Nature Notes The Healing Nature of Humor and Whimsy in Children’s Outdoor Spaces

By Amy Wagenfeld, PhD, OTR/L, SCEM, EDAC, FAOTA

I am excited to spend this column sharing a wonderful diversion and ‘Aha!’ moment I recently enjoyed at the northwest flower festival in Seattle. Attending the festival gave me the opportunity to reinforce my unremitting belief in how important it is for everyone to experience the therapeutic value of nature, inside or outside.

It also provided me, as I wear my occupational therapy and therapeutic design hat, the inspiration to consider how refreshing it can be for people of all abilities to infuse whimsy and humor into nature. A moment of levity can be an incredibly powerful tool to enable us to refocus our thoughts, smile, and giggle. As you will see in the sweet flower packets ‘planted’ throughout this column, nature dances happier when there is something to laugh and talk about. So, I invite you to sit back and please ‘armchair’ attend the festival with me, and hopefully have a laugh or two!

It was a day that felt like sunshine and spring, and I literally experienced the restorative nature of the abundance of lush greenery as it permeated my body. It was yummy! I spent this glorious, what I am calling “Mini Garden Getaway Day,” attending seminars and looking at the garden exhibits. I even bought some seeds for my tabletop hydroponic garden, which germinated in just three short days!

I look forward to a “bumper crop” of lettuces and maybe some basil in the not-too-distant future.

The seminars I attended were lovely. One was called Nature as Nurture: Can Gardens Heal the World? It was facilitated by garden designer Arit Anderson, whose name some of you may recognize from her appearances on the BBC show Gardeners’ World and the BBC One show Garden Rescue. As you all know, I am a firm believer that, yes, gardens CAN heal the world.

After attending Arit’s inspiring talk, I ventured into the great hall to absorb the garden exhibits. It was so much to take in through my five basic senses but try I did. As I was wandering through the gardens, I came up with an idea related to gardens healing the world. My thought was that whimsy and humor might also have a place in healing.

True to form, after returning home, I went straight to my university library website to do a little literature search and learned there is a positive relationship between a well-developed sense of humor and coping ability.

Whimsical elements add a sense of personal touch to any outdoor space, and the concept of cuteness enhances healing through the mechanism of fascination (Chou et al., 2022; Johnson & Uwex, 2019; Saper, 1990). This is a long-winded way of saying I decided to look at the garden exhibits not just with nature in mind but also through a humorous, cute, and whimsical lens to see what I could uncover.

Wow, this was a fun approach! It was enjoyable and gave me some ideas of how my design work could dive even deeper into including humor and whimsy in the most unexpected ways in therapeutic and children’s gardens. With that said, I leave the written word and invite you to come on my little humorous photo journey through the 2023 Northwest Flower Festival. I hope some of these sweet ideas pictured throughout this article may inspire you and find their way into your children’s outdoor spaces so that everyone can laugh a bit and feel that much happier!

References

Chou, H. Y., Chu, X. Y., & Chen, T. C. (2022). The healing effect of cute elements. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 56(2), 565-596. https://doi. org/10.1111/joca.12414

Johnson, L., & Uwex, D. C. (2019). Container Gardening. Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bruce-Dunn-4/publication/339211029_Container_Gardening/links/5e44284ba6fdccd9659f8ff2/Container-Gardening.pdf

Saper, B. (1990). The therapeutic use of humor for psychiatric disturbances of adolescents and adults. Psychiatric Quarterly, 61, 261-272. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064866

Amy Wagenfeld, PhD, OTR/L, SCEM, EDAC, FAOTA, is Principal of Amy Wagenfeld | Design and Lecturer in the Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Doctoral Program at Boston University. She is a Fellow of the American Occupational Therapy Association and the Center for Health Systems and Design at Texas A&M University and holds evidencebased design accreditation and certification (EDAC) through the Center for Health Design, specialty certification in environmental modifications (SCEM) through the American Occupational Therapy Association, and certification in healthcare garden design through the Chicago Botanical Garden. Amy presents and publishes widely on topics relating to access to nature and is co-author of the award-winning book Therapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces published by Timber Press. When not designing gardens, researching, or developing garden and nature programs, Amy can be found happily digging in the dirt.

Website: www.amywagenfelddesign.com Blog: http://workjournal.org/nurture-through-nature