Smithsonian has an article on the peace-giving influence of gardens on dementia patients. Good heavens, I've known that for years - albeit without those all-important, credibility-giving scientific results. It's why I preach espouse pontificate on the importance of olders getting OUT to see greenery, to experience the change of seasons through trees & bushes & flowers & grasses.
It's why my car can practically find its own way to our beloved farm at Wiltshire & Pebble Hill Roads, on the far outskirts of Doylestown. We see its fields in all the seasons, how we can see the whole pasture in the winter, but parts are blocked in summer by so-called weeds.
It's why I take certain routes with my grannie clients, even right around their neighborhoods, keeping to the ones with the best flowering trees in spring, the most glorious blossoms in summer, the most dazzling leaves in fall, the most elegantly spare branches in winter.
Are gardens therapeutic for olders, especially those dealing with forms of dementia? I don't know who said this, but it says it all - - "To have a mind at peace, a heart that cannot
harden, go find a door that opens wide upon a lovely garden."
~ Deev ~
the well read daughter
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