Garden Therapy

Garden Therapy

The flower boxes are a mass of color, yellows, pinks, purples, orange and red. He is overjoyed with the rainy days, feeding his garden those special nutrients that only rain can do. The flowers look so fresh, bursting with brilliance. This is his garden, his happy place, his savior.

He had been plagued by constant vertigo attacks. His life was a constant battle and she prayed that one day his whirling life would stop, and their life would be “normal” again. No amount of prayers could change the course he was on and his “spinning in circles” life continued. It seems that this was a forerunner to the diagnosis of Parkinson Disease.

It has not been an easy few years for her; she has had to become his carer, making sure he does not fall or trip over his own feet.  He cannot put shoes and socks on – cannot bend that far, his back is like the “Hunchback of Notre Dame”, he finds it too painful to stand up straight, his excuse is that he needs to see the ground to walk. 

She can understand this, as to add to his woes, he is almost blind, courtesy of an accident when he was ten years old, a sharp stick thrown into his eye and the damage was done. Several cornea transplants later, that damaged eye was terminal, and so closed permanently. The other eye, taking all the toll of seeing, has now decided it has had enough too, and so has decided to have a semi-permanent rest, so yes, maybe he is bent over trying to see the ground.. His life has taken a small twist and turn, and he is now permanently living life in this hunched over position. It does not seem to worry him, as he says, that is life.

Now, his garden is his life. It seems that when spending time in his garden, working with the soil, planting his flowers, creating colorful garden beds, his life is normal. His “spinning in circles” head lays dormant. 

She can understand this phenomenon.  It is a well-known fact that working with soil, flowers and plants, and being in the fresh air increases your serotonin levels. She knows he is content in his garden, lost in his own world of plants and flowers, and not trapped in a world which spins his head, making him unbalanced and whirling as if he was spinning off the edges of the earth.

He believed the garden saved his sanity. When he was first diagnosed, he had to retire from his job, and became housebound.  Bit by bit, his mind started focusing on the garden.  He ventured out, choosing a small area to start with, built a garden bed, and started turning over the soil in readiness for planting the flowers. 

He spent many hours reading his garden books, his magnifier always there to read the fine print shown under the pictures. Somehow he started to survive those horrendous days of spinning attacks, focusing more and more on his flower beds. And slowly but surely, the garden grew into the splendor that is it today. It has given him a sense of purpose in his life, and he is proud of what he has achieved.

He inherited his “green thumb” from his mother, she appeared to be able to grow anything from a cutting, and he found, when younger, quite embarrassed when traveling with her, as she would stop and take cuttings from anywhere she could, sometimes quite secretly. However, he is now doing the same thing, and has trained his daughter in the art of “pinching” geranium cuttings from wherever she can!! 

His children wanted to do something special for his seventieth birthday, and the decision was made to buy him some wooden garden beds, complete with dirt. Quite an ambitious thing to do, but the garden beds were delivered, and the dirt duly arrived, a huge mound which they both thought was going to be a large task to complete. Saturday morning came around, and his children and grandchildren arrived, with shovels and wheelbarrows. A bevy of activity ensued with the beds completed in record time. He was ecstatic, such a great morning with his family. Then to end off the day, his son took him to a special garden shop for him to choose rare and different plants, a memorable time with his son that will never be repeated.

And so it had started, choosing the plants to put in the boxes, ensuring no two boxes had the same flowers. They were in full bloom in readiness for his birthday party, his garden beds full of colorful flowers. The grandchildren had painted the boxes in colorful greens, blues, and reds.   They probably would not be good enough to put in gardening magazines, but the fact that the children painted them and created the palm trees and beaches, hand-prints and other colorful pictures on them is a reminder that he is a well-loved grandad.

The day of his birthday had arrived, and the family were here to celebrate with him. The grandchildren burst into the house like a tornado, running here and there, and keen to be the first to give their birthday kiss to their grandad. His little pup Jazzy was on his lap, excitedly yapping, vying for their attention too.

They eagerly waited for their grandad to start “the walk” around the garden. With walking stick in his hand, they wandered out to the garden, stopping here and there as he showed them the new flowers that had grown since they were last here, and the ones that were only buds, waiting for the next burst of sunlight and rain urging them to open their petals to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the softness of the rain. 

Picking flowers were high on their list of things to do with their grandad, special blooms to be placed in the vases on the table next to his birthday cake. Some of the flowers they picked are misshapen and bent, some have long stems, and some with barely any stems at all.  He does not mind, as he understands that the children do not want to cut the flowers making sure they are a perfect bouquet, in their mind, they just want to “pick a bunch of flowers”. 

They follow their grandad around the garden, choosing purple and pink flowers from the petunia patch, yellow daisies, daffodils, blue “forget-me-nots”, chrysanthemums, and the purple perfumed lavender. He is pleased he has given the children a chance to wander around a garden, to pick a posy of pretty flowers to put in their vase. 

Grandad had given them their own garden pots to plant seeds in, they are keen to listen to his instructions on how to plant the seeds and they watched with wonder as these little seeds turn into flowers!! The pots end up with a wonderful sprinkling of color and a few fairies adorning them. 

He gets so much pleasure to see the grandchildren wandering around garden, checking out the vegetable patch – sometimes pulling the vegies out of the ground just to see how they are growing, and then putting them back in if not quite ready to pick. He laughs, that is okay, lovely to see the enjoyment in their faces when they pull freshly grown carrots from the ground!!

It always surprises him that people say how beautiful his garden full of colorful flowers and scrubs is. All he knows is that if you plant a tree or flower, it will eventually become part of the whole garden.   His garden is his escape, as soon as he wanders out into the yard, he is in another world. The flowers and trees do not care if he wibbles and wobbles around, they seem to know he needs to be there to get lost in their wonder and splendor. 

Amazingly, every tree in his garden has some sort of flower, it may be very small, but if you look closely, it is there. He believes every tree has their own special enticement for people to look at; it may be the way some flowers open to the sun and close at night, or the way some of the buds all congregate together to make a beautiful display. The lemon and orange trees are in full flower, heralding the sign that vibrant yellow and gold fruit is on the way.

His birthday has flown by so quickly, but she knows tomorrow, he will be out in his garden, choosing which flowers would enhance yet another part of his garden, bringing it to life.