A news release published at MarketWatch.com reports that the garden at Lee Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Pennington Gap, Virginia is just one example of a growing nationwide trend toward extending various types of garden or horticultural therapy into healthcare settings, senior facilities, schools, prisons and community gardens for people with special needs.
Barbara D. May, president of National Garden Clubs Inc., a non-profit volunteer organization (the largest of its type in the world) is quoted as saying, “Our members recognize through personal experience the healing effects of working with plants and absorbing all of the sights, smells and sounds of a garden, indoor or outdoor, whatever the season.”
The organization’s garden therapy program was successfully launched in the 1940’s to help veterans hospitals rehabilitate injured or disabled soldiers returning from World War II.
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