participants within a horticultural therapy program
   • Developing risk minimisation procedures
   • Risk Management for Vulnerable People
   • Workplace Health and Safety Issues
   • Identifying Hazards
   • Assessing sites and operations for risk
   • Conducting a Safety Audit
   • Risk Control Methods
   • Safety Precautions for a Horticultural Therapy Program
   • Manual Lifting
   • Rules for Using Tools
   • Personal Protective Equipment
4. Accessibility and Activities for people with Mobility issues
   • Determine solutions to improve accessibility for disabled people in horticultural situations
   • Ensuring that horticultural therapy is offered in a way that is accessible to clients and their particular needs
   • Help With Manual Tasks
   • Examples of Adaptations in Tools and Equipment
   • Physical Support
   • Understanding Ergonomics
   • Working with other Professionals
   • Protective Gear
5. Enabling the Disabled - with restricted motor skills
   • Modify horticultural practices to be suitable for disabled people
   • Enabling Gardening Activities
   • Gardening in Raised Beds
   • Staged Therapies
   • Horticultural Therapy for Mental Disorders
   • Effectiveness of Horticultural Activities
6. Producing Things – Vegetables, Propagation, Fruit, Herbs
   • The Garden - A Growing Place
   • Planning the Crop
   • What to Grow?
   • Planning the Cropping Program
   • Crop Rotation
   • No-Dig Techniques
   • Propagation
   • Sowing and Transplanting Guide
   • Transplanting Seedlings
   • Crowns, Offsets and Tubers
   • Cold Frames
   • Fruit
   • Herbs
   • Propagating Herbs
   • Culinary Herbs Directory
7. Growing in Containers -Vertical gardens, pots, Hydroponics
   • Growing Plants in Containers
   • Problems that can occur with Pots
   • Growing Fruit Trees in a Container
   • Growing Strawberries in Containers
   • Growing Vegetables in Containers
   • Vertical gardens
   • Hydroponics
   • A Simple Hydroponic System
8. Creating a Therapeutic Garden
   • Learn to create gardens that are appropriate for horticultural therapy situations
   • Creating a Therapeutic Garden
   • Consulting with other Professionals
   • Garden Retreats for Rest and Recuperation
   • Sensory Gardens
   • Some popular Plants for a therapeutic garden
   • Landscape Principles
   • Design Elements
   • Plants to Avoid or to use under Certain Conditions
9. Generating Income
   • Explore ways that horticultural therapy can become a partial or fully funded activity by generating income
   • Working with Others
   • Work Hours & Pay
   • Sheltered Workshops
   • Therapeutic Farms
   • Small Business Opportunities for Disabled People
   • Certification & Registration

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF USING HORTICULTURAL THERAPY?

There are many benefits to be gained from horticultural therapy. These benefits are both physical and psychological. 

General Benefits

People of any age can participate in horticultural therapy.

The horticultural therapist can individualise the work they do with a person, according to their abilities, so activities in horticultural therapy should be accessible for all.

For example, work areas can be made more accessible for people who have difficulties with their back or bending, so that they do not have to bend over work areas. Work areas can be lowered so people in wheelchairs can use them. They can also be lowered so that children can work on benches and so on. 

The location where horticultural therapy is carried out can also be individualised. For example, the area could be controlled so that children or vulnerable adults do not have access to dangerous plants or put plants in their mouths. Gardens can be made accessible for people with wheelchairs, mobility problems, impaired visions, and more.

Physical Benefits

Horticultural therapy can help people to:

•  Improve their fine motor skills. We have fine and gross motor skills. Gross motor skills involve our larger muscle groups, such as when we dig, run or jump. Fine motor skills involve the use of our smaller bones and muscles, as we would in handling secateurs, sowing seeds, writing and so on.
  
  
•  Increase muscular strength and muscle tone – being involved in gardening can help a person to increase their muscular strength. Even if they are not able to use some of their muscles, it can increase their muscle strength and tone in other areas, such as their arms, shoulders etc.
  
  
•  Increase range of motion – Having to move around, dig, prune, sowing and so on can help increase the range of motion a person has.
  
  
•  Improve coordination and balance – Being involved in gardening and horticultural therapy can help a person to improve their coordination and balance. Imagine digging, this requires the use of arms and legs, so requires a good range of coordination and balance. If a person cannot use their legs or arms, then the limbs that they do use will require increased strength and tone and also balance and coordination. 
  
  Therefore, horticultural therapy can increase a person’s physical health. 
  
  

Psychological Benefits

Horticultural therapy also has psychological benefits:

• It can help increase a person’s self esteem. For example, a person who does not feel they are good at things involvement in gardening and horticulture can increase self esteem.
  
  
• It can help increase their independence – It can help a person to learn new tasks, to work on their own, to learn more about plants and gardening. It can also help with their independence if they are able to transfer these skills to other environments and their own home. For example, growing plants and vegetables in their own home. 

• It can also increase the observation skills a person uses. They have to become aware of how plants grow, how seeds should be planted and so on.
  
  
• Horticultural therapy can also allow a person to make choices. It can help people feel control over their lives and empower them to make choices demonstrate independence.
  
  
• Horticultural therapy can increase a person’s problem solving skills – when to plant certain crops, how, how deep, what type of soil, what do they do in less than ideal situations and so on? It can also help them to consider more about their own abilities. People can show great initiative. What if they find digging hard? Or planting seeds hard? The person and the horticultural therapist can look at ways in which they can become more involved, so aiding their problem solving skills also.
  
  
•  It can also increase a person’s creativity, help them to think of how they do things, how they plant a garden, where is the best place to plant a particular flower, what would look best and so on.
  
  
• Gardening and horticulture can also be a place where a person can let out their emotions or stress or anger.   Exercise can be a good release of anger and emotion and there is obviously exercise involved in gardening. Also, thinking about the plants and soil and what you are doing can be a good distraction from a stressful situation.
  
  
• Horticultural therapy can also have social benefits, allowing the person to interact socially with others, which can also increase their self esteem, social skills and speech and language skills.
  
  
•  By showing a commitment to living things, a person is taking responsibility for that work, that garden and also to working with others as part of a team or group.
  
  
•  It can also help a person to deal with success and failure. A person may have many failures in their life, but gardening can help them to find ways to overcome failures. Because a plant does not flower one year or a vegetable crop does not grow as well as planned, this can be used to help the person to look at what they did (problem solving again) and how things could be improved. Was it the wrong soil? The wrong location? Was the weather too cold for the plants to survive? What could they do about that?
  
  
•  It enables a person to commune with nature and to feel the benefits of doing so.
  
  
•  It also allows the person to be inspired by others, to learn more about nature and their environment. 

How Can This Course Help Me?

Horticulture therapy is a relatively new area of work and study. However, it is one which is set to blossom. The benefits of horticulture therapy can be seen in different populations from those rehabilitating from surgery, to prison inmates, to people with mental health disorders. Horticulture therapy provides a means of helping people develop social skills, improve physical mobility, and regain confidence. It is slowly but surely becoming more widely recognised as an efficacious form of therapy.

This course will be of particular interest to people wishing to get involved in either the practical side of therapeutic garden design or in delivering therapy programs. It is suited to people working in:

• Horticulture therapy
• Landscape gardening
• Garden design
• Health Industries
• Psychotherapy & counselling
• Caring roles
• Teachers