Healing Gardens: A Case Study

The power of therapeutic healing gardens, a six-part series. 

Part 6: Designing a Supportive, Healing Space

 Healing Gardens: A Case Study

In this last part of our series on Healing Gardens, we’ll review a case study from our experience. This real-world example will synthesize some of the concepts from the rest of this series to illustrate how a Healing Garden can benefit one’s journey in ways that seem small, but have powerful results. 

For three years, Rachel (name changed to protect ID) lived with Agoraphobia and was unable to leave the confines of her home without severe mental anguish. After going through a traumatic event and subsequently developing PTSD, going outside became deeply uncomfortable because  her heart would leap in fear in response to even minor events like a car pulling into her driveway to turn around. 

As is a quite common situation, Rachel was attempting to self-medicate to manage her pain and ended up struggling with addiction issues. Because leaving her house and driving to a traditional therapist’s office was out of the question, she decided to reach out to a non-conventional healer. While beginning to heal her spirit and working through the debilitating panic attacks, she identified several triggers that we could reduce by altering her physical environment. 

That’s where Garden Girl comes in! First, we extended the safe space of her home into the outdoors by putting up a gate across the driveway (no more strangers using her driveway to turn around!), as well as a privacy screen surrounding the entire property. This enabled Rachel to go outside for five minutes at a time, and over the course of a year she worked her way up to spending several hours outdoors. Because noise still triggered Rachel’s PTSD, especially vehicles with loud motors, we created a soothing pond with a waterfall to help mask the traffic noise. This also invited wildlife to her property and gave her yet another reason to get outside and connect with nature. The water feature made such a huge difference, and helped support further progress in Rachel’s healing journey. 

One concern of Rachel’s was not being able to care for many plants, which is understandable when just getting out of bed is a major feat. We devised a strategy to build up from just one manageable garden bed, with a plan to add more over time. We filled the bed with disease-resistant, hardy nursery stock in order to minimize maintenance. Garden Girl also took care to select plants, ground covers, trees, and bulbs with healing properties, although this wasn’t initially one of the design goals at first. At the time, Rachel didn’t have the capacity to think deeply about medicinal plants, so this was a Garden Girl bonus.

Once she was able to be outside for ten minutes at a time, Rachel’s healer gave her homework to simply sit and observe what she saw in nature. Sitting on a variety of benches and chairs located strategically throughout her garden, she began to develop a mediation practice. The water feature attracted wild ducks, fish, newts, bald eagles, and hawks. We also selected plants that would draw in butterflies, bees, birds, and deer to her environment. Viewing wildlife for even ten minutes of a 24-hour day slowly started to heal her broken spirit. Nature is amazing. 

Nutrition was another area of focus in Rachel’s recovery journey. Because her struggles had completely sapped any interest she had in eating much of anything, she was severely malnourished when she began her recovery. She was a self-described “skinny-fat” person and no longer found enjoyment in exercise or eating with others. With the help of her healer and eventually a nutritionist, she worked to slowly integrate healthy foods back into her life. 

Garden Girl supported Rachel’s nutrition effort by designing raised planting beds for vegetables she would actually eat. We wanted to make sure that she would actually enjoy the fruits and/or veggies of her labor after putting that precious energy into the garden over the course of a growing season. Why plant cauliflower (et al) if you really don’t like it? Setting up a timed irrigation system minimized the effort needed to care for the garden.. But the fact that the garden does need constant care means she would always receive a healthy dose of Vitamin G; time spent outdoors, being mindful, and touching soil all benefit the soul. Over time her brain fog began to lift and she became increasingly interested in health. She enrolled in yoga classes and slowly opened herself up to meeting other people. The new habits and coping skills she developed helped Rachel to leave her addiction behind.

Each healing garden is designed to the clients’ needs, time, and budget, with the ultimate goal of empowering them to reconnect with nature and their own bodies. Rachel is an active participant in her recovery. She works with her psychiatrist to manage her medications, receives ongoing support working with a healer and continues to work with Garden Girl to expand her outdoor environment when her budget and energy levels align. It’s an honor to bear witness to a person’s courageous journey and offer non-judgmental support by building a natural outdoor environment that will aid in the healing process.