Horticultural Therapy Services: Chicago Botanic Garden
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For more information, Please see websites below:
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Organic Edible Schoolyards & Gardening with Children =
http://scribd.com/doc/239851214 ~
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Double Food Production from your School Garden with Organic Tech =
http://scribd.com/doc/239851079 ~
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Free School Gardening Art Posters =
http://scribd.com/doc/239851159 ~
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Increase Food Production with Companion Planting in your School Garden =
http://scribd.com/doc/239851159 ~
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Healthy Foods Dramatically Improves Student Academic Success =
http://scribd.com/doc/239851348 ~
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City Chickens for your Organic School Garden =
http://scribd.com/doc/239850440 ~
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Simple Square Foot Gardening for Schools - Teacher Guide =
http://scribd.com/doc/239851110 ~
2. Plants help provide
healing,
well-being,
physical growth,
and
emotional strength.
3. What Is
Horticultural
Therapy?
Horticultural therapy is the use of professionally directed plant, gardening,
and nature activities for the purpose of restoring the physical and mental
health of its participants.
Have you noticed how a walk in the forest or being around plants makes
you feel better, or how happy you are when you pick the season’s first
vine-ripe tomato? How about when you share a favorite perennial with
a friend or see someone admiring your garden?
There is a special connection between people and plants that increases
our sense of well-being. Imagine the individuals served by your agency
sharing in this feeling while engaged in plant and gardening activities as
part of their therapy—or just for fun.
Horticultural therapy capitalizes on the many special benefits of using
plants to help people grow.
Horticultural therapy maintains or improves physical health by providing
unlimited opportunities for exercising, increasing flexibility, improving
coordination and balance, and building physical strength. Multiple studies
have demonstrated that physiological indicators such as respiration, pulse,
and blood pressure respond positively to plants.
Horticultural therapy elicits positive psychological and emotional responses
as well by relieving stress, providing a nonthreatening atmosphere,
alleviating depression, and helping people connect with nature. Research
studies confirm these and many other psychosocial benefits when
people interact with plants and nature.
www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy 5
4. The Buehler
Enabling Garden
The Buehler Enabling Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden is a world-class
model promoting garden design, tools, equipment, and techniques that
engage people of all abilities in gardening. Since its beginning, the Garden’s
Horticultural Therapy Services has contracted with more than 200 health
and human service agencies. These include the following:
Allendale Association
Blair Early Childhood Development Center
Chicago Association of Retarded Citizens
Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind
Children’s Memorial Hospital
El Valor
Englewood Hospital
Hines and Jesse Brown VA Hospitals
HUD Senior Housing
Illinois Children’s School
Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital
Mather LifeWays
Northshore University Health System
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Presbyterian Homes
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital
The Garden is a not-for-profit public garden located 25 miles north of
Chicago in Glencoe, Illinois. A variety of display gardens, as well as education
and research programs, are featured on the 385-acre site. Since its inception
in 1972, the Garden has grown in prominence and expertise in community
education, youth and family programs, adult education, and professional
credentialing. Moreover, the Garden is known worldwide for its research,
training, and leading-edge solutions in plant conservation science.
The Garden partners with Northwestern University in offering a master’s
and doctoral program in plant conservation science.
The expertise gained by Garden horticultural therapists serving such
diverse audiences makes the contract services program uniquely qualified
to establish programming at your agency.
www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy 7
5. The Garden’s
Horticultural Therapy
Services Program
Since 1977, the Garden’s Horticultural Therapy Services Program
has supported the establishment of horticultural therapy programs at
healthcare and human service agencies serving schools, VA hospitals, and
people with disabilities and older adults in the Chicago region. The program
serves as a primary regional, national, and international resource for
information while offering a full range of professional training opportunities.
Also available are consulting services in barrier-free greenhouse and
enabling garden design, sensory landscaping, and horticultural therapy
program planning.
Now that the Chicago Botanic Garden
has shown me how to lead gardening
activities, I can do it on my own with
the residents.
—Janet Winograd, Activity Coordinator, Village at Victory Lakes
www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy 9
6. Contract Options
The Chicago Botanic Garden offers the following 45-minute session
options to a maximum of 15 participants. All materials are included.
OPTION I – Outdoor Gardening Program
• 20 weeks (20 sessions, 10 staffed by the Garden)
• Approximately May 15 – September 25
• Contract must be signed by March 1
• Activities with program participants begin with
outdoor garden planting approximately May 15
• Cost covers consumable materials (soil, pots, plants, etc.)
for 15 participants per session, and outdoor garden
installation (labor and materials)
OPTION II – Indoor Gardening Program
• Fall and winter program blocks of 20 weeks
(20 sessions, 10 staffed by the Garden)
• Approximately October 20 – December 19,
then continuing January 10 – April 15
• Contract must be signed by September 15
• Cost covers consumable materials (soil, pots, plants, etc.)
and craft supplies for 15 participants per session, plus indoor
plant light cart and equipment
OPTION III – Year-Round Gardening Program (Outdoor and Indoor)
• Combines Options I and II above
• 40 sessions (40 sessions, 20 staffed by the Garden)
• Contract must be signed by March 1
(begins in May) or September 15 (begins in October)
• Cost covers consumable materials (soil, pots, plants, etc.)
and craft supplies for 15 participants per session, indoor plant
light cart and equipment, and outdoor garden installation
Horticultural Therapy Services
Horticultural Therapy Contract Services
Horticultural Therapy Contract Services, with 30 years of programming
experience, is uniquely prepared to train your staff to sustain a program,
or Garden staff can assume total program responsibility as an outsource
service. This program uses the general popularity of plants and gardening
to engage participants in meaningful activity. Once individuals are involved,
the therapeutic benefits of working with plants to restore physical and
mental health quickly become evident.
Horticultural Therapy Contract Services supplies all materials necessary
for weekly activity sessions that are therapeutically grounded and
adaptable to a wide range of functional and cognitive abilities. Session
leadership generally rotates on alternate weeks between Garden staff,
horticultural therapists/volunteers, and your agency staff/volunteers.
Activities, which may vary as new ideas are tested and incorporated
into the program, may include the following:
• Vegetable, Herb, and Flower Gardening
• Indoor Plant Maintenance and Care
• Fresh or Dried Flower Arranging
• Creating Holiday Decorations
• Herbal Crafts
• Forcing Flowering Bulbs
Register today.
For more information about this program and to register, visit
www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy or call (847) 835-8250.
10 www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy 11
7. Horticultural Therapy Services
Gardening for Life Enrichment Yearlong Program
Activities to Cultivate Health and Well-Being
The Garden offers a therapeutically grounded series of engaging plant and
natural craft activities, one activity offered per month throughout the year.
Primarily presented on your site with the Garden supplying all necessary
tools, during the summer months you may bring your group to the specially
designed, award-winning Buehler Enabling Garden.
Gardening for Life Enrichment features the most popular of our therapeutic
programs, tested by the Garden throughout the last two decades and
drawing on extensive experience working with special-needs populations
in a variety of settings.
Register today.
For more information about this program and to register, visit
www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy or call (847) 835-8250.
Who is responsible for
bringing you to us?
I want to thank them for this
wonderful new program.
—Resident of Mather Place at the Georgian
www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy 13
8. Horticultural Therapy Services
Gardening for Life Enrichment Daily Program
Where People of all Abilities Find Inspiration in Nature
Whatever their needs, visitors to the award-winning Buehler Enabling
Garden will be comfortable amid this inspiring, beautiful setting for life
enrichment activities and programs. Led by horticultural therapists, 45- to
60-minute sessions include plant propagation, herb harvesting, fresh or
dried flower arranging, and much more. Therapists draw from the Buehler
Enabling Garden’s stunning colors, textures, sights, sounds, and smells as
they assist visitors of all abilities. Accommodations in this safe, comfortable,
barrier-free venue include bathrooms and nearby drinking fountains.
The Garden’s horticultural therapy staff has designed a variety of fun, enjoyable
activities that encourage socialization and support therapeutic objectives
through its Scents and Senses activities, which include the following:
• Plant Propagation
• Herb Harvesting
• Fresh or Dried Flower Arranging
• Birdseed Making
• Sensory Tour
Preregistration is required; includes up to 15 participants, plus any
staff required by group, and all materials. Programs are outdoors, mid-May
through mid-October. Some activities are weather- and season-dependent.
Register today.
For more information about this program and to register, visit
www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy or call (847) 835-8250.
Horticultural Therapy Services are generously supported by an endowment
created by the Buehler Family Foundation and a grant from the Grant
Healthcare Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Albers/Kuhn
Family Foundation, Blowitz-Ridgeway Foundation, the Edmond and
Alice Opler Foundation, as well as endowments created by the
Julien H. and Bertha M. Collins Fund, Kenilworth Garden Club,
and the Estate of Florentz Rantz.
www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy 15
9. Nonprofit
Organization
U.S. Postage PAID
Northbrook, IL
Permit No. 1568
One of the treasures of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Horticultural Therapy Services
The award-winning Buehler Enabling Garden is made possible
by the generous support of the Buehler Family Foundation.
Register today.
For more information about this program and to register, visit
www.chicagobotanic.org/therapy or call (847) 835-8250.