The Healing Garden

Herb gardens bring us deep into the heart of our medicine: when we step inside, their beauty and healing literally surround us. Blankespoor shows how to design a herb garden, and organically grow some of the most healing plants on the planet. Detailed herbal profiles, and clear instructions on transforming your garden harvests into botanical medicine and health-giving foods are also covered. -- adapted from back cover

Although the healing qualities of nature have been recognized and relied on for centuries as a valuable part of convalescence, recent history has seen nature's therapeutic role virtually eclipsed by the technological dominance of modern medicine. As the twentieth century comes to a close and the medical community reacknowledges the importance of the environment to recovery, the healing garden is emerging as a supplement to drug- or technology-based treatments. Healing Gardens celebrates this renewed interest in nature as a catalyst for healing and renewal by examining the different therapeutic benefits of healing gardens and offering essential design guidance from experts in the field. Unique and comprehensive, Healing Gardens provides up-to-date coverage of research findings, relevant design principles and approaches, and best practice examples of different types of healing gardens. It begins by exploring what current research reveals about the connection between nature, human stress reduction, and medical outcomes. It then presents case studies and design guidelines for outdoor spaces in medical settings that include general, psychiatric, and children's hospitals as well as hospices, nursing homes, and Alzheimer's facilities. Historical information, literature reviews, and studies on use are included for each type of outdoor space covered, offering important insights into what works in healing gardens-and what doesn't. Generously supplemented with photographs, site plans, anecdotes, and more, Healing Gardens is an invaluable practical guide for landscape architects and others involved in creating and maintaining medical facilities, and an extremely useful reference for those responsible for patient care. A unique and comprehensive look at the therapeutic effects and design of healing gardens For more and more people, the shortest road to recovery is the one that leads through a healing garden. Combining up-to-date information on the therapeutic benefits of healing gardens with practical design guidance from leading experts in the field, Healing Gardens is an important resource for landscape architects and others working in this emerging area. With the help of site plans, photographs, and more, it presents design guidelines and case studies for outdoor spaces in a range of medical settings, including: * Acute care general hospitals. * Psychiatric hospitals. * Children's hospitals. * Nursing homes. * Alzheimer's facilities. * Hospices.

In The Healing Garden, Deb Soule, founder of Avena Botanicals, offers an inspiring guide to herb gardening and crafting herbal remedies that promote wellness of spirit and body. Soule combines her passion for plants gardens, and healing with her extensive experience working with medicinal herbs, flowers, roots, and berries. Her practical advice addresses each aspect of fostering a garden filled with helpful, healing plants: biodynamic gardening practices; gathering plants and setting up a drying room; and creating herbal teas, decoctions, tinctures, syrups, tonics, vinegars, essences, and more. A chapter outlining eighteen medicinal herbs provides detailed information on their cultivation and healing properties. Molly Haley's colorful photography showcases Avena Botanicals' lush herb gardens in all seasons. The Healing Garden is grounded in respect for the interconnectedness of all living beings and is an eloquent plea for spiritual awareness and the wholeness of individuals, communities, and our planet.

This comprehensive and authoritative guide offers an evidence-based overview of healing gardens and therapeutic landscapes from planning to post-occupancy evaluation. It provides general guidelines for designers and other stakeholders in a variety of projects, as well as patient-specific guidelines covering twelve categories ranging from burn patients, psychiatric patients, to hospice and Alzheimer's patients, among others. Sections on participatory design and funding offer valuable guidance to the entire team, not just designers, while a planting and maintenance chapter gives critical information to ensure that safety, longevity, and budgetary concerns are addressed.

Restorative gardens for the sick, which were a vital part of the healing process from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century, provided ordered and beautiful settings in which patients could begin to heal, both physically and mentally. In this engaging book, a landscape architect, a physician, and a historian examine the history and role of restorative gardens to show why it is important to again integrate nature into the institutional--and largely factorylike--settings of modern health care facilities. In this unique book, Nancy Gerlach-Spriggs, Dr. Richard Enoch Kaufman, and Sam Bass Warner, Jr., unfold their argument by presenting the history of restorative gardens and studies of six American health care centers that cherish the role of their gardens in the therapeutic process. These institutions are examined in detail: community hospitals in Wausau, Wisconsin, and Monterey, California; a full-care mental institution in Philadelphia; a nursing home in Queens; a facility for rehabilitative medicine in New York City; and a hospice in Houston. In their comprehensive review the authors suggest that contemporary scientific understanding clearly recognizes the beneficial physiological effects of garden environments on patients’ well-being. The book ends with a plea to make gardens--rather than the shopping mall atria so often seen in newly renovated hospitals--a vital part of the medical milieu.

With our increasingly busy and stressful lifestyles, more and more of us are discovering the joys of gardening as a means of getting in touch with the natural world. As an antidote to the hectic pace of modern living, there is no better way to wind down -- gardening soothes the mind, gently exercises the body and provides an outlet for all our creative impulses.

Winner of the 2016 IPPY Award Gold Medal for Home & Garden 40 down-to-earth ideas for inspired garden crafts, including containers, handmade gifts, outdoor lighting, holiday decorations, and more. Blending the pleasures of gardening with the joys of crafting, Garden Made showcases over forty projects to adorn your garden, beautify your home, or give as gifts. Following the natural cycle of the garden in all its seasons—yes, even winter!—these garden-inspired projects, made by hand and finished with finesse, are the perfect way to express your love of the garden in fresh ways. With full step-by-step instructions, as well as gardening tips and advice, Garden Made will inspire seasoned and novice gardeners, and everyone in between.

“For those who believe in the healing power of nature, or those who are interested in the history of therapeutic garden design and philosophies, Therapeutic Gardens is a great resource and a fascinating book.” —NYBG’s Plant Talk In Therapeutic Gardens, landscape architect Daniel Winterbottom and occupational therapist Amy Wagenfeld present an innovative approach that translates therapeutic design principles into practice. This comprehensive book uses examples from around the world to demonstrate how healing spaces can be designed to support learning, movement, sensory nurturance, and reconciliation, as well as improved health. This important book sheds lights on how the combined strength of multiple disciplines provide the tools necessary to design meaningful and successful landscapes for those in the greatest need.