Therapy Gardens
With the past 18 months being a stressful time for many of us, turning your garden into a therapy garden can give you a space where you can break away, and just enjoy the tranquil peace of the outside world. Unless someone turns on the hedge trimmers of course!
What Is A Therapy Garden?
A therapy garden has been described as an outdoor space that meets not only the physical and social needs of the individual (or family) but also the psychological and spiritual needs.
This essentially means to create a space that you can go to relax and ease your mind away from the stresses of everyday life.
They are most well known for places of multiple residence, where caregivers are present, such as in care facilities, care homes, mental health facilities and hospitals. However, there is an increase in this style of garden in people’s homes as a way of relaxing without leaving the safety of their own property.
What To Include
Therapy gardens are usually designed to engage the senses, while allowing you a space to relax and enjoy. So things to consider include:
Something to smell – include an area of fragrance. Select flowers and plants that disperse your favourite floral scents, lavender is great for this as it has a strong relaxing scent.
Something to taste – having something to taste will of course be seasonal. Including the likes of herbs or strawberries gives you something to have a nibble on while you relax.
Something bright – bright colours are more likely to catch our eye, so why not create a space where you have mostly subtle colours with one key bright feature to draw your attention.
Something to hear – two great ideas here are water features, so you can listen to the water trickle, or you have wildflowers that will attract bees for a subtle summer hum.
Something to touch – some plants are better at being handled than others, so look into something you can have a feel off, or include a nice grass patch to curl your toes into.
Where To Start
Where you start totally depends on how much you are changing in your current garden. For instance, if you currently have a patch of grass, and not much else, you can start wherever you like!
Get an idea of design before you do make a start as this can impact where you are digging old plants up, and moving things around. Depending on the size of your garden you might even want to consider sectioning off an area to call your therapy garden, rather than the whole garden.
As with any landscaping project, no matter how small, starting from scratch allows you to know exactly where everything will grow and what you will be growing. This also means that you can place things exactly where you want them, including water features, lawns, patios and of course your stunning flowers.
Therapy Gardens
While therapy gardens may have started off in care facilities, there is no reason that we can’t take them into our own gardens. Original designs all included easy access for those who were struggling with mobility, this makes them a great choice if you have family with mobility issues as they can still easily access the space, and relax once they are there.
Here at Abingdons, we offer a landscaping service that can help you with creating your new therapy garden.
For more information on any of the services that we offer from Abingdons Complete Garden Services please get in touch with a member of our friendly team today who will be happy to answer your questions. Check back to our blogs regularly for more great ideas and tips for your garden this summer.