Kewlest Project So Far...

One of the neatest things about horticulture therapy, is that it is full of continuously evolving tasks. Starting in early fall through late spring, my crew and I work outside on Tuesdays and Thursdays if at all possible. Therefore during the Monday Review of the upcoming days plans, I reminded my crew to dress for the weather as we were going to work outside.



Tuesdays dawns rainy, windy and cold. When I get to work, everyone was in layers...so, even though I wanted to stay inside and work in the flowershop and/or the greenhouse, we went outside. For an hour. We pulled the remaining annuals around the greenhouse, the hospice, and the hoptel. Two truckloads and one dump with the little Cushman...was the amount of annuals that we quickly yanked. Within that hour's time, I got wet and filthy dirty but I was hatching a project.


Sand Art Terrariums !

About 8 weeks ago when I reopened the Flower Shop for the new season, I bought a bunch of premade pretty cactus gardens. I thought they were really cute, decorative, and colorful. However, they just haven't sold well in the Shop.


So, I decided that we would transplant the cacti into larger terrariums. I bought the glass from the floral supply shop.Into the bottom of the terrarium type glass, we put colored sand.



Removal from the previous cacti garden was not easy as the decorative stones on top of the garden were glued together. After the cacti were removed from the previous garden, we planted them in the 50-50 mixture. We put green decorative stones on top of the potting soil mix, but I did not glue them in as I think the glue stones prohibited adequate moisture from going into the cacti.


I made one example, and the guys improved and embellished on the concept. Again, I have been pursuing the topic of creative endeavors with my patients...exploring recreational ideas that do not involve substance abuse. One of my patients said that this is an activity that he could do with his kids... how that it was very relaxing... and peaceful. So, then this opened the venue to talk about family and about kids. We usually don't get very detailed during these open sessions ... but it becomes fodder for more personalized individual counselling. Some of the patients still need to focus on staying in the boundaries that someone else has established and not constantly looking for loopholes.


Here are some of the end results:





They were fun to make and took our mind off how wet and miserable we initially were. Have a great day!