In this rather unwarranted, divisive time, no doubt that all of us can agree on this: Plant Therapy is surely a prescription we can all ascribe to. Interacting with plants and nature is restorative ~ you can readily feel how arranging a bouquet or planting sagacious herbs or colorful, blossoming, fragrant flora lifts your spirits. In fact, the word therapy is from the Greek therapeia meaning ‘healing.’

How does your garden heal you?

And how are you healing the environment with your garden?

That’s the foremost or primary line of discussion for a Healing Nature panel discussion May 14 that I’ve been asked to participate in as part of the Atlantic Highlands Arts Council homage to Mother Nature that this beautiful hamlet by the sea does so well.

The Healing Nature talk is one of the programs amplifying the Gallery’s juried Healing Nature art show, curated and judged by Gigi ~ Gina Cioffi Loud (a former garden design client and now, dear friend ~ a familiar garden business trajectory that I am most grateful for). Click on the link above to check out the Arts Council web page and learn about Gina’s impressive art pedigree.

The panel discussion aims to revisit the Fall into Natives Garden Tour featuring eight certified National Wildlife Federation gardens ~ including ours ~ held last autumn for which Bill and I ~ and Mother ~ were thrilled to co-host at our country house there. What a delightful cohort of enthusiastic gardeners interested in how to Fall Into Natives garden designs (Link to recap review of garden tour) toured the gardens on a brilliant fall day.

For the Panel Discussion on May 14th, I’m looking forward to contributing to this important and interesting topic. And to join a terrific group of concerned and exuberant gardeners who care very much about our need to create sustainable garden habitats.

When I think about our healing garden, many elements come to mind. So even though I’ve been tasked to provide three adjectives to describe our garden, I was hard-pressed to narrow the submission. Because, like a sustainable habitat, it’s not one, or even two or three things that I can use to meaningfully describe it. Plus I’m a writer! Words are my stock and trade 😉

Nevertheless, these are my adjectives:

Pretty & Diverse
Evolving
Thoughtful & Intentional

That’s three adjectives, right?! More is more. Ha.

In the same way, Healing Gardens are just as abundant.

Healing Gardens Style Manifested Outside of Our Garden

Thinking of all the ways that gardens heal our body and our soul, a few particular Gardening-as-Therapy events and occasions sprang to mind that one might otherwise not categorize as “pure” gardening but are, all the same.

“Garden style out of the garden" refers to incorporating garden design elements into interior spaces or creating a garden-inspired look in areas outside of a traditional garden setting.

In that spirit, I want to share three examples of healing gardens even if you don’t have more than a windowsill or hanging planter.

I’ve been honored to have presented a kind of Horticultural Therapy session to a lovely, engaged group of senior women at a nearby assisted living facility, as part of my Death Doula volunteer work.

There, I guided the guests in a potting-up workshop.

I brought in my lightweight Garden Pendant flower pots that I gifted to these budding botanists, potting soil, a mix of herbs and flowering ornamental plants, tools, gloves, and watering cans ~ all in a vintage Red Flyer Wagon that I hoped would trigger nostalgic, happy memories.

The hands-on, interactive class served to bring a sense of commitment, pride, joy, and in the end, a special gift of healing from the world of plants.

Yet another off-property Healing Garden was a butterfly-infused Garden-to-Gather verrryy long Tablescape I was asked to design for a special fundraiser “Butterflies for Maddy” to raise monies for Menstrual Toxic Shock Syndrome (mTSS) Awareness ~ the very preventable battle that took this young angel’s life too soon. When I was told that Maddy’s favorite flowers are pink and that she adored blue butterflies 🦋🦋🦋 I was inspired to create the table decor to help heal the family and guests’ grief while honoring this magnificent young woman.

The garden memorial table decor offered a beautiful, healing hope to the guests and honored Maddy and her family while serving as a place for the fundraiser’s auction items.

In a much more traditional sense, my Mother’s terrace garden can be considered a healing garden because it brings her so much joy. A true Plant Parent!

Every spring, together, we choose the colors she wants for the season, pick out the plants at the nursery, pot-up the beauties and accessorize with some natural pebbles, white fairy lights, moss, and whimsical creatures.

All summer-long Mother can nurture her terrace garden which is so healing for her, while giving her pollinators a place to be. Her bees, butterflies, birds, and the occasional hummingbird, visit her garden habitat designed for a variety of nature’s plant patrons. It’s like gilding the lily. Er, the snapdragons! Garden hugs to my very own “Mother Nature.”

Healing Garden Styles Manifested In Our Garden

The collection of “garden room” compositions at our Garden State home has been a tremendous source of healing; I daresay a redemption and haven for the mind/body spirit. For us human stewards, along with the pollinators and critters that are kind enough to share their world with us.

I designed the various gardens to feature inviting places to sit and immerse ourselves in the garden and to admire the view of the bay and the Gotham skyline.

So too, employing the sensual attractions of a variety of water elements ~ whether in the bird baths or in the fountains and the shower is just so heavenly to listen to and view as pollinators refresh themselves.

Texture too, is key, along with a harmonic color theme.

When choosing a plant palette, it helps to think about working with plants that are to be grown, not just planted.

Your garden will evolve. It’s important to think long-term starting with proper siting of the plants.

And think about the siting from inside your home, too. After all, that is the view you’ll be seeing most all of the time.

I also choose a mix of ornamental and edible plants, paying attention to size and scale. We’ve loved our dwarf fruit trees bearing apricots, cherries, and peaches galore, an espaliered apple, along with blueberries and grapes.

The vegetable and herb gardens bring us and our guests homegrown healing health.

I designed garden rooms where I do my morning yoga and mediation. On the covered porch, overlooking the glorious view of the NYC Skyline and the bay, I honestly am equally mesmerized by the Shade Garden below, brimming with Ferns, Hydrangea, Hakonechloa, and native Ginger.

An outdoor shower is a much-needed relief after a long day of horticulture work. It’s an unsurpassed luxury when showering in a garden because you feel so much closer to nature…

Not to be overlooked is the healing satisfaction of composting and use of our rain barrel; knowing we’re transforming kitchen waste to create our nutrient-rich soil, further feeding us and saving rain water to return it to the gardens rather than have it run off …

I created sensuous and seasonal gardens that include water, fragrance, and soft lighting for evening delight…

I designed the garden ~ mostly native plants ~ as an artful place to elevate and celebrate a sustainable garden. I was keen to create a garden that was relatively low maintenance, and oh-so-pretty. In every season.

I am not a native purist. Not for me nor my garden design clients. I embrace using what landscape designer Donal Peel describes as Cosmopolitan Plants. Last year in Margaret Roach’s New York Times “In the Garden” column, Peel characterized Cosmopolitan Plants as “Distinguished plants from many parts of the world.”

This design concept has always suited me to a T. Diversity is key in garden design and its health.

Pollinators, like us, and the plants they help propagate, are adaptable. They come to partner equally well with Cosmopolitan Plants as well as “true” natives.

Just NO Invasives. Please.

Peel also reminds us that both natives and Cosmopolitans can be bullies so you must edit your garden. As a writer, editing comes naturally to me. I hope you too will practice garden editing.

Think of Editing as a way of implementing my “Evolving” garden adjective descriptor I was tasked to name for the panel.

Further, Peel notes that “Intervention (as in editing) IS gardening.”

Plants can heal us in many ways and to varying degrees. Plants will give back as much as we need them to.

I thank the Arts Council Organizers ~ especially Marilyn for the opportunity to talk about Healing Gardens. Marilyn is an ardent supporter of Native Plants, Sustainable Gardens, the force behind artfully educating our community and the steward for Wild About Atlantic Highlands: Gardening for Wildlife. We need more Marilyns!

The Panel Discussion will also help us to get inspired for the abundant garden season ahead and to get excited for the next Garden Tour of Atlantic Highlands in September.

I look forward to seeing you May 14, 6:30 pm at the Arts Gallery in Atlantic Highlands.

Garden Glamour is always in style. What’s your Gardening for Wildlife style?