Gardening as Therapy
Research shows that being in the outdoors, whether walking in the woods or digging in the dirt, is beneficial to one’s mental health. Roz Marx is a case in point. She says, “I worked as a social worker on Inpatient BJC Senior and Adult Psychiatry for 20 years. An Activity Therapist/co-worker, seeing my stresses, said, ‘Go out and dig in your yard, plant flowers and bushes.’ That’s how I got started.”
But she did not grow up with gardening. She says, “I grew up in apartment house in Passaic, New Jersey. Gardening was in a wooden cheese box on the window sill, but I deeply enjoyed nature with our parks–Central Park in New York, and the Catskill Mountains and Bear Mountain trips in the summer. I didn’t start actual gardening until my thirties, and more in my fifties when I got my own home and yards.”
She calls herself “an example of those who did not grow up with gardening.” She learned about hardy native plants from the Wild Ones garden tours and annual workshops. Roz says, “I make graph paper designs of what I have planted in my garden spaces, and I make name tags, but I have not memorized the names of my plants and other natives. Yet I marvel at how they grow and multiply and color my landscape.”
Age has influenced her gardening, making her an advocate of raised beds. Roz says, “I am a solo gardener, now, seventy-nine years old, and am now expanding into herbs and vegetables. I planted a small herb garden in a raised planter. The raised beds are fine for vegetables, fruits, and berries. They’re also really fine for seniors who don’t want to crawl on the ground or dotter up from the ground. They can certainly be used for native plants and native nursery planting. I deeply enjoy my native plants as being low maintenance and perennial, and I enjoy the monthly garden tours,”
Age has not, however, slowed her activities. She says, “I have been enjoying several years of art classes. When I make my own artistic creations, I prefer works of nature.” She also walks regularly in area parks, and is currently reading The Biophilia Effect: a Scientific and Spiritual Exploration of the Healing Bond Between Humans and Nature“( 2018) by Clemens G. Arvay.
post by Savannah Furman, Chapter member and volunteer
To learn more about our Keystone Member series and other members we are highlighting
visit: https://stlwildones.org/keystone-members/
