Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
MARK DWYER, director of horticulture at the Rotary Botanical Garden in Janesville, Wis., discusses the elements of a healing garden Wednesday at the Iron County Memorial Building to begin the first day of the Iron County Horticulture Therapy Summit.
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley - The inaugural Iron County Horticulture Therapy Summit began at the Iron County Memorial Building Wednesday afternoon with presentations by two of the summit's guest speakers.
Summit organizers took a broad definition of horticulture therapy in the run-up to the event.
"It's using gardening to improve well being ... however you define well being. Whether you're looking to improve cognitive skills with an elderly population, or you're looking to work with at-risk youth who may have some issues with socializing, or it could be used for emotional healing for veterans," said Amy Nosal, the healthy communities coordinator with Iron County's University of Wisconsin-Extension office. "It really covers the whole gamut of well being, and the horticulture piece is the act of gardening. So using the activities of gardens to improve health."
It can also be simple things like designing a garden so its easier to use by certain demographics.
Nosal said some existing examples of horticulture therapy in the community would be using Ironwood's Pocket Park to de-stress or the raised beds in the Hurley Community Garden that makes it easier for senior citizens to use the garden.
The summit is planned for three days, ending Friday with a group debrief regarding how to move forward with increasing the horticulture therapy opportunities available in the community.
"That's the opportunity to sit down with presenters, to sit down with our local master gardeners, and really leave with an idea how they could start implementing this as soon as this spring," Nosal said. "It's a little bit of education, but then the empowerment and resources to make something happen."
Today's event will begin with another speaker, before the group transitions into breakout sessions on a variety of topics - ranging from gardening with adaptive tools and children gardening to horticulture therapy at home and engaging non-gardeners.
Designed to give the basic knowledge of horticulture therapy to healthcare personnel and other caregivers to implement whatever horticulture therapy they want to implement in whatever setting they are in, organizers hope the members of the general public also take something from it..
"It's geared for the professional, (but) it would not be out of the realm of an individual wanting to attend it themselves," Darrin Kimbler, a horticulture educator with the extension office, said.
One of the largest events of its type in Wisconsin, the summit is being sponsored by the Range Master Gardeners.
