Garden therapy is not just simple gardening, as many might think. "It is a targeted healing method using being in nature, gardening and working with plants and natural resources to promote physical and mental health," says Ing. Zuzana Galle, DiS from the Centre of Medicinal Plants at the Faculty of Medicine of Masaryk University, co-founder of the Association of Garden Therapy, who has been working with this method for a long time with clients on the autism spectrum. "I also have personal experience in recovering from burnout," she adds. You can find out more about garden therapy at the 62nd exhibition of the Centre for Medicinal Plants of the Faculty of Medicine, which will be open from 13 June to 7 July in the premises at Údolní 74 in Brno.
What are the benefits of garden therapy?
It activates and stimulates the senses, improves motor skills, concentration, helps with mental problems, burnout, addictions and psychiatric illnesses. It reduces the manifestations of aggression, it works in the treatment of various long-term diseases or recovery after injuries. It supports individuals' communication and social skills and promotes a sense of belonging.
For whom are garden therapy activities useful?
There are a range of options and activities suitable for children, adults and the elderly. Its therapeutic effects are also felt by otherwise healthy people when overworked or stressed. Because garden therapy can take place both outdoors and indoors, we can also help people who are indoors or bedridden for long periods of time and cannot get into the garden.
You are one of the founders of the Garden Therapy Association. When and how did you come up with the idea of joining forces and founding the society?
I have known about the positive effects of being in nature since I was young - I went to various events in nature with people with disabilities and saw with my own eyes how beneficial it is for them. I was very lucky that I got to Lipka (Brno environmental education organization - editor's note) at the right time, where my colleagues had long experience with garden pedagogy and it is quite a short step from there to garden therapy. I had the opportunity to be at the beginning of meeting people interested in garden therapy, introducing and trying it in different facilities and with different types of clients. The founding of the Garden Therapy Association in 2019 was a natural culmination of previous activities, it was also meant to be the beginning of the professionalization of the method.
Did you have a source of inspiration?
References to a similar treatment procedure can be traced deep into the past - it was used in ancient Egypt, spoken of by Hippocrates and Galen. The modern history of garden therapy began to be written at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the USA. As early as 1768, Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry, wrote that "digging in the earth" was a cure. In 1880, Thomas Kirkbride, the founder of what is now the American Psychiatric Association, recognised gardening as beneficial to health, and in 1917 the first training in elements of gardening for nursing staff took place in a hospital. Garden therapy became much more widespread after the world wars as part of occupational therapy. In 1955 it became a separate field of study and in 1973 the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA) was founded. A scientific journal, the Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture, began publication. Western Europe and Asia were definitely not left behind, and garden therapy became a scientific field (almost) all over the world. In our country we still have a lot of work to do in this respect.
Back to the Czech Republic: what is your experience and feedback from clients so far?
What I like most about garden therapy is the wide range of its application - not only in terms of diagnoses but also in terms of the personality types of the individual participants. You can really "work in the garden" with someone, just be in the garden with someone, just talk about the garden and nature with someone and share their memories. All these forms help. I have an experience with a senior citizen who didn't talk to anyone but talked over herbs and reminisced about his youth. I have experience of a lady who forgot that she was "actually bad on her feet" and happily carried full jugs of water. I have known people with severe anxiety for whom being in the garden - a sheltered place - has helped enormously to gain a sense of security and inner peace. I know a young man whose work in the garden brought him back to normal life after a huge slump in his life. And among other things, I have personal experience of how beneficial contact with nature can be when burnt out. With garden therapy, you can teach a client many things - such as orientation on a map and in time, communication with new people, self-care and other skills.
And what does the professional public have to say about garden therapy?
Most clients are enthusiastic. It is all the sadder that its status in our country is still very unclear. I should rather talk about activities with elements of garden therapy than about garden therapy itself, because as a therapeutic therapy, garden therapy is not approved in our country. Despite this, it is used a lot, especially in social work, and several medical institutions are already proudly claiming it. It is also one of the aims of the Garden Therapy Association to give it a dignified place.
What exactly can visitors to the exhibition at the Centre of Medicinal Plants look forward to?
We managed to get an outdoor exhibition on garden therapy and therapeutic gardens, which was created within the Therapeutic Gardens project in cooperation with organisations from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia and Hungary. The five panels provide visitors with basic information and the possibility of using gardens for garden therapy. There will also be demonstrations of garden therapy activities at each panel. In the building visitors will then have the opportunity to learn about the possibilities of using the method for different user groups. The exhibition is co-organised by the Garden Therapy Association, so visitors will also learn about the Association and its founding members.
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At the beginning of November, six graduates of the Faculty of Medicine received the Masaryk University Vice-Rector's Award for Excellence in Doctoral Studies.
