- Welcome to our September program.
I'd like to introduce our speaker.
This is Jenny Happ, the daughter of our very own Ken Happ.
She has an undergraduate degree in social work and a master's
in therapeutic recreation.
She's a certified therapeutic recreation specialist
and social worker in the state of Wisconsin.
She currently works at Riverfront in Janesville as the
day service coordinator, and she's been working
with individuals with a variety of abilities
for just over three years.
Over the course of those three years,
she's run three different types
of therapeutic gardening programs
in a variety of settings.
So without further ado, Jenny Happ.
[applause]
- Hello, everyone, and welcome.
Tonight's going to be a little bit
of a variety of therapeutic gardening.
Some of it's going to be adaptive tools,
some of it's going to be about the different programs,
and then I'm going to finalize it with the research that I
conducted for my master's program that involved
therapeutic gardening.
I was asked to have all questions wait until the end
of the presentation because of the TV crew being here.
So, write down your questions,
and then you can ask me at the end.
Ask me as many questions as you want at the end.
So, overall therapeutic gardening, my main goal--
First, can you hear me well?
- Yes. - Okay. Good.
My main dream, passion, purpose is to try and create a happier
lifestyle for individuals with disabilities.
From my father being a master gardener,
it really drew my interest to go further and incorporate
therapeutic gardening with disabilities and find a way to
put the two together to make everyone's lives happier because
I can say that probably you guys know that gardening have a
little bit of a happier time when you're out gardening
in your garden or helping at a different program.
So looking at the agenda for today, like I said,
I want to go over a couple gardening facts when I did my
research to what therapeutic gardening does for individuals,
go over some of the different adaptive techniques,
and then dive into some of the different gardening programs
that I have implemented and discovered
some good, some bad, some ugly.
And then, lastly, is the raised bed
garden research project that I did.
So some of the facts.
Therapeutic gardening, it's a little bit different
than the term horticulture therapy.
The reason that is, is because to do horticulture therapy you
have to be a horticulture therapist.
So I found a way around it in doing therapeutic gardening.
So you can still do gardening related materials and make it
therapeutic, but it's not horticulture therapy.
So therapeutic gardening is a plant dominated environment
purposely designed to facilitate interactions
with the healing elements of nature.
Interactions can be passive or active,
depending on the garden design and user's needs.
Some types include sensory gardens, healing gardens,
restorative gardens, enabling gardens,
and rehabilitative gardens.
Some of the benefits, I'll kind of shoot that out to you guys.
What are some of the things that you guys get from doing gardening?
What are the benefits that you get out of it
without even looking at this screen?
[laughter]
- Pain. - You get pain? Okay.
We'll talk about some adaptive techniques
while we're here, yes.
- Yes, it's a good pain. What else?
- Exercise. - Exercise.
- Stress relief. - Stress relief.
- Companionship. - Yes, companionship.
- A healthier-- - I'm sorry, what was that?
- Healthier food. - Healthier food, yes.
So you guys kind of already touched on some of these.
It has been known that it can-- First, exercise.
Make people feel happier.
There's materials that are in dirt
that bring out happiness in people.
It's part of the dirt that's-- Yes, the soil. Yes.
[laughter]
That companionship. So, less isolation.
That's one big thing that you'll see with individuals with
disabilities is that they tend to either reserve to themselves
or they just want a select few people.
So through gardening you can get them to kind of expand that
boundary just a little bit and dive in further.
So while they're doing their own gardening piece,
there could be a whole group of people around them
that's giving them that socialization.
There's the improving communication.
Sometimes you can find that individuals
will talk to a plant, but they won't talk to a human.
Sometimes you'll find they'll talk to an animal,
but they won't talk to a human.
One big thing that I found
when I did my research was that exact fact.
We had individuals that would talk away to the plants,
and the second you'd ask them a question
they looked away from you.
They didn't want to talk to you at all.
But if you were talking to them through the plant,
they had a full on conversation with you.
So the plant was our conversation piece between us
for them to talk to us.
It gives people a sense of purpose.
Teaching them that this is a life.
This plant is a life.
It's teaching them the process of life.
You have to baby it.
It's their baby and then it becomes an adult
and then it passes away.
So teaching them that cycle of life through a plant is another
interesting piece of it.
Increased concentration.
Individuals, there are some individuals when I did my
research that when they started
they wanted nothing to do with the garden.
They actually enjoyed laying on the cement and enjoying the sun.
But then, by the end of the program,
they started to concentrate on the actual program
and wanting to be there and digging in the garden.
So finding those different concentration piece.
And then boosting their self-esteem.
Being a part of a group, being a part of a project,
all of those aspects put together can make your
self-esteem boost.
And then, lastly, another part that I found was that garden
environments can be a powerful healing tool,
as we kind of just mentioned above.
Here I kind of broke it down a little bit further
of the different benefits between physical, social,
emotional and cognitive.
For physical, it can help build that muscle strength,
encourage healthy eating, movement, energy, exercise,
and even lower blood pressure.
Social aspects is sharing the knowledge and growing
friendships through the different programs.
Emotional, the stress release like we were just talking about.
It gives a calming technique.
It awakens your senses and, again, boosts your self-esteem.
And then, for cognitive, it gives you that sense
of ownership, that personal initiative.
Even the possibility of learning literacy skills.
I have not myself done a program,
but you can do programs where individuals will read while
they're in a garden setting.
So you can have sensory gardens where you're doing a literacy
piece, but you're in the garden, and that calming technique
allows them the opportunity to be able to read with you
and learn more skills.
Literacy skills that myself has learned from my father is
there's all the Latin terms that come from all the different
plants that there are that I knew nothing about
and learned all about just from him.
Numeracy of the number of plants and then the knowledge
of plants, what the plants are and what they can do.
So some of the adaptive techniques,
kind of taking a little turn here.
The biggest thing can be, for individuals with disabilities,
they can have a limited strength, limited flexibility,
and limited range of motion.
These are the three things that I found through my three
different programs that really came to life.
Some individuals thought they couldn't garden
because tools were too hard to use.
Hoses were too heavy.
The-- I wasn't able to reach the bed
due to my limited range of motion.
So through the use of adaptive tools,
you can really get individuals into the garden
and realize that they can garden.
One quote that an individual gave to me
when I was doing my research, he said that
"My parents always gardened but I'm not able to."
And I asked him why. Why are you not able to?
And he said, "Because I can't reach the gardens,
I can't garden, so I just watch them."
That's when I showed him this tool here that--
He uses a wheelchair.
He has very limited range of motion.
So his arms typically are about here,
and when he was able to move his arms he can go just
a little bit further, almost making that 90-degree angle,
but he's not able to reach out and get into a bed.
When I showed him this tool that,
if you're sitting in your chair, you can extend it
and you can add any of the different devices.
So there's three different, or four different, sorry.
There's a trowel, there's a rake, another form of a rake,
and then even a cutter to be able to
cut some of the produce off.
So, using these devices--
Can you hear me when I'm not by the mic?
- Yes. - Okay.
When using these devices of you screw them on
and now he's able to reach the entire bed.
So, say this is a bed right here.
He was able to reach into the middle of the bed
and was able to garden and I've never seen him so happy.
The smile going from "I can't do this" to "Jenny, I can garden.
"I can do this. I'm a part of this.
"I'm part of a group. I'm part of a community. I can garden now."
Watching him grow throughout the process of the entire project
and then knowing that he took it home and he's now gardening at
home with his family because they bought him adaptive tools.
So, some of the different tools, which I'll show you guys and
I'll pass them around, is the one that is for somebody that
might be not able, again, like to reach to the middle or that
they're standing and want to be able to reach to the ground
garden is the extendable tool.
So this one will-- You just twist it and pull it and it
makes it that much longer to be able to use.
And, again, it comes with four different types of extenders.
So if you guys want,
I'll send these around so you guys can look at them.
So this can definitely help with people when it comes to
their range of motion.
They're not able to reach as far in the range of motion.
There goes the microphone. Let's try that again.
So it helps them reach further
and be able to reach the garden all the way.
One of the other tools that we found useful is we have
individuals that might get pain when they're wanting to garden.
So when you're using a typical tool,
you tend to have to dig with your wrist.
So when you dig into the ground and then you have to lift up.
So your wrist is constantly moving.
We have a couple individuals, when I was doing the project,
that weren't able to do that much wrist movement.
It hurt too much. They're not as strong.
They're not able to reach that far.
Or, not reach that far, bend that much.
So there's tools that, one, it can be just as a tool like this
or you can add an extender.
What the extender does is it adds extra support.
So when an individual is using this type of tool,
if I can get it to come undone, when they're digging,
they just have to do a forward and back motion.
When you're doing that,
you can see your wrist is not moving up and down.
If you're using a shovel, there's less of this to dig in.
It's not as much wrist movement that you have to do.
The extender, when you put it in,
makes it so that if you were hitting a hard surface,
this brace allows your wrist not to move.
So you guys can see that when you push on this part,
it doesn't make your wrist move as much.
And this one, when our purchase the different tools,
this one has three different tools that come in to use.
So here's this one for you guys to test out.
- Thank you. - Yep. There you go.
And I have three of this one, so you guys can just pass it up
your sections, and it's easier.
So that's a good one that helps with wrists.
It also helps if you have limited for your elbow.
Not as much strain when you're using that.
- Where can we get those?
- I will share all those resources
of all the different places at the end.
This one is called an EZ Grip.
And then, I don't remember the other name.
Really quick I will look it up. EZ Grip and Lee Valley.
Lee Valley is the one that's the long extender.
So EZ Grip is for this size of the wrist action,
and then Lee Valley is the one for extendable.
The other adaptation that originally I didn't think of
when I started my program was when you're looking at a hose--
So you guys will see on here,
this hose right here, or the nozzle.
It's a lot of strength to be able to
push that level in and out.
I knew right away and it was a discussion
that I had with my dad, being a master gardener, asking him,
when I'm pushing that lever, a lot of my participants
don't have that strength.
They don't have that ability to squeeze and push and hold
for a duration of time.
They need something that they can either flip the switch
or they push a button and the water is flowing.
If I have to do anything else, they're not going to water.
So he showed me this tool here.
All you have to do is you flip the lever,
and then you're watering.
Another awesome aspect to this is that the nozzle has over
1,000 spigots to come out.
And what that does is when you turn it on-- If you think about
when you're watering and you push that nozzle and you want to
spray, sometimes you get pushback from the hose.
With this one, when you turn on the lever,
you don't get that pushback because there's like a disperse
of the water that comes out.
So it's an easier flow that comes out of the nozzle.
So you can see that when you look at this, it's a lot easier.
All I have to do is flip once and I'm done.
It's watering. I can do everything.
I don't have to hold it the entire time.
This was a life changer for a lot of our individuals as well
because of the fact that they can now water
instead of having to carry and lug that watering can.
That was all that the program had was a watering can.
That's, again, how are you going to lift up that watering can?
This is a lot simpler, a lot faster, a lot easier
to allow everybody of any ability the chance to water.
So here I have a few pictures of individuals
using the different tools.
This is one of our gentlemen
that he had the ability to water.
If you had to hold it, there was no way.
But if someone turned on the nozzle and all he had to do was
put his hand, with help, around, he could hold onto this
for hours on end.
But if he had to hold it,
he wasn't going to be able to water at all.
So he was able to water multiple times
throughout the course of the project.
This individual here, she had a wrist bone
that at one point did fracture.
And with the ability of having the EZ Grip,
she didn't have to worry about bending that wrist too much
to possibly have another injury.
And last but not least, it's the same gentleman as above.
He was the one I was talking about.
That when he started the program--
There we go.
When he started the program, he was the one that told me that,
"I can't garden."
Look at that smile. Look at that interest.
Look at that love for something that we all love.
Now he can love because he found adaptations to be able to do it.
So he was able to rake because now he can reach
the beds with the extender tools.
Another aspect that you have to look into
is the design of the bed.
RecPlex, which is where I was able to do my project,
is this top part right here.
They gave me the opportunity to have
three different heights of beds.
One was three-foot high, one was two-foot high,
and one was one-foot high.
The nice thing about the different heights is you can
allow individuals, again, of any ability to be able to use it.
If you use a three-foot high bed,
someone could stand and garden.
They don't have to get on their hands and knees,
be on the ground, all of that aspect.
A two-foot high bed is ideal for individuals who use wheelchairs.
When they're using a wheelchair, they can roll up right next to
it, and they can be level with the bed
and be able to reach in and do the gardening.
They don't have to reach down. They don't have to reach up.
They're level with it.
This is also ideal for individuals
that might want to come and use a chair.
So they bring a chair and they set their chair right next to it.
They can sit and the garden bed is at their height
or their face level.
And then the one-foot high bed is ideal for individuals that,
if you don't want to do a ground garden where you can probably
get a little bit messier, some of our individuals wanted to
garden but they don't like dirt.
Put the two together.
If they had a one-foot high garden bed,
some of them would sit on the ground,
and they could reach into the bed with a glove on and be able
to do gardening, but they didn't have to touch the dirt or sit in
the dirt or kneel in the dirt that,
if you used a ground garden, you would have to do.
Another aspect that you can do is,
if an individual wants a seating area and just wants a small bed,
this picture right shows that
you can have two beds on the side.
So little containers.
And then they can sit in the middle,
and they can enjoy their garden
while sitting there during the session.
And then, lastly, one of the programs that I did was for kids
with disabilities at a camp.
And to get kids interested in gardening
was a challenge at first.
Some of them were like gung-ho, let's go dig in the dirt.
All they cared about was getting muddy.
Some kids, they thought gardening was crazy.
They didn't want to do it.
But the second we decided let's color the bed,
let's make it interesting, let's make it have some kind of style,
the kids wanted to come to that bed.
They thought it was cool that there was something that was
multicolored that they could interact with.
So, something as simple as painting a bed or designing a
bed, letting them paint it, eventually they ended up putting
hand prints and caterpillars and stuff on it,
and to them that was engaging and intriguing that they had a
bed that was decorated to their interests
and their enjoyment level.
Another aspect to look at is just the program itself.
The location of the beds.
When we first started with the RecPlex in that project,
they wanted to have the beds be on the opposite side of the lake
from where the RecPlex is.
So it'd be at least probably about a 20-minute walk
to get to those beds. Not possible.
It would have took that hour of our program to get to the beds
and then another hour past our program time to get back.
Not feasible.
So they were able to move the beds closer,
and they built three brand new beds for us.
And all it was, was they walked out the back door and it was a
hop, skip, and a jump and they were at the beds.
You can also look at, there's-- If you're looking at a program
that the beds are located down a hill,
think about wheelchairs getting down that hill,
and you're going to get your workout going back up that hill.
So really look into where your beds
or where your program is and the location of it.
Time of day. One of the programs that I did,
we ended up doing it in the afternoon.
And you could always see, if we started it at 1:15,
about 1:45 everyone started to get tired because it was hot
and the sun was beating down on them.
If you do a program earlier in the morning, around 9:00,
the individuals, it wasn't as sunny yet,
it was a little bit cooler.
When do you all like to do your gardening?
Earlier in the morning so it's not as hot and sweaty.
That's definitely a big thing when it comes to people
with disabilities as well. The educational level.
Some of the individuals that you could work with could have a
cognitive level of two to three years old but are 30 years old.
Some of the individuals could be a 13-year-old
and have a 20-year-old brain.
So really looking at who are you working with and how are you
doing your educational level of the program.
And then, lastly, what do you want to get out of the program?
What is your outcome? What is your goal that you want to attain
or achieve from that program?
So here, now, I'm going to kind of switch gears a little bit
again and go into the garden programs that I have implemented
and some of the different goods, bads, uglies
that I've seen from it.
The first one is Bradford Woods.
Bradford Woods is a therapeutic recreation camp
located in Martinsville, Indiana.
I ended up doing my graduate internship at this camp.
And we kind of sort of dig a little bit and see if there were
any programs that camps offered.
And it was really hard to find anything.
There's not really any camps that offer gardening programs.
It's more adventure, hiking, swimming, canoeing,
those kind of events versus gardening.
So we decided to try it out and see what would happen during my
internship and see how it was received.
So what we did is we'd always start our program with doing
like a plant anatomy.
Teaching them about plants.
The kids that came to this camp were anywhere between
the ages of six up to 21.
We did have one week that was adult campers,
but the majority were six to 21 years old.
And the campers that came had, again,
a range of a disabilities and a range of cognitive levels.
So we'd always start with doing kind of a plant anatomy.
This is my way of testing to see, what did they know?
Do they know what a plant is?
Do they know that a plant has roots?
Do they know that a plant has buds and they have leaves
and they have flowers
and that a flower can turn into a vegetable?
Teaching them all those different skills
before even diving into further of the program.
So we'd spend the first part of the session going over that,
and then we would do a sensory garden experience.
So this was our way of--
We didn't yet have the ability to have a sensory garden
at the camp where they could go around
and experience it within the garden,
so we adapted it and made it into a program that taught them
about different sensory needs.
So we would have-- You can see here there's, like,
cheerleader pompoms, or whatever you want to call it,
where you rustle them, showing them that's what a grass could
sound like when you're in a garden.
We had different vibrant colors of fabric to show them the
different colors that could be in a garden.
We used pipe cleaners to show them what a rose prickly--
What the thorns would feel like
so they could feel the prickliness, because we didn't
have access to all the different plants and materials.
So we adapted it to still show them what could be used and what
a sensory garden could look like for them to experience.
This was also a way for the camp to see what would it be to put
in a sensory garden and have a sensory garden
at their facility.
And then, lastly, we used felt to show them what, like,
a lamb's ear would feel like.
So giving them all those different senses.
You can see this girl here, she's smelling a bag of,
I believe it was basil or thyme, to experience what it would be
like to smell the different herbs
and senses that would come from the gardens.
So after we would do the plant anatomy and then we would do the
sensory garden simulation, we then gave them the opportunity
to make a terrarium.
So you can see on this left-hand side the terrariums
that we were working on.
So this was our way for them to take a garden home.
We were trying to figure out--
The campers only came for a week.
Sometimes campers were there for two weeks,
but typically only a week.
So how do you teach someone the full cycle of gardening
and a full understanding of what gardening is
when they only have a week?
So we decided that a terrarium would be able to give them
that opportunity to take something home,
be able to see what would happen, how it would grow,
and have it from that point forward and remember that
gardening is possible and that I can do it with minimal things.
So we took a water bottle, you can see in this picture
right here... an example.
So we'd cut the water bottle in half, we'd add dirt and rocks,
and then we'd put a seed in, and then it would grow.
There was one camper, and we found out if it worked
or didn't for this one individual.
She came earlier in the summer and we did this project.
And then she came again for another camp later in the summer
due to her disabilities, and we asked here, like,
do you still have your garden?
And she still had her garden. It was starting to sprout.
We did cat grass and so the grass was starting to grow,
and she could see the white coming out of the soil.
And she was so excited that she had her garden still from her
first camp that she was at camp.
So it was really cool to see that kind of return because you
don't really know what the effect is on them because
they're only there for a week.
But then we also adapted it by using sand.
The way that we made it-- Again, they're all kids.
So how do you get them engaged? How do you get them interested?
We took and we dyed sand different colors.
So if you've ever seen those sand castles that are in a glass
jar, we let them dye different colors of sands,
and then they had different colors of their sand levels to
put their seed in to make it more interactive and more
engaging to them because they had their own colorful design
that, again, is going to grow something
and be able to seed the full cycle.
So that's typically what would come of a whole session is
those three different items.
You'll see, on the right-hand side,
we did offer a couple more activities.
One if time ran longer.
They were kind of fillers at times.
Or when someone had a two-week camp,
we offered them more opportunities.
So we did do bird feeders to show them what else you can do
that is involved with nature.
It's not really gardening, but it's still an aspect of
gardening and what you could put at your garden.
You can see down here,
we did painting with fruits and vegetables.
This was a really fun experience for them.
It was a way to show them, one, what are the different fruits
and vegetables, be able to cut the fruits and vegetables
and see the different shapes.
So you can see here, the orange, when--
Where's the mouse? There we go.
The orange, it would have a circle in the middle that would
be a big glob of paint, and then it would have like a watercolor
effect that would come around the orange.
The apple here makes a star effect
when you make prints with it.
So it was teaching the kids,
one, about the different fruits and vegetables.
So while they were painting we talked about what they were
good, how they were healthy, and then they got to paint with them
and see the different aspects of what a fruit or vegetable
looked like when you painted. A carrot didn't really do much.
It was more of a writing utensil showing them how you can take a
carrot and use it as a writing utensil.
The last aspect is two of the camps have to do a volunteer
project while they're at camp.
So they're giving back to camp.
We were trying, again, to figure out how can we incorporate
gardening into this volunteer opportunity.
So this is where we let them build, paint,
and plant a raised bed.
We were able to get all the materials donated,
and then the participants of a hearing camp came
and they built the bed.
And they thought that was so cool that with the help of
counselors and staff members, they got to use screw guns and
they got to see how it all goes together and figure out how the
whole bed gets put together.
So, again, it's not the full aspect of gardening,
but they get to see how to build the bed so that they could
possibly do it at home.
We then had the volunteer group that came, and they painted it.
And they painted it the colors that they wanted it to be to get people to come.
And then, lastly, the planted it and got to see it grow.
Switching gears to another program,
one I'm currently doing right now is Riverfront,
and one that I've done in the past.
Riverfront, they are currently working on this bottom portion
right here, which is a community food forest.
But, currently, before that, we did homemade greenhouses.
So one of our facilities has a greenhouse on site.
The facility that I'm at does not have a greenhouse on site.
So we were trying to figure out how do we show them the full
life cycle of planting without having greenhouses?
So we made our own, which we took egg cartons.
We filled them with soil, and then we put seeds in it,
and then they got to see the greenhouse effect.
We took Saran Wrap with hoops of hangers to make a greenhouse.
And they got to see the moisture buildup and how the plants grow
through that greenhouse effect and then we would transfer
everything, transplant everything from there to the
container gardens, and then they had container gardening that
they did for the whole summer.
The community food forest, which you guys have a pamphlet about.
I'm not going to go too far in depth
of the community food forest.
But what it is, is a community program.
So, for Riverfront is to connect with the community through
gardening and offer programs that I ideally would like to
have master gardeners be a part of schools,
be a part of other local organizations,
the Rotary Gardens of Janesville, all come together
and able to have a food forest.
What a food forest is,
is it shows you here you have the ground cover.
The ground showing from base to top.
So you have canopies, you have sub-canopies, you have shrubs,
you have different climbers, flowers, soil covers,
all of that put together, and through our food forest we want
to make it a sensory integration experience.
So they can go through the garden,
they can smell apples and taste apples and touch peaches,
see the colors of red, white, and blue
and have an American garden, and then have different scents
and sounds that they can experience.
Have waterfalls, have bird feeders,
and it's an experience for them to be able to have a full
engagement with the community and bring the community together
with people with disabilities.
One thing that we see with Riverfront is it's hard to get
individuals with disabilities out into the community.
So we tried to figure out a program that we could bring
community to us and have a collaboration together.
So if you have any questions on that,
we can definitely talk about it after the program
of what a community food forest is.
We're currently in just the developmental stages
of the program right now.
And then, last but not least, is the biggest one,
which is the therapeutic gardening,
enhancing the mood of adults with disabilities.
This was my graduate research project that I did when I was
attending the University of Wisconsin La Crosse
for one of my final semesters.
I wanted to do research on how does gardening affect the mood
of individuals with disabilities.
So I partnered with UW La Crosse
and the RecPlex of Pleasant Prairie.
The RecPlex has a therapeutic recreation department,
which offers recreational opportunities to individuals
with disabilities in a wide range.
They used to do gardening programs there,
and it kind of dwindled away.
It really depended on who their staff was if the program
was going to happen or not.
And so I decided I wanted to see if I could take another stab
at it and give it a try.
So I partnered with the three at the top.
So the University of La Crosse, RecPlex,
and the Master Gardener program of Kenosha and Racine
and had a master gardener with me there
the entire process of the program.
Here's some of the details that lay out
the research project itself.
So the RecPlex participants, I was able to gather
16 adults with disabilities.
They ranged from the ages of 17 to 32.
And the way that the program was funded was the University of
Wisconsin La Crosse gave me a grant of $1,463
to implement the program.
So this was-- At first I thought I had to build the beds,
so it was to be able to build the beds, put the soil in,
get the plants, get all the materials
for the program as well.
I had a multitude of staff and volunteers.
So the facilitator, which was myself, the master gardener,
which happened to be my father, the three data collectors to be
able to gather the research, and then a photographer to be able
to make-- At the end we made photo books for each individual,
one, to remember their experience, and, two,
which we'll go here in a little bit of their interviews.
So at the end of the entire program I interviewed each
person to see what their thoughts were on the different
programs or different aspects to the program.
So I had a photographer.
The RecPlex aids were the individuals that worked with the
participants while they're out in the garden with us.
The La Crosse faculty advisor and then a RecPlex supervisor as
well that all helped to make the program possible.
Together those 16 RecPlex participants up here,
ranging from 17 to 32,
and the disabilities ranged across the board.
I sent out interest surveys.
So each individual that's part of the program of the
therapeutic recreation department got an interest
survey seeing who wanted to be a part of this research,
who didn't, who was interested in gardening but didn't want to
be a part, and vice versa.
From those interest surveys, I did get 18 people interested,
but two happened to unfortunately have to fall out,
one due to scheduling and one due to health needs.
So they were not able to participate in this study.
Then, of those 16 individuals, they were each given an informed
consent, one, to be able to participate, two,
to be able to use their resources for items like this,
of presentations or pictures or any of that kind of stuff,
and then any kind of injury that was done
wasn't brought back to this program.
We collected both quantitative and qualitative data
through the program.
So the quantitative data was through the data collection, so
I'll pass around the different collection sheets that we did.
So each day when the participants would come,
they were evaluated as to how was their mood
when they arrived.
You'll see on the back, there's a behavior coding,
and on the front is the actual collection sheet.
And when the participants came,
they got evaluated as to what is their mood.
Are they happy? Are they sad?
Are they excited for the project?
Are they, you know, bored out of their mind
and want nothing to do with it?
And then they would get evaluated based on their...
...throughout the session.
So in the middle and at the end again.
And then we took all those to collaborate together.
And then we also used all those adaptive tools
that we talked about prior.
We decided to do a salsa and floral garden.
One, salsa gardening is one of the simplest forms of gardening.
It's pretty hard to kill a tomato plant and a pepper plant
and onions and that stuff.
So we figured that for the individuals,
for it being their first experience,
I wanted it to be as much of a success as possible.
So we decided to do a salsa garden
to allow them the opportunity.
We did put in some eggplant and zucchini and cucumbers
and also some of the different herbs.
The reason for that is I knew some of the participants
wouldn't have the attention span to wait two months for produce.
So we started the program in June.
They're not about to wait two months to see if something comes.
They're going to get bored of sitting there and digging in the dirt.
So we knew that with pickles and zucchini,
they come sooner so that they could get that reward,
and it did pay of in the end because some of the participants started to get bored.
And then when that first produce-- I'll show you here--
when they got that first pickle, they were waving it in the air
that they had a pickle, and they were ready for the next produce.
They were ready. "Where are these tomatoes?
"Where are these peppers? I want to see them."
So they-- It got their interest back into it
and wanting to be a part of it.
This is the layout.
It started on June 4th was the first day of the project,
and it ended on August 28th.
We had the morning time from 9:30 to 10:30,
and we typically had about 15 minutes that we'd walk out to
the beds, have 30 minutes where they did the gardening,
and then 15 minutes that they wrapped up and came back inside.
We're going to go through the different weeks and show you a
little bit of what they did each week so that you guys can kind
of see how the program laid out.
So, in week one, it was unfortunately raining outside
and it was a little bit crappy and it was starting to get to
be, like I said, June 4th.
We need to get plants in the ground.
We need to get going so that way we can actually have produce
by the end of this project.
So we decided to have a presentation, which Ken Happ,
my father, did a presentation about what gardening is,
explaining the different aspects to gardening, how a seed is,
how a plant is, how the different thorns are.
So kind of that sensory experience
through a presentation.
After we did that presentation,
you see here he's talking about the rose thorns.
And then we had grass to show them what the sound effects
would be like, and they got to feel a bunch
of different materials.
We then went into more of the program overview,
and we did an activity.
All the plants we already had that were transplanted already
were bigger plants because it was already June 4th,
like I said, so we needed to get plants in the ground.
So we wanted to show them what the step was
before we were there.
So we had them plant a seed, which was a marigold,
and got to see what it was like to put a plant in
and actually see where it started.
At that time-- So they planted them,
they put them by the window, but then we went outside
and we planted all the beds.
So, in week two when we came, they were able to go out
and actually plant.
The night before, it was pouring rain,
so we went and covered all the beds so that we could actually
get plants in the ground because now we're looking at almost the
middle of June at this point.
And then they were able to come out
and they got to plant all the beds.
Some of the individuals were gung-ho,
wanted to get out there, wanted to plant in the ground,
and some individuals thought I was crazy.
They wanted nothing to do with it.
They wanted to sit inside. They wanted to go swimming.
They wanted to sit out and enjoy the sun.
So the reason I say that is because a little bit later those
individuals either changed their minds and became a part of it
or some of the individuals that were gung-ho,
I'm ready to plant, got bored
and didn't want to be a part of it.
So it was cool to see the different aspects that came.
On week three...
we were able to get outside for a little bit.
There was a big storm coming up.
For some reason June and July just wanted to rain for me every
week that we had the project.
So we had to find ways to make the program a little bit more
interactive and keep them engaged.
So we decided to do a little bit of weeding outside,
and then we came inside and we decided to make signs.
So we brought in magazines of different tomatoes and peppers
and onions, and then we also brought in different coloring
objects that they could make a pepper
and they could make a tomato.
We took all those items and then we made stakes to go into the
ground so that they could label their different plants
and know which plants were which.
So we had to adapt a little to make them.
You can see here they're coloring the different items.
They're cutting out pictures in the magazines to be able to put
them on the signs to explain what pieces were which.
Week four did get canceled.
I decided I wanted to go on vacation with the family,
so we did not have the ability to have the session.
And then, again, half the week it rained so we couldn't really
do too much anyway.
On week five, we were able to see--
You can see this yellow circle right here.
We were able to see our first sign of growth.
We had a dahlia.
Some of the participants wanted to pick it right then.
They wanted to take it off the stem.
And some of the participants were like, "No! Don't touch it.
"Leave it there. Leave it there. We want to see it."
So seeing the differences of people, one, being engaged,
and then some people that were engaged on week one that wanted
to plant these things, all the plants, and then we showed them,
like, hey look at this flower, they were like okay.
Like, "Yeah, there's a flower. Sounds good."
They didn't really care at that point.
So it's interesting to see.
They also got the ability, as you can see here,
we had to do some tilling of the ground
to make it kind of spruced back up again.
On week six, this one we found out that now that it, you know,
rained all of June, now it's dry July.
And now we actually have to figure out how to water these
plants because now it's dry.
Found out that the hoses didn't reach
all the way to the third bed.
So we had to get our strong, muscular men to be able to water
with our bucket here at the end of the session.
Again, some of the individuals that never through they could
water were able to water and hold the wand and be able to
water everything because they didn't have that limited range
of just flipping the switch.
It was a lot easier and a lot less work.
We got to put in all the tomato cages.
This gentleman right here, he was one that,
for the first probably three weeks,
wanted nothing to do with the program.
Barely even wanted to step foot outside.
By week five, he came to the beds but, again,
still didn't want to do anything.
But when we started doing the things that weren't related to
the actual plants, so putting in the cages,
putting on the trellis, putting in the stakes,
he was full-blown engaged.
So you can find, through these programs too,
what different people can give you aspects.
So this gentleman really wanted to do more of the hands-on
putting on the materials, where other individuals,
like this lady right here, she would spend probably, no joke,
24 hours a day just digging in the soil.
She just loved that constant digging through the soil.
And same with this individual here.
She loved being just with the gardens.
So finding whose strengths are to use that throughout
the program was ideal.
On week seven, I could tell that they were starting to get to
that point where they enjoyed it,
but now we're at that point where, okay,
we're not getting anything.
We got our first flower.
You can see here we got our first tomato coming.
We got some peppers coming, but they can't pick them.
All they can do is look at them.
This is boring. What do I do now?
So this week we decided to cheat a little,
and we bought store-bought produce to show them
what the different items were.
Showing them how store-bought produce are really waxy and how
the stuff that are in our garden is not as waxy.
They're more dirty and they don't have that coating on the outside.
We let them taste test.
So they got to taste what a tomato tasted like,
the onion tasted like, the zucchini tasted like.
So they could get those senses going and get that encouragement
back to, "Oh, this is why I'm doing this.
"This is cool. This is why I like it."
You kind of saw some people that, again,
there's some individuals that,
if there's food involved, they're there.
So we had this opportunity to show them tomatoes and taste
tomatoes, and some of the individuals that wanted nothing
to do with it before were like, "Oh, give me that tomato.
"I want to taste that. Oh, give me that pepper. "I want to taste that."
But if you told them, like, do you want to start digging?
"Nope, want nothing to do with that. I just want food."
So you could see some of those differences
as well for individuals.
On week eight, we then did our first test of doing salsa.
So we decided that through this program at the last session
we were going to have a salsa social.
So it was kind of like a celebration of the research, a celebration of the project.
And so we did a salsa social at the end of the entire program
for them to be able to experience their produce
and see what they can do with the produce.
So they got experience cutting up all the vegetables,
blending the salsa, and then they did taste test
and enjoy that as well.
You can also see there was more produce that was starting to
show at this time that was coming from the gardens.
On week nine, this is the picture
that I was telling you about earlier.
This gentleman right here wanted nothing, I mean nothing,
to do with the program.
He could care less about planting.
He could care less about digging.
He could care less about tasting.
But the second I said, "Hey, guys,
there's something that's ready to be picked."
Bam, he was there. [laughter]
He wanted to pick that pickle.
That's all he cared about, that he could pick that pickle. So he picked that pickle.
A lot of the participants that have been a part of the program
from, like, day one were not as happy with him because they,
you know, have worked this long to get there.
But it was still an awesome experience to see
somebody, again, finding his strength that if you let him
watch and observe and be the cheerleader for everyone else
and then when that produce is ready he can pick it,
you got him fully engaged in gardening.
That little bit of aspect.
And then this gentleman here, he was one that on day one during
my dad's presentation, he was intently listening to
everything, wanting to know every detail,
wanting to know what was this, how was that,
how do you do this, what is that.
But then when it came to, again,gardening,
he enjoyed sitting on the grass and staring at the sun
and then staring at the water.
But then, again, when the produce was ready to be picked,
he wanted to pick it, but he didn't know what to do with it.
He didn't know why we were picking this.
What do we do with this?
So, again, the education piece, teaching them what it is.
On week nine, again, continued.
This is where we started to stake some of our peppers so
that they could keep growing.
It was a windy location, so a lot of the peppers
started to bend over.
Our trellis was starting to bend over.
So getting everything tied down.
On week 10, because we were able to pick that cucumber and that
zucchini, the questions were, "What do I do with these?
"I understand that a cucumber I can make pickles.
"What do I do with the zucchini? I'm not going to eat it raw. What do I do with this?"
So we decided to make zucchini bread and show them what you can
do with zucchini and how you can have a different aspect that,
yes, it's maybe not the most healthiest option,
but it's still something that you can do
and you can have with that zucchini.
So letting them taste test and have that aspect.
This individual here, quickly on a side note,
she was one that she would sit in her chair,
and she had a toy truck.
So the whole program, up until week 10--
This is her first time coming to the bed.
Up until week 10, she loved coming out.
She wanted to be a part of us.
The bed would be here, and she would sit about right here.
And she would watch everybody do what they were doing,
but she never wanted to take that next step.
Every week we'd go up to her,
say, "Hey, do you want to garden?"
No response. No response.
This week, she kept reaching for me, and I didn't know why.
So I decided to go over and just have a little conversation with her.
And she pulled me to the bed.
And then we got up and she wanted to dig.
So it took 10 weeks.
It took 10 weeks for this individual to want to be a part
of it, but that constant going at it,
getting her to want to be a part of it, she took that 10th week.
If you would have stopped at week nine because in nine weeks
she hasn't done anything, you would have lost her interest,
and she would have never been a part of gardening.
But because you just kept going, never give up.
That's one big thing, especially with this population.
Keep trying. Keep going.
You'll get there. Possibly.
Not always but sometimes.
This individual here-- Oops, sorry. Right here.
She was one, she had a pet snake and a pet ladybug.
So she'd always wear her snake around her neck,
and if you talked to her and had a conversation with her,
she wouldn't have a single word with you.
She wouldn't talk to you at all. So like I was saying earlier.
If you talked about the ladybug that was on that tomato plant,
she would tell you what a tomato is, what a pepper is,
what it looks like, what color it is, what size they get,
what kind of flowers we were growing.
She knew we were growing begonias.
But if you asked her, "Hey, what is that?"
she wouldn't talk to you.
But if you said, "Hey, what is the ladybug sitting on.
What is the lady bug doing?"
she would have a full conversation with you.
She'd tell you about the begonias.
She'd tell you about the flowers.
She'd tell you about the plants.
Or if you didn't talk to her,
you talked to her snake, she would tell you everything.
If you didn't know any different,
you would think that she didn't know anything about gardening,
but the second you talk to her snake or her ladybug,
full conversation.
So, again, finding those ways around
to get that learning experience, is huge.
This lady in the corner, she was wonderful.
She would lay on the blacktop, and I mean lay.
Sprawled out like this on the blacktop every week.
So this is week 10 again.
Every week you could not get her--
She would beeline and go right here and lay down.
That's all she would do.
But if you got her up and got her going,
this week 10 she wanted to water.
So she came and she watered.
So it was huge to see that difference
and watch her be a part of it.
Here's showing you some of the produce
that's coming in week 10.
On week 11, wonderful rain happened again,
which is a great thing because we didn't have to water as much.
But it rained on the day we needed to do it,
and I was unable to reschedule due to they had some outings and
different things going on that week so we couldn't reschedule.
On week 12, we were able to pick the majority of our produce.
So you can see in this bottom yellow section
all of the produce that we were able to pick from our
three different beds that week.
So it was really cool.
We were able to pick it all, and then that week we were able to
start chopping it up and making that salsa for the salsa social.
So this is the last week, week 13.
We had three days this week.
So on the 26th, we made the salsa
and prepped for the social.
On the 27th, we had the social, which invited family, friends,
anybody in the community could come
and see the project and the program.
And then on the 27th and 28th
is when we conducted the interviews.
So here's them making salsa,
cutting up all the vegetables, experiencing it.
This girl here, she thought it was so funny that she didn't
have to use a knife to cut up the vegetables.
We just started breaking the peppers in our hands,
and she thought that was cool that she didn't have to operate
knives because she's scared of knives and didn't want to use them.
So, showing her that you can adapt even in that aspect and be
able to break it up versus having to use knives.
Salsa social.
We all enjoyed the salsa that we made.
We made more zucchini bread so they could have that with the
zucchini that we had left over.
And then we just kind of celebrated
the entire experience.
And last but not least,
after the salsa social we did interviews.
So, like I said, we had a photographer.
And the photographer took pictures
of each individual each week.
So every day this individual right here got a picture taken
of something that she was working on.
We then made a book for each individual.
The one reason for the book was,
one, as a memoir to keep and to remember everything that
happened, but the other part was so that when we had the
interviews some of the individuals were nonverbal.
So they couldn't communicate with me the thing that they
loved the most or the thing that they didn't like the most.
And this was able to get them to show and point to pictures.
You could see their expressions.
They pointed to a picture of a pepper, and they were like eh.
But then if they pointed to the picture watering, they were smiling.
So you could tell what things they liked
and what thing they didn't like.
So that was really cool to see that aspect.
Right here an individual did signing.
So she would touch her hand, yes or no,
and that was the whole way you communicated with her
for the duration of the program.
Okay, so going into quickly-- It's a lot of words on here,
but the two highlighted parts are the parts that matter.
So these are the results from the behavior coding.
So each day they got coded on were they gardening,
not gardening? Were they not doing anything?
Were they sitting there and doing everything but gardening?
Were they happy, sad, mad?
And from the results we were able to see that 13 individuals
scored above the baseline mood.
So the baseline mood was just a calm state.
And 13 individuals went above.
So they were happy and they were engaged
and they enjoyed themselves.
Three of those individuals scored at the baseline mood,
and nobody scored below it.
So that was really cool to see that.
And then, when comparing the weeks,
we compared week 2 to week 6, week 6 to week 10,
and week 2 to week 10.
So when you look at 2 to 6 and 6 to 10,
there wasn't really much difference as to how the program
affected the individuals.
But when you looked from week 2 to week 10,
there was a significant amount of improvement.
So it wasn't a decline in mood. It was an increase in mood.
So you saw that over the duration of the entire program
their mood increased, but if you looked at just partials of it,
it did not increase.
And then the results of the interviews.
We asked a variety of different questions,
but one of the big ones was, did you enjoy the program?
All 16 said yes.
How did this program make you feel?
11 of them said happy, three said good, one said sad,
and one said neutral.
And then, did you feel the program was too short,
too long, or just right?
A couple of them felt that it was too long,
a couple felt too short, and 9 of them felt
that it was just right.
And then, would you do this type of program again?
13 of them said yes, and 3 of them said no.
And then, have you ever gardened before?
I just wanted to feel it out again to see where they were at.
8 of them had never gardened before this project.
So it was cool to see that for individuals that had never
gardened before what their answers were of if they were
happy, if it was a good amount, all of that.
So, overall, the conclusion of this,
again it was a pilot study so it was a small group.
Only 16 people.
The findings of the study suggest that therapeutic
gardening can positively impact behaviors
and mood of adults with disabilities.
The findings help support the fact that therapeutic gardening
activities could be a useful intervention to motivate active
leisure involvement and enhance quality of life.
And then, like I said, it was a pilot study so more research is
definitely needed, and I definitely want to dig in
further as to how it can make a difference
for individuals with disabilities.
Some of the limitations.
More participants, more aids so that you can have one on one,
having more raised beds.
We only had three raised beds for 16 people,
so it gave people very limited space to be able to garden.
It would be awesome if they each could have had their own bed
to designate that this was their bed.
Increased frequency of meeting times.
There was a couple times throughout the program
that I had to come and water
because we didn't have enough days in the week.
It was only one day a week.
So having more frequency to understand
the full aspect of gardening.
And then the predetermined schedule to make sure
everyone's schedules matched. And then have a control group.
That was one thing that I realized afterward.
It would have been good to have a control group that maybe did
other activities part of their program to see how it
differentiated from the gardening program.
So, overall, that's a combination of my research,
a combination of the different projects that I have
implemented, and then where I'm looking at going further with
the different gardening aspects.
And so, at this time, I'm open to questions, comments,
concerns, anything, but that is everything I have to share.
Up here there's a couple different things
you can look at, if you'd like.
But that is everything that I have for you guys tonight.
[applause]