Horticultural therapy from coast-to-coast Community gardens enrich lives across Canada
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BY JORDAN WHITEHOUSE
everal years ago, an elderly man was admitted to Homewood Health Centre, a mental health and addiction facility in Guelph, Ont. Diagnosed with reactive depression following the death of his wife, the former farmer was lonely, had little interest in life and was physically weak from inactivity. With encouragement, however, he attended Homewood’s horticulture program, led by horticultural therapist Mitchell Hewson. Slowly, the man began participating in a range of activities, from plant propagation to vegetable planting. He was soon sharing his experience and skills as a farmer with others. Eventually, the man left Homewood, but back home he continued gardening. He built raised containers and planters on his balcony to maintain his interest in horticulture. Hewson stayed in touch, and the man told him that gardening gave him another chance to use his skills to care for something and reconnect with life. “Horticultural therapy helped him rediscover his strengths and abilities, giving him a renewed sense of purpose and hope,” Hewson said. Hewson has a 50-year career full of stories just like this one. He was likely the first horticultural therapist to practise in Canada, and he leads a popular online horticultural therapy course, so he has witnessed the modality’s evolution up close. Initially, horticultural therapy was mainly used with the elderly and those suffering from mental illness. It still is today, but you can also find people from all walks of life benefitting from horticultural therapy in a wide variety of settings, including health care centres, correctional facilities, farming communities and community gardens.
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The Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association distinguishes between two types of plant-based therapy. Horticultural therapy is a goal-oriented and formal practice administered by trained therapists who use plants, horticultural activities and the garden landscape to promote well-being. Therapeutic horticulture, on the other hand, isn’t necessarily goal-oriented, but still uses plants and plantrelated activities to promote health and wellness. Perhaps what ties these different types of therapy together, in all of these different settings, is what Hewson says has made the practice successful: its client-centred approach. In other words, horticultural therapy is often guided and structured by trained professionals, and it encourages people to help themselves.
Well-being Garden
About 35 km northeast of Sarnia, Ont., on the shores of Lake Huron, sits Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, a community of about 2,000 people. One of the main streets on the reserve is Indian Lane, and if you were to drive down it and take a peek between the health centre, the seniors’ facility and the school, you might spot Ruth Anne Cook among the plants of a bursting community garden. In 2020, the educator and horticultural therapist was asked to help develop a garden there, and with support from members of the community, she set to work. At first, it was just a three-quarter-acre grassy area, but soon they transformed it into several plots. One area is for white corn, another is for medicinal plants and herbs, and a third has 24 raised boxes filled with vegetables. In the centre of the garden
