Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — With a little less than a month until the event, planning continues for Iron County’s upcoming horticulture therapy summit.
The summit is scheduled from March 1-3 and will be centered around the Iron County Memorial Building in Hurley. The event’s registration deadline is Feb. 20.
For those who are unsure of what exactly horticulture therapy is, organizers explained it is a broad field of study regarding the use of plants and gardening to improve lives.
“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 will begin by breaking down what horticulture therapy is, followed by break-out sessions on how to apply it to different audiences.
“One of the good breakout sessions we’re going to have is talking about adaptive tools for people that have mobility issues,” said Darrin Kimbler, a horticulture educator with the extension office. “It may be as simple as adding extra foam to a handle so it’s easier to grip, to actual cuffs that allow people to use tools when they don’t have the ability to grip easily.”
A culminating wrap-up session discussing how to include the therapy in their programs will conclude the summit.
“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.”
Kimbler said he hopes the summit is a progression from explaining the concept to implementing it.
“We want this knowledge to be out in the community, we don’t just want it to be (limited to the summit),” he explained.
As the summit is intended to provide information that can be passed along to others in the community, Kimbler and Nosal said it is 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.
That’s not to say attendance won’t be beneficial for members of the general public.
“It’s geared for the professional, (but) it would not be out of the realm of an individual wanting to attend it themselves.” Kimbler said.
The event is sponsored by the Range Master Gardeners, who are also helping with the planning process. The involvement of the master gardeners allows those with backgrounds in health and medicine to learn about the horticulture side of the equation, according to Kimbler.
“The (summit attendees) may be specialized (in certain fields) and may be reluctant to do something if they don’t have the gardening expertise — that’s where our master gardener volunteers can come in and assist them in developing programs,” Kimbler said.
The summit’s presenters come from around the state, according to Nosal, and are experts in a variety of horticulture therapy specialties.
“We’ve got expertise in veterans gardens, we’ve got expertise in building sensory and healing gardens, we’ve got experts in children’s gardens,” Kimbler said.
The inspiration for the summit began when the master gardeners had a horticulture therapist speak at Gogebic Community College. Following that, Nosal attended a horticulture therapy class in Madison. She felt a lot of people in the area could benefit from the information, and talked to the instructor about coming to the area.
As he was available over the three days in March, the organizers decided to expand the event into the multi-day summit — making it one of the largest events of its type in the state.
While early March in the Northwoods can often appear more like winter than spring, both Kimbler and Nosal said the presence of snow won’t impede the event. “Activities will get creative, but it will be ok,” Nosal joked.
Kimbler pointed out that holding gardening events later in the growing season is hard, as many would-be attendees are too busy actually gardening.
Those interested in attending can register online, through the extension office’s website — iron.uwex.edu. There are registration discounts for additional people from each organization attending.
Continuing education credits, needed by some professionals, are an available option for attending the summit.
For more information, contact the office at 715-561-2695.
