What makes a healing garden?

[Tony Danford]

Richard asked 'what might constitute a healing garden' and opens up a question which I often think about, not least because it's my profession (landscape architect in the health care field) but also because gardens are places which personally I've found (in times of crisis) very affirming, grounding, reassuring, transporting, and dare I say it spiritual, but it somehow escapes me quite how gardens are all these things and much more.

Maybe we could start by separating gardens from wild nature, but this might not do because it might be the wild nature element in gardens which is the healing part rather than the human artifice. Or maybe we could think about the emotions or experiences which being in gardens evoke for us. Or maybe we could list things in gardens or places we've found which have been particularly just so, if you catch my drift. It'll be a different list or interest for each of us, I guess.

I'll start the ball rolling by mentioning the results of a survey done by the American Horticultural Society: in a members survey, the top-rated satisfaction of gardening was described as achieving an inner sense of serenity. More than 60% gave peacefulness and tranquillity as their most important reward for gardening. My own experience agrees - being in gardens evokes serenity, and active gardening even more so, particularly if I'm unsettled or distressed over something. Something about touching the earth....especially if there's a blackbird singing nearby. It feels a bit like I've somehow been accepted into, or re-entering, a much, much bigger system in which I am held and in which I play a part, however small. 'Bigger system' is a horribly unpoetic term for whatever-it-is that gardens are part of, but 'environment' is if anything even worse. Maybe a Pureland is right - I feel like I'm entering a Pureland when I enter some gardens.

What makes a garden a Pureland for you?

[Toyo Katamori]

What makes a garden a Pureland for you?

This is a great subject. I would like to mention that what makes a healing garden for me is this, when I enter my garden I go from what ever state that I may be in, whether in crisis mood or even in a so so alright mood to a caring state. If I enter my garden really angry, my mood changes into a caring mood, or even if I am in deep thought over something going on at work, caring about the plants in the garden changes my mood to a caring mood. I find my self trimming, weeding, pruning, and assisting the tomato plants along to ensuring the perimeter fencing is adequate enough not to allow the bunnies from munching at my lettuce. So the transition from a bad mood to a caring mood is what makes a healing garden for me. The state of caring promotes peacefulness and tranquility. I think it does not matter what type of garden your entering or working in either. It so happens that my garden is a vegetable garden. I am usually munching on a carrot or green beans and eating always makes people happy. Oh and another thing to add to this is the enthusiasm in garden visitors also encourages happiness as well. All this whether a long term or short term healing is well worth it.

Toyo

[Modgala Duguid]

Its funny but I get a special feeling being in a town garden. It feels like an oasis, a place of refreshment and a place that grounds me while nurturing a sense of wonder in the diversity of life. Its a different feeling again when i am in a park that is much more a shared space with many unknown others, there I feel a sense of gratitude that sucha space exists, even more so when it is an ecology centre like Richards.
Amida France is a different space to me, it is also a pureland, and a place of work where working with the earth I learn very much from the creatures in it, the way the weeds grow and the grass grows and the way i try to work together with them. then also i have a sense of magic as the fruit and vegetables grow.
And all these different senses of the pureland are not new to me, i more and more recall how the sense of wonder about growing things was there as a very young child when the garden and my Dad's allotment were a refuge for me.
Namo amida Bu

[richard meyers]

What makes a garden a pureland for me?

Down the years in periods of disquiet I naturally gravitate to anywhere with trees. I love our native trees - oaks, hazel, beech, scots pine and birch, for example. Beneath trees I am almost always restored to a feeling of balance and wholeness. So, my ideal pureland garden would have trees. It's also about making discoveries, having nooks and crannies, with rocks and little pools, not seeing it all in one fell swoop. I quite like a mix of formal and informal in a garden. The senses are all important. so birdsong, buzz and hum of insects, running water, a particular sort of wind-chime which I like, made of bamboo, tock tocking. Scent too, lots of nectar rich flowers and foliage, herbs of various kinds.

The best gardens have evolved over many years. Ours, with my wife Ruth at the helm, has gone through many changes, with paths and patios created. Mostly, I do whatever donkey work is required, sometimes protesting, but usually I bow to Ruth's intuitive grasp of what will work best. The overall shape is rectangular - 60' X 20' (roughly), but inside mostly things undulate, with curves and wavey edges. We have a variety of things dotted about, chunks of stone, pebbles and larger rocks, steel (old shoe laste found at an old abandoned village in the West coast of Scotland), a large Buddha rupa - I think it's Amida, and various bits of whittled wood scattered about, gradually decomposing. I think it helps occasionally getting our hands in the soil. As Tony, Modgala and Toyo have intimated, in the Pureland ( if we are able ), we do a bit of work from time to time, however little. I think this is important - it's harder to make the connection unless we have contributed something ourselves.

I like what Toyo says about gardening as a mood changer. I've experianced this many times myself - so often not wanting to bother gardening, making the effort and being really glad later that I did! Carl Jung (I forget his exact words) said that getting your hands in the soil was perhaps the most healing thing we could do for ourselves.
Anyway having said all this I'd better get out and do a bit!

[Dharmavidya]

We, Kaspa, Sumaya, Zeezee and myself, together with five visitors, are currently staying at Amida France. Amida France is a healing garden. We live outdoors much of the time. One is in contact with the elements in a way rarely arrived at in the city. This morning three of us dug, two weeded, one cut grass, while others supplied tea and encouragement - there is gaity all round. Then we go round together and see what everybody has accomplished. We celebrate it. We offer it. The Buddha smiles and we are happy. Namo Amida Bu.

[Modgala Duguid]

Sounds so lovely richard - I do hope we can create something with a similar atmosphere here in sukhavati Namo amida bu

[Tony Danford]

Toyo

I do agree with you - something about caring for plants as living things is very fulfilling ( I somehow equate being fulfilled with being healed). Caring for others generally is of course very fulfilling if we get it right, but plants are easy to care for and the rewards are out of all proportion to what we put in. I'm thinking about my collection of cacti and succulents which I've just gone outside to have a look at- mostly they don't need much, it's more a case of knowing when not to do anything, but they reward me with encouraging signs of growth in Spring after a cold winter, magnificent displays of exotic blooms and an appearance of thriving in my care. So much for so little. Caring for sentient beings, including other people, is (in contrast) fraught with difficulties - things can turn nasty at times with people, but a plant will never reproach you (except by dying)! One can have relationship (yes, I talk to mine, after a fashion) with a plant which is free of threat.

Maybe there is something in the notion that caring for other things stops me fretting about myself. My own problems seem to vanish in a garden where I am in variably absorbed in other living things. Is caring for other living things the best way of caring for ourselves? Yes, I think so.

[Joan McCann]

This is a very interesting question. I've always loved gardens, just being out in them makes me feel better but I've never seriously thought much about what makes them healing. I'm a keen but amateur gardener and am very fortunate to live in a house that has a garden and just love how I can open the back door and step outside even if it's just for a few minutes to potter about or sit quietly. I love planning and designing my garden, giving it a structure, creating paths and different areas, my husband, who's also a keen gardener, does much of the physical work as I have an illness which restricts me physically. I love how my garden is a mainly a secluded place, though not totally shut off from my neighbours and views of trees in other gardens and of the nearby forest. I just love it when we have put in a shrub and, admiring it from indoors, see a bird using it to perch on for a moment or two. But what I love most is how nature takes over no matter what we have put in or planned.
I refer to it as our garden but really it isn't our garden at all; it's also the home for wildlife, visitors as well as residents. Some are regulars, like the goldfinches, others come and go, like the siskins or occasional hedgehogs. I might be lucky enough to see a fox running through it or watch birds feeding their young. There are also frogs, which quickly took up residence in our pond – or rather bucket in the ground. A family of foxes had a brood in our neighbour's shed and the pups claimed our garden as their playground, waking us up at dawn. It was quite delightful, even at 5am, to watch the cubs racing up and down the garden tumbling and rolling over each other. Sometimes they would stop in mid-game and realise I was watching them from the window, but then they'd soon forget about me and return to their world of play. But less obvious than this, there is all the wildlife we don't see, the insects and spiders and creatures I could not begin to name. Just knowing that all this is there I find healing.
Namo Amida Bu

[Joan McCann]

[Pundarika (orna)]

I believe a garden becomes a healing garden when we have a personal relationship with it.
What I mean by this is the possibility of talking to the plants, flowers, trees. They respond by growing and bringing fruits and flowers.
So, any piece of land with vegetables, flowers and trees or anything one can imagine might do the work.
I am a psychotherapist working with children. With some of them I go out to the back yard of my office and we spend some time there. What a healing experience.
Some children who suffer from lack of confidence and law self-esteem, may recover by watering the lemon tree and watch the tree's reaction to them – giving lemons. (Then we prepare and drink some lemonade).
Children can acquire the capacity of being aware of the other by learning to be considerate and alert to the needs of the plants. They also can learn to be more responsible and less impulsive and to restrain their destructive impulses from which they suffer a lot.
Through an authentic dialogue with nature, within the garden those children feel happy and find again their laugh and joy. They become less worried and more optimistic.
I can tell you, in secret: Being the therapist, does not prevent me from being healed the very same way as my little clients do.
Namo Amida Bu

[richard meyers]

Hi Joan,

I'd just like to say I love the fox cub in the plant pot! Your a whizz at getting JUST the right photo.
I really agree that just knowing the wildlife is there is enough. We don't always need to be looking under logs or poking about disturbing things. Just knowing there are such things as jaguars and sloths, earthworms and centipedes is quite enough. Though it's great to encounter them as and when, how much better to do so respectfully and at a distance.
With each picture your garden looks the essence of what a healing garden would be.

Namo Amida Bu

[Sumaya]

I know one fairy tale where there is a princess who is very proud, thinking just about herself. The prince from neigbourhood, who she refused to marry just by looking at his picture, changed his identity and became a gardener in royal garden of the princess. The gardener started to teach one of the flower to sing, later princess joined him with gardening and with singing with the flower …… you probably can imagine the end.
So to what does the garden, the nature invite us? What does the garden allow us to do? Maybe we can feel more open, some of our fortresses can fall away, we are meeting others, we allow ourselves meeting the other …. so it is wonderful Tony that you are planning gardens.
I wish all of you lovely time in your gardens.
Namo Amida Bu