Gardeners find their hobby addictive for diverse reasons, from a practical harvest to socializing with other gardeners in a community plot. We already know gardening can keep you fit. But could it be that gardening could keep your brain fit, alleviating severe mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, more commonly known as PTSD?
Horticultural therapy is a practice that has been around since Dr. Benjamin Rush first used it with patients with mental illnesses back in the 1800s. After World War II, the practice of gardening was used as part of the rehabilitation program for hospitalized war veterans, which got people looking at horticulture as therapy in a different light. Since then, therapeutic gardens have been gaining popularity for both veterans and civilians.
One of these therapeutic gardens can be found at the Boulder Crest Retreat in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Bluemont, Virginia. Julia Falke, who co-founded the retreat with her husband, Ken, says, “Anyone who has tried their hand at gardening has felt the difference that it can make in their life. We believe in getting veterans into gardening and it is why we built the Wallis Annenberg Heroes Garden, the nation’s second handicapped-accessible walled garden. It provides combat veterans and their families with the chance to engage in a calming and peaceful activity, and focuses them on the subject of healthy eating and nutrition. It’s one small part of what we do, but it makes a significant difference.”
Other programs, some with the help of the USDA, have flourished as well. James McCormick, founder of Veterans and Warriors to Agriculture, devotes his life to encouraging veterans to garden and farm. Veterans and Warriors to Agriculture also publicizes the food products of existing veteran farmers.
Eric Grandon, a veteran of several wars and peace missions who was struggling with PTSD, seemed an unlikely candidate for the farm life when he met McCormick. McCormick convinced him to give sorghum farming a try, and soon Grandon was farming dozens of vegetables, including eight different types of lettuce, rainbow carrots, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, green beans, zucchini, broccoli, kale, spinach, watermelons, tomatoes, peppers and squash. He farmed 1,500 pepper plants, built a greenhouse and a barn, and now raises bees as well. Grandon even received a grant from the USDA to build a high tunnel system for farming lettuce, which he provides to four county school systems.
According to “The benefits of gardening and food growing for health and wellbeing,” the proven mental health benefits of gardening include: an improved sense of community, reduction of stress and anxiety, an improvement of alertness and cognitive abilities (especially in patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease), and help hospice patients manage the stress associated with end of life diseases. Considering that chronic stress is becoming a public health crisis, we could all benefit from a little stress reduction.
“When you watch someone exercise all of their senses, especially touch and smell, you can see their whole demeanor change”, Ken Falke explains. At Boulder Crest Retreat, there are three main ways for veterans and their families to interact with the Heroes Garden, Falke says. “First, it’s a place for reflection and alone time, as well as for meditation workshops. There are also structures horticultural therapy programs, and then the 120-foot long back third of the garden has fruit and vegetable beds that feed the families staying in the main lodge. It’s for rest and reconnection.” Falke, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, believes that gardening helps with PTSD recovery because traditional therapy is typically in an “uptight environment, like an office or hospital. The garden gets people into nature and into a more relaxed, safe setting.”
