The Benefits Of A ‘Healing Garden’
The benefits of gardening, being active and taking advantage of the warm sunshine and warm summer breezes cannot be denied. When you’re visiting your aging loved ones, you should do your best to help them get outside to enjoy the summer days – making certain to keep them protected from dehydration and sunburn, of course.
Healing gardens are a trend being incorporated into many hospital and nursing home settings but you can plant one for your aging parents in their own backyard or even apartment balcony. Some of the items to consider when undertaking a healing garden project are:
- The type of plants and greenery you will include
- Walkways if there is enough space available
- A seating area
- Shade
- Installation of soothing water features; these can be elaborate or as small as a water feature purchased from a department store.
Gardener Gardening (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When you’re installing a healing garden for your aging relatives, don’t forget to take their limited mobility issues into consideration and use raised planters so they can comfortably reach the plants to weed, work the ground and water them. Researchers have long known the benefits of gardening on helping to lower blood pressure and heart rate through lowering stress. Even if your parents have never been avid gardeners, now might be the time to introduce them to the benefits of a garden. Why not plant some garden that will provide them benefits such as adding vegetable plants. There’s nothing better than to pluck a fresh vegetable from a plant that you’ve nurtured from seedling to edible treat!
Even if you don’t have the resources or yard space for all of the garden features, you can still likely interest your parents in a garden and the benefits it can provide on a smaller scale.
