Horticultural Therapy

Due to rapid urbanization, human beings are living in stressful environments that limit their access to green spaces. Horticultural therapy, such as therapeutic landscape, restorative landscape, healing gardens, and biophilic design, all play important roles to heal and restore people who are suffering in some way, resulting in physical, psychological, and spiritual benefits. Horticultural therapy is a time-proven practice that treats a wide range of diagnoses and provides therapeutic options as new medical treatments in the past dozens of years. It assists participants to strengthen muscles, improve memories, socialize, and regain their achievement from horticulture activities.

It includes caring by horticulture therapists, therapeutic horticulture, horticulture activities, and therapeutic landscape as tools to stimulate senses and to meet the goal of releasing stress, mind, and the discomfort of chronic disease. Horticultural therapy is also a goal-directed method for all ages of people, to directly interact with plants, natural materials, and farming/horticultural activities, which supports the evolution hypothesis, i.e. that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other life forms.

A large part of existing research has already verified that connecting to nature, plants and their color, texture, and fragrance, supports healthy outcomes, such as attention restoration, positive emotions, reduced stress, and blood pressure, as well as physical and psychological benefits. By using updated technology, such as biofeedback, which uses indicators like electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), heart rate (HR), and fMRI brain scan, the benefits of horticultural therapy can be demonstrated scientifically by measuring physical outcomes.

In the Working Group Horticultural Therapy, we hold symposia, in which participants can share their latest findings. We welcome open discussion on many topics relating to the broad concept of ‘Nature as health’. Such discussion points or questions include:

• How do horticultural activities and “green” landscapes provide advantages to human beings?
• How can we use the findings through horticultural therapy, therapeutic landscape, restorative landscape, healing garden, and biophilic design, to fill the gap in research to “healthy landscape-healthy people” practical designs?
• What are the benefits of plantings, healing gardens, natural landscape, green urban spaces, and urban street views?
• What are the criteria that connect nature and related activities to healthy outcomes?
• What is the cutting edge for next generation of horticulture therapy?
• What are the benefits for specific groups?
• How can we adjust landscape design to be more biophilic in our everyday life?

We will learn from each other and find value in networking and discussing these issues.