By Michelle Domocol @inflourish_
Back to Inflourish: Cebu Blog
This March I’d like to share some garden designs that served as venues for different therapies. Some would classify this use of greenery and vegetation as horticultural therapy. Maybe these designs can inspire you to use beautiful, natural settings or backyard gardens to nurture your health goals and needs.
The therapy gardens in this article focused on supplementing hospital services. I envisioned a network of beautiful gardens designed for patient treatment and recovery. As part of a hospital’s holistic healthcare ministry, the garden-based therapy programs
would support oncology, neuro-psychiatry, physical therapy, and rehabilitation medicine. The new gardens could also complement or serve as more spaces comprehensive counseling and hospice programs. Garden-based activities would facilitate the patient’s personal treatment goals. And depending on their condition, patients receive opportunities to participate in activities to address physical, cognitive, affective, psychomotor, and psychosocial functioning. In my particular project, the hospital’s Therapy Park programs supported novel, individualized treatment options that aimed to improve recovery rates, increase patient satisfaction, and upgrade standard care in the Psychiatric, Physical Therapy, Rehabilitation, Oncology, and Hospice Care departments.
Be Open. Tailor these ideas to less specialized health goals like daily relaxation after work. Focus on simple landscapes like a medicinal tea garden, backyard prayer space, outdoor meditation nook, or mini exercise patio.
Patient Therapy Garden
In this example, the horticultural therapy garden would be restricted to patients and their medical advisers and therapists. The features are wide wheelchair-accessible paths. Shade trees are behind cushioned seating for patient comfort.
The garden also features wheelchair-accessible activity tables and elevated raised beds. The landscape could be adorned with colorful flowers, culturally–significant plants, beautiful flowering shrubs, and hypoallergenic greenery.
This type of garden could be a venue for a program like:
“Weekly Gardening with Acute Psychiatric Patients” – Patients participate in group horticultural activities while they build coping skills. The goals may be to improve social skills and creative self-expression. Patients may foster self-efficacy, confidence, and self-esteem.
Meditation & Prayer Gardens
In this second example, meditation gardens would be outside hospital chapels. This design features an outdoor relaxation room. The area would be equipped with cushioned, recliner furniture while lush greenery and a calming pond elicit a serene ambiance.
This type of garden could be a venue for a program like:
“Restore & Reflect with Cancer Patients” – Oncology patients learn garden-based meditation and relaxation. They practice breathing techniques to manage anxiety, feelings of isolation, and emotional distress. These are common conditions associated with a new cancer diagnosis and cancer therapies.
A) Calming pond with gabi varieties and other hardy semi-aquatic species next to altar and lily groundcover; B) Large ferns and irises with trellised vines like nito, camote, buyo, philodendron, passionfruit, or gabi-gabi; C) Bed of fragrant types like lemongrass and citronella; D) Comfortable recliner benches, ottomans, and outdoor rug
Gathering Spaces in Therapy Park
Other sections of the hospital’s landscape would have open access to the public or patients’ visitors on select days. When restricted access is required for patients’ therapies, the garden could be closed to the public. This example features lawns for Physical Therapy activities, wheelchair-accessible raised beds, ergonomic elevated planters, wide paths, and ramps.
This type of garden could be a venue for programs like:
• “Garden Exercise for Physical Therapy (PT)” – Patients learn specialized outdoor physical therapy (PT) techniques and gardening skills to support their standard PT program. The customized activities could increase muscle activity, increase joint flexibility, increase exercise frequency, increase strength and stamina, improve motor skills, and increase circulation.
• “Garden Journaling for Talk Therapy/ Group Counseling Patients“- Clients in mental health, substance abuse, grief, and family counseling programs could participate in semi-structured nature journaling activities. During these activities, patients could increase self-expression, decrease stress, and write about coping skills taught in indoor counseling sessions.
I hope you find some workable ideas for your personal health-focused garden. Who knows? Maybe connections to nature and greenery may support your holistic health journey.
Feel free to contact ask.inflourish@gmail.com for design or gardening questions.
If you need more inspiration, here are more examples of gardens focused on health and medicinal plants:
Medicinal and Therapeutic Gardens
Towering Pergolas in Children’s Gardens
