COLUMNIST: TRELLIS
Trellis promotes and supports therapeutic gardening in Scotland.
In their regular column with Scotland Grows, Fiona Thackery tells us how they harness the feel-good effects of gardening and use them to help people feel better and improve their quality of life.
Did you catch Trellis’ Festive Floristry Live Zoom event in late November? We will be bringing a new instalment on houseplant care in the new year and some upcoming episodes focusing on windowsill growing and fruit production.
It is quite a turnaround to be enthusing about live, online events. Screen time has long seemed a necessary evil to be kept to a minimum, the very antithesis of time spent gardening. We have all heard about the long list of health and wellbeing benefits of gardening, and chief among them is being an effective antidote to the twitchy anxiety and postural ills provoked by too much time spent in front of our blue light emitting devices.
One of the many changes we never imagined, until a certain little piece of bad news wrapped in protein disrupted our lives, was gardening via Zoom. Our Trellis team made a few videos early in the pandemic to help people keep gardening even when no horticultural supplies were available, online or in the bricks-and-mortar garden centres. We made short films about how to sprout dried pulses from your kitchen cupboards and take cuttings from house plants, that sort of thing. We assumed they were an emergency measure, a stopgap, and we would surely be back to running training days and demonstration sessions offline, in person, again, very soon.
We optimistically bought a gazebo and thought we would be able to run gardening sessions outdoors in care home grounds, on hospital patios and community plots, surely before too long. Because this thing couldn’t last too much longer, could it?
Eventually, after a little more time elapsed, we realised we had to think of an alternative to take us through to the end of the year. The new normal was extending ever onwards, with restrictions and dramatic headlines rolling on and anyone who dared predict the next few months was beginning to look rash. We had already begun to adapt our training courses and now it was time to do the same with our live demonstration sessions.
It was all a bit of a palaver (we called it a ‘learning curve’ on a good day), but we read about it, watched a few YouTube videos (as any person in possession of a smart phone does these days when they want to learn a new skill) and spoke to some lovely people who had already done some impressive live events on Zoom, to learn from their wisdom.
The reading revealed we might need some kit – a microphone, perhaps a better than bargain basement model phone to make some video clips, a tripod to up our game from those slightly shaky earlier videos. The YouTube videos unlocked some of the mysteries of Zoom and how to make it work more or less seamlessly with lots of people tuning in for the same video event.
Next, we thought long and hard about which gardening activities our practitioners most needed help with, and then harder still about which of that little list might lend themselves most easily to an on-screen rendition. Then, lights, camera, action!
The reaction was quite stunning. We had nurses and occupational therapists tuning in side by side with patients, care home staff joining us with residents, and gardeners from all over the country and indeed from other hemispheres and latitudes, logging in at what must in some cases have been frankly unsociable hours.
We were suddenly reaching many more people working in care and health settings than we had before. We began to get adventurous, expanding our list of episode ideas: Wildflower Seed Bombs, Wildlife Havens & Frog Habitat, Hanging Baskets (with tomatoes and strawberries), Edible Flowers and even a wildly creative Water Features session.
The feedback continued to be effusive and was highly appreciative. People could ask questions and we did our best to answer. They shared what they were growing and even showed some ‘problem’ specimens in the manner of a Gardener’s Question Time panel show and everyone learned and soaked up inspiration together. And the best bit? A garden-by-post kit mailed out afterwards to participants so they could try the activity for themselves – a perfect excuse to get offline and return to some actual gardening.
‘The parcel through the post is … a wonderful thing. It’s made a difference during this time and certainly helped me feel connected to the outside world. Thank you!’
'Learned loads today…liked the simple, easily understood approach...makes you feel you can do it without knowing the biology and being an expert. Thanks a million.'
After a while we thought of what we could offer in our Live Zoom sessions that was different from other things online. The answer: an explicit focus on the therapeutic elements. To our delight, a friendly Occupational Therapist in our network was willing to help, and now many of our events feature her immensely useful tips on adapting gardening to suit all kinds of situations and health needs.
‘Very beneficial and engaging for both myself and clients. I really enjoyed the practical activities and using these to motivate clients.’
‘The session was about the value of gardening for mental health. I've found these sessions really helpful and shared these with family and friends.’
‘My colleague and I really enjoy the sessions and are looking forward to using the activities with our day patients.’
You can catch many of our gardening Zoom sessions to date on our Live Zoom page and sign up to be kept in the loop about upcoming dates via the link on our website. Explore the impact these sessions have had in our video round up to mark the one year anniversary of beginning our online gardening shows.
If you’d like to request a subject for one of our Zoom sessions, please drop us a line. You can help us make more online gardening sessions by donating and if you have any queries about therapeutic gardening, do not hesitate to contact our query service.
Meanwhile, from all the team at Trellis, we wish you a very good gardening season this winter.
If you are interested in learning more about therapeutic gardening, take a look at Trellis' website.