May 30, 2023 • 58 mins
In the first part of this two part episode on horticultural therapy, Sam and Lara talk to Dr. Candice Shoemaker, Professor Emeritus of Horticulture and Human Health at Kansas State University. Dr. Shoemaker talks about the varied and winding path that eventually led to her career in horticultural therapy, explains the basics and history of the field, and describes the benefits of receiving horticultural therapy versus therapeutical horticulture. She discusses the training needed in both horticulture and therapy in order to practice horticultural therapy.
You can find more on Dr. Shoemaker's work in the ASHS Journals HortScience and HortTechnology at http://ow.ly/CXHl50OAfu2.
Learn more about the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) at https://ashs.org/.
HortTechnology, HortScience and the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science are all open-access and peer-reviewed journals, published by the American Society of Horticultural Science (ASHS). Find them at journals.ashs.org.
Consider becoming an ASHS member at https://ashs.org/page/Becomeamember!
You can also find the official webpage for Plants, People, Science at ashs.org/plantspeoplesciencepodcast, and we encourage you to send us feedback or suggestions at https://ashs.org/webinarpodcastsuggestion.
Podcast transcripts are available at https://plantspeoplescience.buzzsprout.com.
On LinkedIn find Sam Humphrey at linkedin.com/in/samson-humphrey. Curt Rom is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/curt-rom-611085134/. Lena Wilson is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lena-wilson-2531a5141/.
Thank you for listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lara Brindisi (00:10):
Welcome to Plants , People Science, a podcast by
the American Society forHorticultural Science where we
talk about all thingshorticulture.
Hey Sam, how's it going?
Sam Humphrey (00:20):
It's going well.
I'm having a good morning Lara.
How about you?
Lara Brindisi (00:23):
Good, I don't know exactly where we left off
last time, but I believe ourlast episode was before I left
for my travels abroad to theFederated States of Micronesia
and Taiwan.
Sam Humphrey (00:39):
Before you went off to have all those adventures
and become like the wisestperson I'll ever know?
Yeah, so how was?
Lara Brindisi (00:45):
it.
I definitely can't take thatmuch credit, but I mean it was
amazing.
I've never been to the PacificIslands like that before and the
cultures were so rich and thepeople were so kind, and I would
love to go back at some point,though we'll see if that's in
the cards.
Sam Humphrey (01:07):
Oh, that does sound fun.
So you went for the food andthe people.
Is that all you did?
Food?
Lara Brindisi (01:11):
people, plants, culture, I mean, they had
everything.
I don't know exactly what Italked about last time, but in
Micronesia I was working on aproject related to food policy
and food security which is alittle bit outside of my
wheelhouse, so it was great toget some experience there.
And then in Taiwan I actuallyhad a really great internship at
(01:35):
the World Vegetable Center,working on pepper genomics.
What have you been doing athome while I've been away?
Sam Humphrey (01:45):
At home.
I've mostly been working inPhytotron.
My school has this buildingcalled Phytotron that is just
full of dozens of growthchambers that have different
plant experiments, and so I'vebasically been living there and
I started my strawberryexperiment, so I'm really
excited about that.
Lara Brindisi (02:06):
I'm so jealous that you have access to a
Phytotron.
I mean, can you explain for ouraudience what the difference
between a regular greenhouse orgrowth chamber is versus a
Phytotron?
Sam Humphrey (02:18):
I might not be able to explain it very well.
It's like a facility that isfully dedicated to plant
research.
Like I said, a building thathas all these growth chambers.
It also has greenhouses on thetop of it, but these greenhouses
are like they have an airconditioning system that is
closed to the outside so theycan be used for BSL3 type
(02:43):
experiments.
And, yeah, the facility is justreally amazing and the staff
too are very dedicated tokeeping the plants alive, so
it's not just me sitting therealone with my plants.
I can get the help that I needwhen I need it.
So really wonderful experience.
Lara Brindisi (03:01):
Yeah, that is so important.
I could not do any of the workthat I did in my PhD without all
the people that helped with theplant maintenance and
greenhouse upkeep.
It makes your life easier tohave good people around you, for
sure.
Sam Humphrey (03:17):
Yeah, and the lab support too.
But you come from a really apretty big lab, right?
Did you feel like you had thesocial support you needed?
Lara Brindisi (03:26):
Oh yeah, socially .
And my colleague I'll give hera shout out Arian Vasalates,
made a really great comparisonof us to the Weasley family how
we're all a great mix of familybut kind of filling in niches
(03:47):
and competing for resources.
Sam Humphrey (03:52):
If I ever come across your twin, lara, your
Weasley twin, my life will becomplete.
I want to meet, like Lara,number two.
Lara Brindisi (04:04):
Shall we get into it.
Sam Humphrey (04:06):
Yeah, let's do it.
So for this episode we met upwith two wonderful guests in the
horticultural therapy fieldthat we're dividing into two
different episodes.
The short series will sharewhat horticultural therapy is,
how it began and the benefits ofreceiving it, and what it's
like to work as a professionalin the field.
Today will be part one, wherewe interview Dr Candice
(04:27):
Shoemaker, who shares some ofthe research behind receiving
horticultural therapy that shelearned throughout her career as
a professor.
Part two will be with AbbyJaroslo, who practices
horticultural therapy and walksus through her day to day as a
professional in the field.
Lara Brindisi (04:43):
For those of you who have never heard the phrase
horticultural therapy, it isdefined by the American
Horticultural TherapyAssociation as the participation
in horticultural activitiesfacilitated by a registered
horticultural therapist toachieve specific goals within an
established treatment,rehabilitation or vocational
(05:04):
plan.
Horticultural therapy is anactive process which occurs in
the context of an establishedtreatment plan, where the
process itself is consideredtherapeutic activity rather than
the end product.
It is different than communitygardening and garden therapy, so
we just want to make that clear.
Sam Humphrey (05:24):
Now a little more detail about our first guest.
Dr Candice Shoemaker isprofessor at Amaritis of
Horticultural and Human Healthat Kansas State University.
She earned her BS inFloriculture at Michigan State
University, her MS inHorticultural Therapy at Kansas
State University and her PhD inEnvironmental Floriculture at
Michigan State University, afterwhich she completed a postdoc
(05:48):
at Virginia Tech and taughtornamental horticulture at Berry
College while serving as thefirst director of the School of
the Chicago Botanic Garden.
A lifelong passion of hers ishuman issues in horticulture,
which led her to start theinterest group in the American
Society for HorticulturalScience.
Lara Brindisi (06:05):
If this interview resonates with you, I highly
recommend renewing yourmembership and joining the
American Society forHorticultural Science so you can
be part of interest groups likethis one.
Let's get into it.
So I understand you're from afamily who owns a dairy farm and
an orchard.
What made you want to enterFloriculture as an undergraduate
(06:27):
?
You didn't want to continue thefamily farm.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (06:32):
Yeah, I actually changed my major every
year.
I was an undergrad, so if youlook at my transcripts, I'm in a
different college every year.
So I started in education andactually very quickly realized
that wasn't where I wanted to be, which is kind of funny.
Where I ended up right, andthen I went into engineering
(06:57):
because that's what my olderbrother did and he was in civil
engineering, and so I thought,oh, I'll do that.
Well, I didn't even know whatit was, and when I found out
what it was, I was like I don'twant to do that.
And then I landed in thearchitecture or landscape
architecture.
So I was in that college and Istayed in that college the
(07:17):
longest.
But while I was studyinglandscape architecture which I
did for two years I discoveredor realized that I liked
Horticulture the courses I wastaking in Horticulture, more
than the design courses, thearchitecture courses and so I
went and talked with someone inHorticulture and they went over
(07:40):
all the different options thatwere available and the one that
just resonated the most for meeven though I grew up on a dairy
farm and we had orchards and mygreat grandpa actually had his
whole living with an orchard, anapple orchard I didn't go that
direction.
I liked flowers and so I justpicked and I really liked
(08:01):
production and greenhouseproduction.
So that's where I started wasin floriculture and greenhouse
production, with my hope that Iwould someday and maybe this
will still happen someday havemy own greenhouse business.
That was what I had planned todo when I graduated.
Sam Humphrey (08:18):
Very cool.
So how did you transition, howdid you segue from floriculture
and horticulture intohorticulture therapy?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (08:26):
Yeah, so I was living out in.
So I grew up in Michigan, but Ihad done my internship for my I
had a bachelor's degree at agreenhouse outside of Seattle
Washington and then I ended upstaying out there.
I just loved it and I found aplace to live.
It was a home for handicappedchildren, a foster home, and I
(08:50):
lived in a treehouse, which wasreally fun, and in exchange for
my room and board, I took careof the orchard and gardens and
the landscape.
I also helped with the kids atnight.
I did a lot of cooking.
The woman who ran the place,she was a nurse and she was a
(09:12):
gourmet cook and she had thisamazing kitchen in the home for
the kids.
So it was really fun to cook.
And anyway, there was a couplelittle boys, but one in
particular his name was Dannyand he was eight years old and
he always wanted to be with mewhen I was outside and he wanted
(09:33):
to garden and just be with meand he had a pretty significant
cerebral palsy and I didn't Imean, I didn't really know at
all what to do with him.
And so the owner of the place,she suggested that I go and talk
with her teacher, his teacher,and so I went to see the teacher
(09:56):
and then she scheduled for meto visit with a physical
therapist that would work withhim.
And so one of the things withhis condition is that he was, he
was very spastic and he alsohis muscles were all tightening
up, and so the physicaltherapist really was just trying
(10:18):
to maintain the amount ofmovement that he had and not
lose it.
So she said, anything that youcould do with him to especially
work with his hands so that hecan continue to have control
with his hands, because then hecould still feed himself and
have some independence would begood.
So I would do that.
(10:39):
So we'd be out in the gardenand he would be laying down
because he couldn't sit up, andwe'd be pulling weeds and he
would just have the biggestsmile on his face.
He was so happy out there.
And and then at the same time itjust I mean talk about just the
way things happen, right, thesame time there was an article
(11:01):
in the Seattle Times, the localnewspaper, about this thing
called horticulture therapy, anda friend of mine gave it to me
and said, hey, this sounds likewhat you're doing with Danny out
in the garden.
And I had.
I had actually heard abouthorticotherapy when I was an
undergrad at Michigan Statebecause they were starting an
(11:24):
option in that and one of theacademic advisors was really
interested in that and she hadtalked to me about it.
But it would have taken melonger to, and I was interested
in that because I I thinkbecause of the education piece
of you know, and even withlandscape architecture you get
to work with people I had thatinterest in people but but I
(11:49):
just didn't.
I didn't want to take extratime, I wanted to be out as soon
as I could.
I was done with college, Iwanted to do other things, and
so, but in that article itmentioned Kansas State
University and that was the onlyuniversity you could get a
degree in horticulture therapy.
There were other universitieswhere there were options, but
(12:10):
that was the only universitythat had a degree, and so I was
going home in the summer for myolder brother's wedding and so I
thought, oh well, I'm inMichigan, I'll just drive down
to Kansas now it's further awaythan I thought, but it was
closer than in Seattle and meetwith a professor who ran that
(12:30):
program his name is Dr RichardMattson, and I was lucky because
it happened to be when he wasdoing his annual conference on
horticulture therapy.
So I attended that conferenceand then and but I kept wanting
to talk with him but he wasreally busy and you know I'd see
him and I say, can I talk toyou now?
Because really what I wanted todo was just go to K-State and
(12:55):
take all the horticulturetherapy courses because I
already had my degree and youknow.
So I just wanted to studyhorticulture therapy.
So at the end of the conferencehe said, well, I have time for
you now.
And there was another woman hername was Joan that was with him
and we were in the student unionand they were asking me just
(13:16):
some of the craziest questionslike did I like to speak in
front of people?
When was the last time I did atalk in front of people?
And and what was my writing?
Like, did I like to write?
And I'm like you know what inthe world are these questions
for?
You know well, but I learnedabout horticulture therapy and
you know I had something tothink about and went back to
(13:38):
Seattle and and well, I wentback to Michigan for a while and
then I finally got back toSeattle and and there was a
letter from Dr Mattson and hesaid in the letter that he
wanted me to be his graduatestudent and that he had an
assistantship for me and at thegraduate school was still
waiting for my application.
(13:58):
And I show this letter to myroommate and I'm like, okay,
this is really weird, but Ithink I think he's gonna pay me
to go to graduate school because, you know, I had no plans.
In fact I clearly I had my.
When I was taking plantpropagation, my lab partner we
(14:20):
were juniors she already knewshe was gonna go to graduate
school and was she was talkingto me about it and I just
thought that was, I mean, likethat was the only time I ever
talked about and I can rememberabout graduate school as an
undergrad and I remember sayingI would never go to graduate
school, I couldn't wait to getout of college, you know, and
get out with my life, and so Ido nothing about graduate school
(14:43):
and I didn't know anythingabout this thing called an
assistantship and that theywould pay you money to go to
school.
And my roommate says, yeah, Ithink that's what the letter is
saying and she had a friend thatwas in graduate school at the
time.
So we called him and asked himand he said yes, and he
explained it to us and stuff.
So I thought, well, okay, Iguess I'll go to graduate school
(15:05):
and get my master's degree inhorticulture therapy, so so it's
kind of a long story, butthat's sort of how I landed and
got to study, really lucky, youknow, dr Mattson was one of the
the leaders and founders of thisprofession and I got to work
with him.
So yeah, pretty exciting yeah,that's amazing.
Lara Brindisi (15:26):
I mean I love hearing your path because one
night really resembles my own.
I never went into plant biologyexpecting to become plant
biologists and end up in my PhDin this.
I really did this roundaboutway that kind of resembles yours
, where I doubled in engineeringand landscape architecture and
all of these similar pathwaysand ultimately ended up in in
(15:49):
horticulture.
So I love hearing that.
But I also really love hearinghow you took each opportunity as
they came along and really,really sees the day, instead of
letting them pass by you.
And here you are as a you know,a very impressive person in
horticultural therapy.
And so I guess quickly for theaudience who might have never
(16:10):
heard what horticultural therapywas, could you quickly define
this term?
Sure?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (16:15):
so horticultural therapy is the use
of horticulture, horticultureactivities, in a therapeutic way
, working with people that arein treatment, and the activities
themselves are used for the,for the health outcomes that are
(16:37):
you're striving for intreatment, and so.
So that's very focused right,and I think when people hear the
word horticultural therapythey're actually thinking about
probably something a little bitmore broad, and so sometimes,
especially in the profession,you'll hear people talk about
horticultural therapy andtherapeutic horticulture.
(16:58):
So therapeutic horticulture is,again, you know, health and
wellness through horticulture.
So those horticultureactivities, but it may not be
that necessarily that you'reworking with clients and that
activity is targeting the, thehealth issue for that client,
(17:20):
but it's more just you knowthey're gonna feel better and
that might then help them withtheir issues in other ways.
So a lot of times, like in inhospitals, especially
rehabilitation hospitals, theHort Therapy program is really a
time for the patients to get abreak.
(17:41):
Because if you're in in thehospital and you're, for example
, recovering from a stroke orfrom a heart attack and you're
building strength and you knowyou're in physical therapy a
couple times a day and you're inoccupational therapy a couple
times and maybe you're in speechtherapy for an hour every day
(18:03):
and so on.
Right, it's a lot of workbecause they want you in and out
pretty quick, right and.
But you need time to just kindof renew yourself, and a
hospital is a stressful timeanyway, right.
And so the Hort Therapy Programmay be just a time when you're
on a break from all the othertherapies and it gives you a
(18:25):
time to renew and refresh sothat when you go back into the
other allied health therapiesyou can do better.
And so that's reallytherapeutic horticulture.
Other terms that are used tokind of recognize the variety of
health benefits that we getfrom horticulture and from
(18:47):
plants and nature can be socialhorticulture, community
horticulture, communitygardening there's a lot of
health and wellness benefitsfrom that and, as I said,
therapeutic horticulture, gardentherapy.
So there's a lot of terms, andthat's also one of the reasons
why the profession has struggled, because I think too many
(19:14):
people think like when you and Igo out and garden when my
daughter was young and I wouldbe grumpy, I'd get home from
work and I'd be grumpy.
My daughter would say, mom, youneed to go pull some weeds for
a while because then you'rehappier.
She recognized how muchgardening she helped me, but
(19:36):
that wouldn't be horticulturetherapy, right.
I mean in terms of, if you wanthortic therapy to be a
profession, right, then you needprofessionals that are trained
both in horticulture and intherapy and how to bring those
two things together for targetedhealth outcomes.
Sam Humphrey (19:55):
Yeah, that's a really good thing to keep in
mind.
I was not aware of that before.
So I think of how people havebeen pulling weeds for probably
millions of years at this point,before we were even people, I'm
sure.
But the start of horticulturaltherapy as a practice how did
(20:15):
that begin?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (20:17):
Yeah, so well, actually from the founding
of our country.
So Dr Benjamin Rush he'sconsidered the father of
American psychiatry and heactually signed was one of the
signers of the constitution.
He recognized in mental healthhospitals so think about
(20:40):
hundreds of years ago and thefounding of this nation what
those hospitals might have beenlike.
But he recognized many of themwere out in the country and for
people who couldn't pay for carethey would work on the farms.
They were quite often workingfarms and he actually noticed
that those who got outside thatworked in the farms got better
(21:02):
and those who could afford topay and stay inside quite often
didn't get better.
So even early on some of hiswritings were about that.
But where the really theprofession emerged was after,
during and after World War II,so especially in the 1950s.
But what happened isrehabilitation medicine really
(21:26):
became its own separate entityof medical practice during World
War I and World War II,especially World War II, because
more soldiers were survivingthe battlefield and coming home
with pretty severe injuries andhad to be taken care of for a
long time in the hospital beforethey could go home, and
(21:50):
occupational therapy at the sametime was working closely with
rehabilitation medicine, and sothese soldiers were recovering
for a long time and the doctorsand the occupational therapists
were looking for lots of thingsto keep them occupied especially
the occupational therapists,while they were recovering and
(22:12):
getting strong enough where theycould go home.
And at the same time theAmerican Gardening Association
had as one of their missionareas to volunteer in their
communities.
So they would volunteer at thehospitals and started doing
gardening activities with thesesoldiers as you're covering
soldiers and there were bothphysicians and occupational
(22:36):
therapists who really saw somedistinctions when it was
gardening versus other thingsthat could keep us occupied.
So you think about musictherapy, art therapy,
horticulture therapy those allcame really at the same time out
of, especially after World WarII, and so that's really how it
(22:57):
began to be distinguished as itsown profession.
And then some work atuniversities and I'm proud to
say at Michigan State University, my alumni or alum, where I
graduated from, was one of thoseplaces that was doing some work
(23:17):
and it was the HorticultureDepartment and a physician and
an occupational therapist and asocial worker that were doing
that in the 60s and then in the70s the National Professional
Association, which is now calledthe American Horticultural
Therapy Association, was founded.
(23:37):
At that time it was called theNational Association for Therapy
and Rehabilitation throughHorticulture, so it was a little
complicated, so that was smart.
When they changed it to theAmerican Horticultural Therapy
Association, so it was really inthe 70s when the definition of
it as a profession in factthat's what Dr Mattson was
(23:58):
working on he had gotten a bigNational Institute for Health
grant to really definehorticulture therapy and that's
when I got to work with him.
So that was pretty excitingyeah.
Lara Brindisi (24:11):
Great.
And so when you're talkingabout seeing patients improve,
what kind of benefits arephysicians and horticultural
therapists and social workers oranyone involved in this process
?
What kind of benefits are theynoticing?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (24:28):
Yeah, you know, I just in fact, last fall
I gave a talk at the AmericanHorticultural Therapy
Association annual conference.
That was on the researchfindings that we now have, and I
started that talk by, like youknow where do you go when you
want to learn anything new?
You go to Google, right?
(24:49):
So if you do a Google searchbenefits of horticulture therapy
you get, you know, millions ofhits right and even if you look
at like the CDC, you can findthe benefits of gardening and.
But if you remember I justtalked about horticulture
therapy as a profession versushealth and wellness, that we get
(25:11):
, any of us get throughhorticulture right.
So there's actually, I'mpleased to say, from when I
started in the late 70s, there'smore and more research being
done looking at andunderstanding the health
benefits from gardening and fromhorticulture therapy.
There's more on the healthbenefits of gardening, which is
(25:34):
what my research was in thanthere is on our understanding of
the health benefits fromhorticultural therapy.
So if you think about it as aprofession in the healthcare
field, right, if we're taking apill to feel better from the flu
or something, it's a certaindosage for a certain amount of
(25:57):
time that from research we knowfor most people will make us
feel better, right.
So in that regard we've got along ways to go in terms of
horticultural therapy.
But if we look at it, there'sbeen enough research now that
there's actually publications,probably the last five or six
(26:17):
years, that are meta-analysis ofthe research that's been done.
Looking at particularly witholder adults, there's a lot of
pretty good research now onhorticultural therapy programs,
and probably the biggest one wehave with older adults in
treatment is with cognitiveimpairment.
So we know that horticulturaltherapy programs can help
(26:43):
sustain or maintain cognitivehealth.
So in terms of people withdementia, it's a really good way
to help with that problem.
Depression is another one.
That's we've got, I think,pretty good research now that
shows that it can helppositively improve depression,
(27:07):
anxiety.
So those mental health aspects,right.
We also know that and this isfrom some of my research as well
that gardening is a physicalactivity, so we can have
physical improvements, it canhelp with strength and general
physical health as well.
So both mental and physicalhealth benefits, and then and
(27:32):
then we can look at socialbenefits as well.
So, and again, a lot of theresearch has been with older
adults, and so we know thatgardening activities,
horticultural activities canfoster more social interaction
and I quite often tell a storywhen I was getting my PhD, which
(27:54):
was in floriculture, I reallywanted to do it in human issues
in horticulture, but that didn'twork out.
But I connected with a medicalschool at Michigan State
University, again for my PhD.
I connected with the medicalschool and they had just started
while I was getting my PhD.
(28:15):
They called it a cognatethrough the medical school but
it was like a master's degree ingerontology.
So while I was getting my PhD Idid this gerontology cognate
and I had to do a researchproject and I had to do a
practicum and I did those at anursing home and so I ran a
(28:37):
horticultural therapy programfor a full year.
As for my practicum and one ofmy because that's what the
facility wanted was they wantedthe people to to socialize more
and kind of build friendships inthe institution, which is hard.
So that was one of my goals,for my horticultural therapy
(29:01):
program was to fostersocialization.
So I would plan, you know, eachweek these activities and think
about how I could get them totalk.
Right, well, they would talk tome.
I had about 12 residents thatcame to my garden club and they
(29:21):
would all talk to me, they wouldanswer my questions, but they
weren't talking to each other.
Well, one week in the BotanicGardens on campus they had
pruned all the roses and theyjust bags of roses, you know,
and spent roses, right.
So I took these bags and andbrought them to the to the
(29:42):
facility and I just dumped allthese roses on the table, was
just covered in red roses and Isaid all we're gonna do today is
pull the petals off the theroses, because then we're gonna
dry them and we'll just leavethem on these tables and we'll
dry them and the next week wecan make pulp vreep.
So it wasn't a hard activity,right.
(30:04):
And we're just sitting there andwe're, and of course it smells
heavenly, right.
They started talking to eachother and more people come in
and they want to join because itsmells good.
And they're talking to eachother and they're sharing
stories about, you know, when,the first time their husband
gave them roses when they weredating?
(30:26):
Or you know the rose bush, thatwas next to their front porch
and the hub every summer when itwould start blooming.
They would remember that.
I mean it.
And they're sharing thesestories with me, not with me
with each other.
You know it was just, it wasamazing, but I didn't plan that,
you know, for that to happen,but it worked.
So socialization we've.
(30:48):
We know from the research thatthat's also another good health
outcome.
Lara Brindisi (30:52):
Yeah, you're gonna open up a new can of worms
about aroma therapy, but that'sa whole separate discussion
Exactly exactly.
Sam Humphrey (31:02):
Wow.
So you have talked, then, aboutmany of the health benefits of
gardening and you've done a lotof research in this area
yourself.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthe work that you've done?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (31:15):
Yeah.
So I focused on, of course,older adults because I had
studied gerontology while I wasgetting my PhD and then I also
did some school garden projectsas well, research projects as
well, and so with the the,actually with both of them, it
was to really look at twoprimary things one was nutrition
(31:40):
and then the second one wasphysical activity.
So we all know, we're, you know, used to well, it is again now
five servings of fruits andvegetables a day for a healthy
diet.
You know, actually while I wasdoing my research the CDC had
changed it to nine and then theychanged it back because we're
(32:01):
not even meeting the five.
So then why change it to ninewhen we're, you know we can't
even do the five a day?
So it's five a day.
And then our, you know,recommendation for physical
activity, for health maintenancefor all of us is at least 150
minutes of moderate intensityphysical activity a day.
(32:22):
So my question with older adultsis if you're a gardener, does
that make a difference?
And can gardening kind of abigger question is can gardening
with older adults help withtheir health, their physical
health?
And then with youth it was moreabout can we design a program
(32:43):
that can help?
And we targeted eight, nine and10 year olds.
So, like fourth and fifth grade, right before they're going
into middle school or juniorhigh, can we come up with a
program using gardening that canhelp them start thinking about
healthy lifestyle choices, right?
(33:04):
So sedentary behavior, drinkingwater, screen time, right, and
then of course, physicalactivity and healthy eating.
And so those were the twoavenues that my whole research
career was in, and we would do avariety of different things,
(33:32):
different interventions, and wewould do all kinds of different
ways of measuring the outcomes.
So we would do observation, soI would train undergraduate
students and they would have acheck sheet and, like with older
adults, they would go to theolder adults' homes and just
(33:52):
observe them gardening, and itwas specific things that we
would have them mark as theywatched them.
So they were just.
It was kind of like, you know,in see-true research, right.
Of course we did a lot ofsurveys.
Some of them were things thatwe wrote ourselves, especially
like the demographicsinformation we needed to gather,
(34:14):
but then also things like,especially with the kids.
All of my interventions weredesigned using social cognitive
theory, and so with socialcognitive theory, some of the
things that you target areself-efficacy and outcome
expectancies.
So we would do.
We would use survey instrumentsthat were already shown to be
(34:37):
reliable in measuring thosebehaviors in kids.
There's standard eatingbehavior survey instruments.
We would use those.
And then we also would measuremetabolic things.
So we would measure things likeheart rate, oxygen consumption.
(34:57):
We'd have both the adults andthe kids wear accelerometers to
measure their movements, and soit was a real mix of things that
we would do to measure, tounderstand how they garden right
and how long they garden, andso on.
So it was just a real mix ofthings that we would do.
Lara Brindisi (35:19):
Great, so what did you?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (35:20):
find so with our older adults.
Okay, so these are communitydwelling.
Most of my research was withcommunity dwelling older adults
and one of the standardizedsurvey instruments that we used
was a leisure time physicalactivity assessment.
(35:44):
That, basically, was quite acomprehensive survey instrument,
but it would, based on theresults, you could calculate how
much time they spent in leisuretime, physical activity, and if
it was low intensity, moderateintensity or high intensity, and
(36:06):
gardening was one of thoseitems on that thing.
So it was really great becausewe could look at gardening
versus walking, versus golfingversus vacuuming, just all
different kinds of things right.
So we took our study populationand we designated them as
(36:26):
gardeners or non-gardeners basedon the results of that survey.
And then we looked at all thesehealth parameters, both from
self-report surveys that we did,as well as heart rate and
oxygen consumption and so on,and what we found, what we
learned, was, first of all, bothin terms of the metabolic
(36:49):
measurements that we took aswell as the self-report
measurements, that they havebetter physical health.
So if you're a gardener, or ifyou've ever been a gardener, as
you approach older age, youmight want to think about
starting gardening again.
If you're not a gardener,because it helps you.
(37:10):
It can help you sustain goodphysical health, mental health
was actually similar across allof our population.
So what we found, what we kindof concluded there was we did
this research in Manhattan,kansas that older adults in
(37:30):
Manhattan campus are mentallyhealthy, and then probably one
of the biggest findings that wetook and then we did some
horticulture therapy typeresearch, was we found that
gardeners had stronger handstrength and better finger
dexterity, which is reallyimportant.
(37:52):
I mean, I notice already, I cannotice that my hand strength is
changing as I'm aging and so Ireally want to get out and
garden Minus three here today,so I'm not going to be gardening
today, but anyway.
So that finding.
We actually then designed a12-week horticulture therapy
(38:16):
program and we worked with therehabilitation unit at our local
hospital and worked withoccupational therapists and we
recruited people that were inoutpatient care, still doing
therapy, who had had a strokebut were still in therapy to
(38:37):
improve their hand strength, andso we had a control group that
was in their traditional OT careand then we had a treatment
group that got our 12-weekhorticulture therapy treatment
and we did plant propagation foran hour twice a week for 12
weeks and our treatment was aseffective as the OT treatment.
(39:02):
So that was really a funfinding to find out.
So that's kind of globally whatwe found out with our older
adult research With our kids.
So the grant I got a really biggrant.
That was a four-year projectand the biggest thing on that
(39:24):
was that we had to measure BMI.
So basically weight right, andwhat we found which of course
sounds like it was a non-findingwas that there was no change in
BMI and what you want to see isa reduction.
Well, our kids weren'toverweight to begin with, so why
(39:46):
would we want it to go down?
Because they weren't overweight?
We ran an after-schoolgardening program.
We built high tunnels at theschools so that they could
garden through the winter inKansas, which was really fun
because they'd come out of theschool running to the greenhouse
in their winter coats throughthe snow and then they'd come in
and they would harveststrawberries and we'd have
(40:07):
strawberries in December orspinach in January.
So it was fun.
I think and this is moreanecdotal, but I would say that
with my school projects that Ithink that the biggest thing was
that having the gardeningprogram was just a fun way for
(40:32):
the kid, the young people tothink about healthy lifestyles.
Right, and a non-threateningnot through health class, where
it's boring, you know, it wasjust, it was fun.
And probably the biggestfinding which there's quite a
bit of research that supportsthis is that they were more
(40:55):
likely to try new fruits andvegetables.
We would always have a snack,because it was right, after
school.
So they would start theafter-school program with a
snack, and it was a healthysnack, a fruit or vegetable.
And if we could find somethingdifferent that maybe they never
had before, we would buy thatand everyone had to try it.
(41:17):
And so that's a big thing, likeI just know with my daughter at
that age.
You know she wasn't into tryingnew things.
So even just, it was just theculture of our club we're all
going to try it, we might likeit, we might not, and the
volunteer adults, you know thatwere our leaders.
They didn't, you know theywould say I don't like that and
(41:39):
I'd say, well, you have to tryit and don't say you don't like
it in front of the kids untilafter they've all tried it.
And so they were game, it wasfun, and a story I like to share
about this is.
So at the end of one school yearwe did a field trip and we took
all of our student farmers tomeet our college student farmers
(42:02):
.
So we took them to our studentfarm on campus and they got to
meet the college students.
They were really excited.
And that day on the studentfarm on campus they had harvest
spinach and they had big bags.
I mean just big bags, like ifit was potato chips it'd be like
the super size of potato chips,of the spinach.
(42:24):
It was all washed and ready tosell to farmers market.
But they told the kids when theywere leaving they had big boxes
on them.
They said if you want a bag ofspinach, you can take a bag of
spinach.
Well, these kids were soexcited and they're all grabbing
bags of spinach and they'resaying Dr Schumacher, dr
Schumacher, can we open it upand start eating it?
And I said, well, of course, ifyou want, it's washed, it's
(42:45):
safe.
And we had parents who had comealong to help us because we had
two bus loads of kids.
And these parents are coming upto me saying how in the world
did you do that?
And it was so much fun, it wasjust, it was so neat to see.
And I mean, but you guysprobably know I mean fresh
(43:05):
spinach right out of the garden.
It's really good.
So anyway, that's just so.
That's probably the biggestfinding that we had from the
youth gardening.
It's just their willingness totry.
Lara Brindisi (43:18):
Right, and that's huge because a lot of those
early tendencies can becomestatic and become your adult
tendencies.
Right, and I personally don'tknow any children that have been
that excited about spinach, sothat's great.
So this is a follow-up questionto your results.
You're reporting reachinglevels of moderate activity
(43:41):
that's required by the CDC, orwillingness to try new foods and
stay active.
Have there been any reports ofself-reported happiness or other
emotional benefits?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (43:56):
Yeah, so we didn't measure that in our
studies.
I went back and looked just torefresh my mind and so we just
looked at general mental healthin our studies.
I do know of studies,especially with children, where
the happiness scale is a reallysimple scale.
(44:17):
It's a scale of one to 10, andit's just different faces, so
really you can use it with anypopulation.
It's even used with olderadults with dementia and it's
been found to be an effectivetool to understand their
happiness score.
Lara Brindisi (44:37):
When you're saying different faces, you mean
like a very happy face versuslike a very sad face, and then
maybe some intermediate facesfor a scale Exactly exactly,
yeah, yeah, and the biggest oneis typically 10 faces.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (44:53):
Some of them are only six, but yeah,
it's just called a facehappiness scale Emojis.
Yeah, and that's exactly that'swhat it is Exactly it's emojis.
Yeah, in fact, every time Iwanna put an emoji and I see all
those choices, I'm like, oh, Ican make a new scale.
Lara Brindisi (45:12):
Yeah, this is the one with the big teeth smile.
This is the one with just likethe little line smile Exactly
straight across that's neutral,right?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (45:21):
Yeah, it's just emojis, exactly
exactly, so it's very easy.
So there's been some researchthat's looked at that and in
general I can say that thegardening activities, especially
if you do like a pre-post fromone activity.
In fact, last year at thatconference I just mentioned,
(45:47):
there was a group that reportedon a program that they were
doing with veterans that hadPTSD and they did a pre-post and
one of the scales that theyused was that scale and they
would just look at when theyarrived at the garden they would
do it and quite often at thattime it showed that they were
(46:10):
not happy and then before theyleft they got back on the bus to
go back to the VA hospital.
So just during that one hour,one and a half hours that they
were at the garden, when theyleft, they were happy and so,
yeah, it is used and it shows,especially that pre-post, during
(46:34):
that experience itself, that wefeel better.
Yeah, yeah, and this is allself-reported scales.
Lara Brindisi (46:43):
This is just yeah .
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (46:44):
And the thing when you're using it, when
you're doing human subjectsresearch, right, one of the
challenges is the burden on them, and if the burden is too great
, then you're gonna get dropouts.
And so if you can find a scalethat has had research done on it
(47:04):
, that has shown that it's validand reliable with the
population that you are workingwith, and it's simple, but it's
reliable and valid and it'sanswering the question you have,
then that's just use it.
And so, yeah, the happen toscale.
Doctors use it, mental healthprofessionals use it.
(47:26):
Yeah, it's an effective scale,okay, great.
Lara Brindisi (47:32):
And so let's say, one of our listeners is hearing
you talk about horticulturaltherapy and they're so inspired
to become a horticulturaltherapist.
How do they get training?
Do they need to be certified?
Yeah, so there is aprofessional registration that's
available to the public.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (47:51):
There is a professional registration.
That's available.
It's through the AmericanHorticultural Therapy
Association.
At this point you do not needto be professionally registered
or certified as a horticulturaltherapist to practice
horticultural therapy.
So, just like AESHS has theprofessional certification for
(48:15):
horticulturists, you don't haveto have that, but it certainly
gives you a leg up right and soquite often, especially if you
wanna work in a healthcarefacility, you need to or you
should have that professionalregistration.
(48:35):
To become professionallyregistered, it's a combination
of coursework and a workexperience.
So you need it for 180 hours ofsupervised work experience and
horticultural therapy and thenyou need credit hours in
horticultural therapy and healthand human sciences.
Lara Brindisi (48:59):
Okay, great, and I know a lot of universities
have programs, like I knowRutgers, my university has a
program, and the ones that youhave frequented also, of course,
have those programs.
Yes, yeah yeah.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (49:12):
So there's probably I would say
maybe about 10 universities thatoffer the horticultural therapy
coursework.
Of course there's a lot moreuniversities where you can then
get the horticulture in thehealth and human sciences
coursework.
So, like introduction topsychology, developmental
psychology, social sciences, Ithink pharmacology is a good
(49:35):
course, aging youth developmentthere's a lot of good courses to
take.
And I think I haven't looked atthe requirements from HTA for a
while, but they might haveactually specific courses that
they require.
Now that you have, I'm not sure.
So I would just recommend thatyou go to the American
(49:56):
Horticultural TherapyAssociation it's just ahtaorg
and look at professionalregistration and it'll show you.
There's some public gardensalso that offer the coursework.
And then there's theHorticultural Therapy Institute,
(50:17):
which is located in Denver,colorado, and they actually
deliver their program across thecountry.
So I know a lot of people taketheir program.
Lara Brindisi (50:27):
It's very good yeah, oh, okay, great.
And so, on the other side, ifpeople are listening that wanna
receive Horticultural Therapyand they wanna incorporate it
into their lives, but maybedon't have access to formal
therapy sessions, how would theygo about incorporating it into
their life?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (50:45):
Yeah, you know, I think that's a good
question and I think you know,if you think about mindfulness,
I think that's a really good wayto approach it.
So when you're out in nature,be mindful of nature.
(51:06):
When you're at the farmer'smarket, be mindful of the
produce that you're looking at.
And even if you have only onehouseplant in your apartment or
your home and you're watering it, be mindful while you're there
(51:29):
watering it.
Smell the difference, becausewhen you're watering you're
gonna smell that soil, right,and if you don't smell it
anymore, it's time to put freshsoil in there.
But I think it's related tobeing mindful.
You know, and I think my dad hadan orchard and a big garden and
(51:55):
the garden got bigger andbigger when he retired and of
course I would talk to him aboutdon't you feel better when
you're out there?
And of course he was a WorldWar II veteran.
I mean he was a guy and he wasjust like chuckle, you know, but
as he got older and like he hadknee problems and his doctor
(52:20):
told him to go walk in the mall,which like he's not gonna do
that.
I mean he probably never evenbeen in the mall, you know, and
he'd mentioned that to me onetime and I said well, dad,
instead of driving your tractoraround all the time when you're
out in the orchard, why don'tyou walk?
And or at least, if you takethe tractor out with your wagon
(52:42):
with all your tools in it, thinkabout walking for many trees
before you move the tractor.
And he went oh yeah, I can dothat.
And I think I just saw with mydad that he became more aware of
how he was feeling good when hewent out in the orchard, cause
(53:04):
he didn't have to be out there.
I mean, this was Michigan,right, so he wasn't out there
every day year round.
And when there would be periodsof time when he wasn't out
there and then he'd go out there, I think he started just going.
You know what I do feel betterwhen I'm out here.
Even when he would just walkaround the orchard to look at
the trees and make a note ofwhat had to be done next, he was
(53:26):
feeling better.
So I think for all of us justbeing mindful and if you have a
garden and you're just like youknow, I gotta go out there and
work maybe that's how you start.
But once you get out there,just be mindful, smell, listen,
feel with your plants.
(53:47):
I think that's the way to do it.
Lara Brindisi (53:49):
Yeah, and that's the true theme of therapy, right
?
I feel like all therapies comeback to being mindful.
So that's how I know you're thereal deal.
Yeah, and then I guess the lastcouple of questions I have for
you is you know, what do youwant the public to know about
horticultural therapy and thenhorticultural therapists to know
(54:09):
about your research?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (54:12):
Yeah, well, I mean, I think you know,
first of all, it's really easyfor us to think well, we all
feel better when we're around,especially if we're
horticulturists, right, if mostof the people that are listening
to this are horticulturists,they're just gonna go.
Well, yeah, you know, and theyprovide us, you know, I mean,
there's so many benefits fromplants, right, our oxygen, they
(54:33):
provide shade.
You know, they modify theenvironment.
I mean, there's just, you know,water management, there's just
a whole lot of things, right,and so it's easy for us to take
plants for granted.
And so I think the first thingis to just go yeah, there's a
lot of benefits from plants,from gardening, from
(54:55):
horticulture.
But when we talk abouthorticultural therapy, versus
all the other many, many, many,many benefits that we have from
horticulture, it is a distinctprofession that have trained
professionals selecting specifichorticultural tasks or
(55:16):
activities that are known tohelp with the health issue that
that person is in treatment for.
And so I think that's reallywhat I'd like people to start
really recognizing versus, youknow, therapeutic horticulture
(55:37):
or garden therapy or socialhorticulture, where we have all
these benefits.
You know, if you think about,for example, someone who runs a
community garden, right, someonewho runs a community garden is
gonna talk about an awful lot ofbenefits beyond the tons of
produce that they produce everyyear.
Right, there's social benefits,there's public health benefits,
(56:00):
there's, you know, there'sactivist benefits, you know they
save neighborhoods sometimesbecause of a community garden.
So, but that's not horticulturetherapy, because those are
community dwelling people thatare coming together to have
produce or flowers and socialize, maybe to change the
(56:24):
environment and abandon lot andan inner city to something
beautiful, right, but they'renot there in treatment being led
by health professional.
And so that's really what Ithink, what I wanna say about
horticulture therapy versus allthe other benefits that we get
from horticulture.
Lara Brindisi (56:43):
Got it.
So you wanna make sure thateveryone knows horticultural
therapy.
Is this distinct, very specificfield meant for treating people
through horticulture, whereasyou know gardening and all of
these other activities?
They could be really, reallybeneficial, but it is a separate
field and a separatecategorization.
Yeah, yeah, okay, great.
Well, thank you so much forthis interview, dr Shoemaker.
(57:06):
It's been a pleasure to haveyou on.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (57:09):
I've really appreciated it's fun.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam Humphrey (57:15):
To find Dr Candice Shoemaker's research.
You can find some of her workin HORT Science and HORT
Technology, which are opensource peer-reviewed journals
published by the AmericanSociety for Horticultural
Science.
Links to these articles will beprovided in the show notes.
Lara Brindisi (57:30):
If you'd like more information about the
American Society forHorticultural Science in general
, you can go to ashsorg Sam.
If people wanna follow yourwork, that's the best way.
Sam Humphrey (57:41):
You can find me on LinkedIn at Samson Humphrey
Lara.
And what about you?
Lara Brindisi (57:45):
You can follow me on Instagram at theplantphd, or
on LinkedIn with the tag LaraBrindisi.
Sam Humphrey (57:52):
Thanks for joining us.
Stay tuned for our next podcast.
Lara Brindisi (57:59):
ASHS podcasts are made possible by member dues
and volunteerism.
Please go to ashsorg to learnmore.
If you are not already a memberof ASHS, we invite you to join
us.
Ashs is a not-for-profit andyour donations are tax
deductible.
This episode was hosted by SamHumphrey and Lara Brindisi.
Special thanks to our audioengineer, Alex Fraser, our
(58:21):
research team, Lena Wilson andAndrew Comatz, our ASHS support
team, Sarah Powell and SallyMurphy, and our musician, John
Clark.
Welcome to Plants , People Science, a podcast by
the American Society forHorticultural Science where we
talk about all thingshorticulture.
Hey Sam, how's it going?
Sam Humphrey (00:20):
It's going well.
I'm having a good morning Lara.
How about you?
Lara Brindisi (00:23):
Good, I don't know exactly where we left off
last time, but I believe ourlast episode was before I left
for my travels abroad to theFederated States of Micronesia
and Taiwan.
Sam Humphrey (00:39):
Before you went off to have all those adventures
and become like the wisestperson I'll ever know?
Yeah, so how was?
Lara Brindisi (00:45):
it.
I definitely can't take thatmuch credit, but I mean it was
amazing.
I've never been to the PacificIslands like that before and the
cultures were so rich and thepeople were so kind, and I would
love to go back at some point,though we'll see if that's in
the cards.
Sam Humphrey (01:07):
Oh, that does sound fun.
So you went for the food andthe people.
Is that all you did?
Food?
Lara Brindisi (01:11):
people, plants, culture, I mean, they had
everything.
I don't know exactly what Italked about last time, but in
Micronesia I was working on aproject related to food policy
and food security which is alittle bit outside of my
wheelhouse, so it was great toget some experience there.
And then in Taiwan I actuallyhad a really great internship at
(01:35):
the World Vegetable Center,working on pepper genomics.
What have you been doing athome while I've been away?
Sam Humphrey (01:45):
At home.
I've mostly been working inPhytotron.
My school has this buildingcalled Phytotron that is just
full of dozens of growthchambers that have different
plant experiments, and so I'vebasically been living there and
I started my strawberryexperiment, so I'm really
excited about that.
Lara Brindisi (02:06):
I'm so jealous that you have access to a
Phytotron.
I mean, can you explain for ouraudience what the difference
between a regular greenhouse orgrowth chamber is versus a
Phytotron?
Sam Humphrey (02:18):
I might not be able to explain it very well.
It's like a facility that isfully dedicated to plant
research.
Like I said, a building thathas all these growth chambers.
It also has greenhouses on thetop of it, but these greenhouses
are like they have an airconditioning system that is
closed to the outside so theycan be used for BSL3 type
(02:43):
experiments.
And, yeah, the facility is justreally amazing and the staff
too are very dedicated tokeeping the plants alive, so
it's not just me sitting therealone with my plants.
I can get the help that I needwhen I need it.
So really wonderful experience.
Lara Brindisi (03:01):
Yeah, that is so important.
I could not do any of the workthat I did in my PhD without all
the people that helped with theplant maintenance and
greenhouse upkeep.
It makes your life easier tohave good people around you, for
sure.
Sam Humphrey (03:17):
Yeah, and the lab support too.
But you come from a really apretty big lab, right?
Did you feel like you had thesocial support you needed?
Lara Brindisi (03:26):
Oh yeah, socially .
And my colleague I'll give hera shout out Arian Vasalates,
made a really great comparisonof us to the Weasley family how
we're all a great mix of familybut kind of filling in niches
(03:47):
and competing for resources.
Sam Humphrey (03:52):
If I ever come across your twin, lara, your
Weasley twin, my life will becomplete.
I want to meet, like Lara,number two.
Lara Brindisi (04:04):
Shall we get into it.
Sam Humphrey (04:06):
Yeah, let's do it.
So for this episode we met upwith two wonderful guests in the
horticultural therapy fieldthat we're dividing into two
different episodes.
The short series will sharewhat horticultural therapy is,
how it began and the benefits ofreceiving it, and what it's
like to work as a professionalin the field.
Today will be part one, wherewe interview Dr Candice
(04:27):
Shoemaker, who shares some ofthe research behind receiving
horticultural therapy that shelearned throughout her career as
a professor.
Part two will be with AbbyJaroslo, who practices
horticultural therapy and walksus through her day to day as a
professional in the field.
Lara Brindisi (04:43):
For those of you who have never heard the phrase
horticultural therapy, it isdefined by the American
Horticultural TherapyAssociation as the participation
in horticultural activitiesfacilitated by a registered
horticultural therapist toachieve specific goals within an
established treatment,rehabilitation or vocational
(05:04):
plan.
Horticultural therapy is anactive process which occurs in
the context of an establishedtreatment plan, where the
process itself is consideredtherapeutic activity rather than
the end product.
It is different than communitygardening and garden therapy, so
we just want to make that clear.
Sam Humphrey (05:24):
Now a little more detail about our first guest.
Dr Candice Shoemaker isprofessor at Amaritis of
Horticultural and Human Healthat Kansas State University.
She earned her BS inFloriculture at Michigan State
University, her MS inHorticultural Therapy at Kansas
State University and her PhD inEnvironmental Floriculture at
Michigan State University, afterwhich she completed a postdoc
(05:48):
at Virginia Tech and taughtornamental horticulture at Berry
College while serving as thefirst director of the School of
the Chicago Botanic Garden.
A lifelong passion of hers ishuman issues in horticulture,
which led her to start theinterest group in the American
Society for HorticulturalScience.
Lara Brindisi (06:05):
If this interview resonates with you, I highly
recommend renewing yourmembership and joining the
American Society forHorticultural Science so you can
be part of interest groups likethis one.
Let's get into it.
So I understand you're from afamily who owns a dairy farm and
an orchard.
What made you want to enterFloriculture as an undergraduate
(06:27):
?
You didn't want to continue thefamily farm.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (06:32):
Yeah, I actually changed my major every
year.
I was an undergrad, so if youlook at my transcripts, I'm in a
different college every year.
So I started in education andactually very quickly realized
that wasn't where I wanted to be, which is kind of funny.
Where I ended up right, andthen I went into engineering
(06:57):
because that's what my olderbrother did and he was in civil
engineering, and so I thought,oh, I'll do that.
Well, I didn't even know whatit was, and when I found out
what it was, I was like I don'twant to do that.
And then I landed in thearchitecture or landscape
architecture.
So I was in that college and Istayed in that college the
(07:17):
longest.
But while I was studyinglandscape architecture which I
did for two years I discoveredor realized that I liked
Horticulture the courses I wastaking in Horticulture, more
than the design courses, thearchitecture courses and so I
went and talked with someone inHorticulture and they went over
(07:40):
all the different options thatwere available and the one that
just resonated the most for meeven though I grew up on a dairy
farm and we had orchards and mygreat grandpa actually had his
whole living with an orchard, anapple orchard I didn't go that
direction.
I liked flowers and so I justpicked and I really liked
(08:01):
production and greenhouseproduction.
So that's where I started wasin floriculture and greenhouse
production, with my hope that Iwould someday and maybe this
will still happen someday havemy own greenhouse business.
That was what I had planned todo when I graduated.
Sam Humphrey (08:18):
Very cool.
So how did you transition, howdid you segue from floriculture
and horticulture intohorticulture therapy?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (08:26):
Yeah, so I was living out in.
So I grew up in Michigan, but Ihad done my internship for my I
had a bachelor's degree at agreenhouse outside of Seattle
Washington and then I ended upstaying out there.
I just loved it and I found aplace to live.
It was a home for handicappedchildren, a foster home, and I
(08:50):
lived in a treehouse, which wasreally fun, and in exchange for
my room and board, I took careof the orchard and gardens and
the landscape.
I also helped with the kids atnight.
I did a lot of cooking.
The woman who ran the place,she was a nurse and she was a
(09:12):
gourmet cook and she had thisamazing kitchen in the home for
the kids.
So it was really fun to cook.
And anyway, there was a couplelittle boys, but one in
particular his name was Dannyand he was eight years old and
he always wanted to be with mewhen I was outside and he wanted
(09:33):
to garden and just be with meand he had a pretty significant
cerebral palsy and I didn't Imean, I didn't really know at
all what to do with him.
And so the owner of the place,she suggested that I go and talk
with her teacher, his teacher,and so I went to see the teacher
(09:56):
and then she scheduled for meto visit with a physical
therapist that would work withhim.
And so one of the things withhis condition is that he was, he
was very spastic and he alsohis muscles were all tightening
up, and so the physicaltherapist really was just trying
(10:18):
to maintain the amount ofmovement that he had and not
lose it.
So she said, anything that youcould do with him to especially
work with his hands so that hecan continue to have control
with his hands, because then hecould still feed himself and
have some independence would begood.
So I would do that.
(10:39):
So we'd be out in the gardenand he would be laying down
because he couldn't sit up, andwe'd be pulling weeds and he
would just have the biggestsmile on his face.
He was so happy out there.
And and then at the same time itjust I mean talk about just the
way things happen, right, thesame time there was an article
(11:01):
in the Seattle Times, the localnewspaper, about this thing
called horticulture therapy, anda friend of mine gave it to me
and said, hey, this sounds likewhat you're doing with Danny out
in the garden.
And I had.
I had actually heard abouthorticotherapy when I was an
undergrad at Michigan Statebecause they were starting an
(11:24):
option in that and one of theacademic advisors was really
interested in that and she hadtalked to me about it.
But it would have taken melonger to, and I was interested
in that because I I thinkbecause of the education piece
of you know, and even withlandscape architecture you get
to work with people I had thatinterest in people but but I
(11:49):
just didn't.
I didn't want to take extratime, I wanted to be out as soon
as I could.
I was done with college, Iwanted to do other things, and
so, but in that article itmentioned Kansas State
University and that was the onlyuniversity you could get a
degree in horticulture therapy.
There were other universitieswhere there were options, but
(12:10):
that was the only universitythat had a degree, and so I was
going home in the summer for myolder brother's wedding and so I
thought, oh well, I'm inMichigan, I'll just drive down
to Kansas now it's further awaythan I thought, but it was
closer than in Seattle and meetwith a professor who ran that
(12:30):
program his name is Dr RichardMattson, and I was lucky because
it happened to be when he wasdoing his annual conference on
horticulture therapy.
So I attended that conferenceand then and but I kept wanting
to talk with him but he wasreally busy and you know I'd see
him and I say, can I talk toyou now?
Because really what I wanted todo was just go to K-State and
(12:55):
take all the horticulturetherapy courses because I
already had my degree and youknow.
So I just wanted to studyhorticulture therapy.
So at the end of the conferencehe said, well, I have time for
you now.
And there was another woman hername was Joan that was with him
and we were in the student unionand they were asking me just
(13:16):
some of the craziest questionslike did I like to speak in
front of people?
When was the last time I did atalk in front of people?
And and what was my writing?
Like, did I like to write?
And I'm like you know what inthe world are these questions
for?
You know well, but I learnedabout horticulture therapy and
you know I had something tothink about and went back to
(13:38):
Seattle and and well, I wentback to Michigan for a while and
then I finally got back toSeattle and and there was a
letter from Dr Mattson and hesaid in the letter that he
wanted me to be his graduatestudent and that he had an
assistantship for me and at thegraduate school was still
waiting for my application.
(13:58):
And I show this letter to myroommate and I'm like, okay,
this is really weird, but Ithink I think he's gonna pay me
to go to graduate school because, you know, I had no plans.
In fact I clearly I had my.
When I was taking plantpropagation, my lab partner we
(14:20):
were juniors she already knewshe was gonna go to graduate
school and was she was talkingto me about it and I just
thought that was, I mean, likethat was the only time I ever
talked about and I can rememberabout graduate school as an
undergrad and I remember sayingI would never go to graduate
school, I couldn't wait to getout of college, you know, and
get out with my life, and so Ido nothing about graduate school
(14:43):
and I didn't know anythingabout this thing called an
assistantship and that theywould pay you money to go to
school.
And my roommate says, yeah, Ithink that's what the letter is
saying and she had a friend thatwas in graduate school at the
time.
So we called him and asked himand he said yes, and he
explained it to us and stuff.
So I thought, well, okay, Iguess I'll go to graduate school
(15:05):
and get my master's degree inhorticulture therapy, so so it's
kind of a long story, butthat's sort of how I landed and
got to study, really lucky, youknow, dr Mattson was one of the
the leaders and founders of thisprofession and I got to work
with him.
So yeah, pretty exciting yeah,that's amazing.
Lara Brindisi (15:26):
I mean I love hearing your path because one
night really resembles my own.
I never went into plant biologyexpecting to become plant
biologists and end up in my PhDin this.
I really did this roundaboutway that kind of resembles yours
, where I doubled in engineeringand landscape architecture and
all of these similar pathwaysand ultimately ended up in in
(15:49):
horticulture.
So I love hearing that.
But I also really love hearinghow you took each opportunity as
they came along and really,really sees the day, instead of
letting them pass by you.
And here you are as a you know,a very impressive person in
horticultural therapy.
And so I guess quickly for theaudience who might have never
(16:10):
heard what horticultural therapywas, could you quickly define
this term?
Sure?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (16:15):
so horticultural therapy is the use
of horticulture, horticultureactivities, in a therapeutic way
, working with people that arein treatment, and the activities
themselves are used for the,for the health outcomes that are
(16:37):
you're striving for intreatment, and so.
So that's very focused right,and I think when people hear the
word horticultural therapythey're actually thinking about
probably something a little bitmore broad, and so sometimes,
especially in the profession,you'll hear people talk about
horticultural therapy andtherapeutic horticulture.
(16:58):
So therapeutic horticulture is,again, you know, health and
wellness through horticulture.
So those horticultureactivities, but it may not be
that necessarily that you'reworking with clients and that
activity is targeting the, thehealth issue for that client,
(17:20):
but it's more just you knowthey're gonna feel better and
that might then help them withtheir issues in other ways.
So a lot of times, like in inhospitals, especially
rehabilitation hospitals, theHort Therapy program is really a
time for the patients to get abreak.
(17:41):
Because if you're in in thehospital and you're, for example
, recovering from a stroke orfrom a heart attack and you're
building strength and you knowyou're in physical therapy a
couple times a day and you're inoccupational therapy a couple
times and maybe you're in speechtherapy for an hour every day
(18:03):
and so on.
Right, it's a lot of workbecause they want you in and out
pretty quick, right and.
But you need time to just kindof renew yourself, and a
hospital is a stressful timeanyway, right.
And so the Hort Therapy Programmay be just a time when you're
on a break from all the othertherapies and it gives you a
(18:25):
time to renew and refresh sothat when you go back into the
other allied health therapiesyou can do better.
And so that's reallytherapeutic horticulture.
Other terms that are used tokind of recognize the variety of
health benefits that we getfrom horticulture and from
(18:47):
plants and nature can be socialhorticulture, community
horticulture, communitygardening there's a lot of
health and wellness benefitsfrom that and, as I said,
therapeutic horticulture, gardentherapy.
So there's a lot of terms, andthat's also one of the reasons
why the profession has struggled, because I think too many
(19:14):
people think like when you and Igo out and garden when my
daughter was young and I wouldbe grumpy, I'd get home from
work and I'd be grumpy.
My daughter would say, mom, youneed to go pull some weeds for
a while because then you'rehappier.
She recognized how muchgardening she helped me, but
(19:36):
that wouldn't be horticulturetherapy, right.
I mean in terms of, if you wanthortic therapy to be a
profession, right, then you needprofessionals that are trained
both in horticulture and intherapy and how to bring those
two things together for targetedhealth outcomes.
Sam Humphrey (19:55):
Yeah, that's a really good thing to keep in
mind.
I was not aware of that before.
So I think of how people havebeen pulling weeds for probably
millions of years at this point,before we were even people, I'm
sure.
But the start of horticulturaltherapy as a practice how did
(20:15):
that begin?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (20:17):
Yeah, so well, actually from the founding
of our country.
So Dr Benjamin Rush he'sconsidered the father of
American psychiatry and heactually signed was one of the
signers of the constitution.
He recognized in mental healthhospitals so think about
(20:40):
hundreds of years ago and thefounding of this nation what
those hospitals might have beenlike.
But he recognized many of themwere out in the country and for
people who couldn't pay for carethey would work on the farms.
They were quite often workingfarms and he actually noticed
that those who got outside thatworked in the farms got better
(21:02):
and those who could afford topay and stay inside quite often
didn't get better.
So even early on some of hiswritings were about that.
But where the really theprofession emerged was after,
during and after World War II,so especially in the 1950s.
But what happened isrehabilitation medicine really
(21:26):
became its own separate entityof medical practice during World
War I and World War II,especially World War II, because
more soldiers were survivingthe battlefield and coming home
with pretty severe injuries andhad to be taken care of for a
long time in the hospital beforethey could go home, and
(21:50):
occupational therapy at the sametime was working closely with
rehabilitation medicine, and sothese soldiers were recovering
for a long time and the doctorsand the occupational therapists
were looking for lots of thingsto keep them occupied especially
the occupational therapists,while they were recovering and
(22:12):
getting strong enough where theycould go home.
And at the same time theAmerican Gardening Association
had as one of their missionareas to volunteer in their
communities.
So they would volunteer at thehospitals and started doing
gardening activities with thesesoldiers as you're covering
soldiers and there were bothphysicians and occupational
(22:36):
therapists who really saw somedistinctions when it was
gardening versus other thingsthat could keep us occupied.
So you think about musictherapy, art therapy,
horticulture therapy those allcame really at the same time out
of, especially after World WarII, and so that's really how it
(22:57):
began to be distinguished as itsown profession.
And then some work atuniversities and I'm proud to
say at Michigan State University, my alumni or alum, where I
graduated from, was one of thoseplaces that was doing some work
(23:17):
and it was the HorticultureDepartment and a physician and
an occupational therapist and asocial worker that were doing
that in the 60s and then in the70s the National Professional
Association, which is now calledthe American Horticultural
Therapy Association, was founded.
(23:37):
At that time it was called theNational Association for Therapy
and Rehabilitation throughHorticulture, so it was a little
complicated, so that was smart.
When they changed it to theAmerican Horticultural Therapy
Association, so it was really inthe 70s when the definition of
it as a profession in factthat's what Dr Mattson was
(23:58):
working on he had gotten a bigNational Institute for Health
grant to really definehorticulture therapy and that's
when I got to work with him.
So that was pretty excitingyeah.
Lara Brindisi (24:11):
Great.
And so when you're talkingabout seeing patients improve,
what kind of benefits arephysicians and horticultural
therapists and social workers oranyone involved in this process
?
What kind of benefits are theynoticing?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (24:28):
Yeah, you know, I just in fact, last fall
I gave a talk at the AmericanHorticultural Therapy
Association annual conference.
That was on the researchfindings that we now have, and I
started that talk by, like youknow where do you go when you
want to learn anything new?
You go to Google, right?
(24:49):
So if you do a Google searchbenefits of horticulture therapy
you get, you know, millions ofhits right and even if you look
at like the CDC, you can findthe benefits of gardening and.
But if you remember I justtalked about horticulture
therapy as a profession versushealth and wellness, that we get
(25:11):
, any of us get throughhorticulture right.
So there's actually, I'mpleased to say, from when I
started in the late 70s, there'smore and more research being
done looking at andunderstanding the health
benefits from gardening and fromhorticulture therapy.
There's more on the healthbenefits of gardening, which is
(25:34):
what my research was in thanthere is on our understanding of
the health benefits fromhorticultural therapy.
So if you think about it as aprofession in the healthcare
field, right, if we're taking apill to feel better from the flu
or something, it's a certaindosage for a certain amount of
(25:57):
time that from research we knowfor most people will make us
feel better, right.
So in that regard we've got along ways to go in terms of
horticultural therapy.
But if we look at it, there'sbeen enough research now that
there's actually publications,probably the last five or six
(26:17):
years, that are meta-analysis ofthe research that's been done.
Looking at particularly witholder adults, there's a lot of
pretty good research now onhorticultural therapy programs,
and probably the biggest one wehave with older adults in
treatment is with cognitiveimpairment.
So we know that horticulturaltherapy programs can help
(26:43):
sustain or maintain cognitivehealth.
So in terms of people withdementia, it's a really good way
to help with that problem.
Depression is another one.
That's we've got, I think,pretty good research now that
shows that it can helppositively improve depression,
(27:07):
anxiety.
So those mental health aspects,right.
We also know that and this isfrom some of my research as well
that gardening is a physicalactivity, so we can have
physical improvements, it canhelp with strength and general
physical health as well.
So both mental and physicalhealth benefits, and then and
(27:32):
then we can look at socialbenefits as well.
So, and again, a lot of theresearch has been with older
adults, and so we know thatgardening activities,
horticultural activities canfoster more social interaction
and I quite often tell a storywhen I was getting my PhD, which
(27:54):
was in floriculture, I reallywanted to do it in human issues
in horticulture, but that didn'twork out.
But I connected with a medicalschool at Michigan State
University, again for my PhD.
I connected with the medicalschool and they had just started
while I was getting my PhD.
(28:15):
They called it a cognatethrough the medical school but
it was like a master's degree ingerontology.
So while I was getting my PhD Idid this gerontology cognate
and I had to do a researchproject and I had to do a
practicum and I did those at anursing home and so I ran a
(28:37):
horticultural therapy programfor a full year.
As for my practicum and one ofmy because that's what the
facility wanted was they wantedthe people to to socialize more
and kind of build friendships inthe institution, which is hard.
So that was one of my goals,for my horticultural therapy
(29:01):
program was to fostersocialization.
So I would plan, you know, eachweek these activities and think
about how I could get them totalk.
Right, well, they would talk tome.
I had about 12 residents thatcame to my garden club and they
(29:21):
would all talk to me, they wouldanswer my questions, but they
weren't talking to each other.
Well, one week in the BotanicGardens on campus they had
pruned all the roses and theyjust bags of roses, you know,
and spent roses, right.
So I took these bags and andbrought them to the to the
(29:42):
facility and I just dumped allthese roses on the table, was
just covered in red roses and Isaid all we're gonna do today is
pull the petals off the theroses, because then we're gonna
dry them and we'll just leavethem on these tables and we'll
dry them and the next week wecan make pulp vreep.
So it wasn't a hard activity,right.
(30:04):
And we're just sitting there andwe're, and of course it smells
heavenly, right.
They started talking to eachother and more people come in
and they want to join because itsmells good.
And they're talking to eachother and they're sharing
stories about, you know, when,the first time their husband
gave them roses when they weredating?
(30:26):
Or you know the rose bush, thatwas next to their front porch
and the hub every summer when itwould start blooming.
They would remember that.
I mean it.
And they're sharing thesestories with me, not with me
with each other.
You know it was just, it wasamazing, but I didn't plan that,
you know, for that to happen,but it worked.
So socialization we've.
(30:48):
We know from the research thatthat's also another good health
outcome.
Lara Brindisi (30:52):
Yeah, you're gonna open up a new can of worms
about aroma therapy, but that'sa whole separate discussion
Exactly exactly.
Sam Humphrey (31:02):
Wow.
So you have talked, then, aboutmany of the health benefits of
gardening and you've done a lotof research in this area
yourself.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthe work that you've done?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (31:15):
Yeah.
So I focused on, of course,older adults because I had
studied gerontology while I wasgetting my PhD and then I also
did some school garden projectsas well, research projects as
well, and so with the the,actually with both of them, it
was to really look at twoprimary things one was nutrition
(31:40):
and then the second one wasphysical activity.
So we all know, we're, you know, used to well, it is again now
five servings of fruits andvegetables a day for a healthy
diet.
You know, actually while I wasdoing my research the CDC had
changed it to nine and then theychanged it back because we're
(32:01):
not even meeting the five.
So then why change it to ninewhen we're, you know we can't
even do the five a day?
So it's five a day.
And then our, you know,recommendation for physical
activity, for health maintenancefor all of us is at least 150
minutes of moderate intensityphysical activity a day.
(32:22):
So my question with older adultsis if you're a gardener, does
that make a difference?
And can gardening kind of abigger question is can gardening
with older adults help withtheir health, their physical
health?
And then with youth it was moreabout can we design a program
(32:43):
that can help?
And we targeted eight, nine and10 year olds.
So, like fourth and fifth grade, right before they're going
into middle school or juniorhigh, can we come up with a
program using gardening that canhelp them start thinking about
healthy lifestyle choices, right?
(33:04):
So sedentary behavior, drinkingwater, screen time, right, and
then of course, physicalactivity and healthy eating.
And so those were the twoavenues that my whole research
career was in, and we would do avariety of different things,
(33:32):
different interventions, and wewould do all kinds of different
ways of measuring the outcomes.
So we would do observation, soI would train undergraduate
students and they would have acheck sheet and, like with older
adults, they would go to theolder adults' homes and just
(33:52):
observe them gardening, and itwas specific things that we
would have them mark as theywatched them.
So they were just.
It was kind of like, you know,in see-true research, right.
Of course we did a lot ofsurveys.
Some of them were things thatwe wrote ourselves, especially
like the demographicsinformation we needed to gather,
(34:14):
but then also things like,especially with the kids.
All of my interventions weredesigned using social cognitive
theory, and so with socialcognitive theory, some of the
things that you target areself-efficacy and outcome
expectancies.
So we would do.
We would use survey instrumentsthat were already shown to be
(34:37):
reliable in measuring thosebehaviors in kids.
There's standard eatingbehavior survey instruments.
We would use those.
And then we also would measuremetabolic things.
So we would measure things likeheart rate, oxygen consumption.
(34:57):
We'd have both the adults andthe kids wear accelerometers to
measure their movements, and soit was a real mix of things that
we would do to measure, tounderstand how they garden right
and how long they garden, andso on.
So it was just a real mix ofthings that we would do.
Lara Brindisi (35:19):
Great, so what did you?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (35:20):
find so with our older adults.
Okay, so these are communitydwelling.
Most of my research was withcommunity dwelling older adults
and one of the standardizedsurvey instruments that we used
was a leisure time physicalactivity assessment.
(35:44):
That, basically, was quite acomprehensive survey instrument,
but it would, based on theresults, you could calculate how
much time they spent in leisuretime, physical activity, and if
it was low intensity, moderateintensity or high intensity, and
(36:06):
gardening was one of thoseitems on that thing.
So it was really great becausewe could look at gardening
versus walking, versus golfingversus vacuuming, just all
different kinds of things right.
So we took our study populationand we designated them as
(36:26):
gardeners or non-gardeners basedon the results of that survey.
And then we looked at all thesehealth parameters, both from
self-report surveys that we did,as well as heart rate and
oxygen consumption and so on,and what we found, what we
learned, was, first of all, bothin terms of the metabolic
(36:49):
measurements that we took aswell as the self-report
measurements, that they havebetter physical health.
So if you're a gardener, or ifyou've ever been a gardener, as
you approach older age, youmight want to think about
starting gardening again.
If you're not a gardener,because it helps you.
(37:10):
It can help you sustain goodphysical health, mental health
was actually similar across allof our population.
So what we found, what we kindof concluded there was we did
this research in Manhattan,kansas that older adults in
(37:30):
Manhattan campus are mentallyhealthy, and then probably one
of the biggest findings that wetook and then we did some
horticulture therapy typeresearch, was we found that
gardeners had stronger handstrength and better finger
dexterity, which is reallyimportant.
(37:52):
I mean, I notice already, I cannotice that my hand strength is
changing as I'm aging and so Ireally want to get out and
garden Minus three here today,so I'm not going to be gardening
today, but anyway.
So that finding.
We actually then designed a12-week horticulture therapy
(38:16):
program and we worked with therehabilitation unit at our local
hospital and worked withoccupational therapists and we
recruited people that were inoutpatient care, still doing
therapy, who had had a strokebut were still in therapy to
(38:37):
improve their hand strength, andso we had a control group that
was in their traditional OT careand then we had a treatment
group that got our 12-weekhorticulture therapy treatment
and we did plant propagation foran hour twice a week for 12
weeks and our treatment was aseffective as the OT treatment.
(39:02):
So that was really a funfinding to find out.
So that's kind of globally whatwe found out with our older
adult research With our kids.
So the grant I got a really biggrant.
That was a four-year projectand the biggest thing on that
(39:24):
was that we had to measure BMI.
So basically weight right, andwhat we found which of course
sounds like it was a non-findingwas that there was no change in
BMI and what you want to see isa reduction.
Well, our kids weren'toverweight to begin with, so why
(39:46):
would we want it to go down?
Because they weren't overweight?
We ran an after-schoolgardening program.
We built high tunnels at theschools so that they could
garden through the winter inKansas, which was really fun
because they'd come out of theschool running to the greenhouse
in their winter coats throughthe snow and then they'd come in
and they would harveststrawberries and we'd have
(40:07):
strawberries in December orspinach in January.
So it was fun.
I think and this is moreanecdotal, but I would say that
with my school projects that Ithink that the biggest thing was
that having the gardeningprogram was just a fun way for
(40:32):
the kid, the young people tothink about healthy lifestyles.
Right, and a non-threateningnot through health class, where
it's boring, you know, it wasjust, it was fun.
And probably the biggestfinding which there's quite a
bit of research that supportsthis is that they were more
(40:55):
likely to try new fruits andvegetables.
We would always have a snack,because it was right, after
school.
So they would start theafter-school program with a
snack, and it was a healthysnack, a fruit or vegetable.
And if we could find somethingdifferent that maybe they never
had before, we would buy thatand everyone had to try it.
(41:17):
And so that's a big thing, likeI just know with my daughter at
that age.
You know she wasn't into tryingnew things.
So even just, it was just theculture of our club we're all
going to try it, we might likeit, we might not, and the
volunteer adults, you know thatwere our leaders.
They didn't, you know theywould say I don't like that and
(41:39):
I'd say, well, you have to tryit and don't say you don't like
it in front of the kids untilafter they've all tried it.
And so they were game, it wasfun, and a story I like to share
about this is.
So at the end of one school yearwe did a field trip and we took
all of our student farmers tomeet our college student farmers
(42:02):
.
So we took them to our studentfarm on campus and they got to
meet the college students.
They were really excited.
And that day on the studentfarm on campus they had harvest
spinach and they had big bags.
I mean just big bags, like ifit was potato chips it'd be like
the super size of potato chips,of the spinach.
(42:24):
It was all washed and ready tosell to farmers market.
But they told the kids when theywere leaving they had big boxes
on them.
They said if you want a bag ofspinach, you can take a bag of
spinach.
Well, these kids were soexcited and they're all grabbing
bags of spinach and they'resaying Dr Schumacher, dr
Schumacher, can we open it upand start eating it?
And I said, well, of course, ifyou want, it's washed, it's
(42:45):
safe.
And we had parents who had comealong to help us because we had
two bus loads of kids.
And these parents are coming upto me saying how in the world
did you do that?
And it was so much fun, it wasjust, it was so neat to see.
And I mean, but you guysprobably know I mean fresh
(43:05):
spinach right out of the garden.
It's really good.
So anyway, that's just so.
That's probably the biggestfinding that we had from the
youth gardening.
It's just their willingness totry.
Lara Brindisi (43:18):
Right, and that's huge because a lot of those
early tendencies can becomestatic and become your adult
tendencies.
Right, and I personally don'tknow any children that have been
that excited about spinach, sothat's great.
So this is a follow-up questionto your results.
You're reporting reachinglevels of moderate activity
(43:41):
that's required by the CDC, orwillingness to try new foods and
stay active.
Have there been any reports ofself-reported happiness or other
emotional benefits?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (43:56):
Yeah, so we didn't measure that in our
studies.
I went back and looked just torefresh my mind and so we just
looked at general mental healthin our studies.
I do know of studies,especially with children, where
the happiness scale is a reallysimple scale.
(44:17):
It's a scale of one to 10, andit's just different faces, so
really you can use it with anypopulation.
It's even used with olderadults with dementia and it's
been found to be an effectivetool to understand their
happiness score.
Lara Brindisi (44:37):
When you're saying different faces, you mean
like a very happy face versuslike a very sad face, and then
maybe some intermediate facesfor a scale Exactly exactly,
yeah, yeah, and the biggest oneis typically 10 faces.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (44:53):
Some of them are only six, but yeah,
it's just called a facehappiness scale Emojis.
Yeah, and that's exactly that'swhat it is Exactly it's emojis.
Yeah, in fact, every time Iwanna put an emoji and I see all
those choices, I'm like, oh, Ican make a new scale.
Lara Brindisi (45:12):
Yeah, this is the one with the big teeth smile.
This is the one with just likethe little line smile Exactly
straight across that's neutral,right?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (45:21):
Yeah, it's just emojis, exactly
exactly, so it's very easy.
So there's been some researchthat's looked at that and in
general I can say that thegardening activities, especially
if you do like a pre-post fromone activity.
In fact, last year at thatconference I just mentioned,
(45:47):
there was a group that reportedon a program that they were
doing with veterans that hadPTSD and they did a pre-post and
one of the scales that theyused was that scale and they
would just look at when theyarrived at the garden they would
do it and quite often at thattime it showed that they were
(46:10):
not happy and then before theyleft they got back on the bus to
go back to the VA hospital.
So just during that one hour,one and a half hours that they
were at the garden, when theyleft, they were happy and so,
yeah, it is used and it shows,especially that pre-post, during
(46:34):
that experience itself, that wefeel better.
Yeah, yeah, and this is allself-reported scales.
Lara Brindisi (46:43):
This is just yeah .
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (46:44):
And the thing when you're using it, when
you're doing human subjectsresearch, right, one of the
challenges is the burden on them, and if the burden is too great
, then you're gonna get dropouts.
And so if you can find a scalethat has had research done on it
(47:04):
, that has shown that it's validand reliable with the
population that you are workingwith, and it's simple, but it's
reliable and valid and it'sanswering the question you have,
then that's just use it.
And so, yeah, the happen toscale.
Doctors use it, mental healthprofessionals use it.
(47:26):
Yeah, it's an effective scale,okay, great.
Lara Brindisi (47:32):
And so let's say, one of our listeners is hearing
you talk about horticulturaltherapy and they're so inspired
to become a horticulturaltherapist.
How do they get training?
Do they need to be certified?
Yeah, so there is aprofessional registration that's
available to the public.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (47:51):
There is a professional registration.
That's available.
It's through the AmericanHorticultural Therapy
Association.
At this point you do not needto be professionally registered
or certified as a horticulturaltherapist to practice
horticultural therapy.
So, just like AESHS has theprofessional certification for
(48:15):
horticulturists, you don't haveto have that, but it certainly
gives you a leg up right and soquite often, especially if you
wanna work in a healthcarefacility, you need to or you
should have that professionalregistration.
(48:35):
To become professionallyregistered, it's a combination
of coursework and a workexperience.
So you need it for 180 hours ofsupervised work experience and
horticultural therapy and thenyou need credit hours in
horticultural therapy and healthand human sciences.
Lara Brindisi (48:59):
Okay, great, and I know a lot of universities
have programs, like I knowRutgers, my university has a
program, and the ones that youhave frequented also, of course,
have those programs.
Yes, yeah yeah.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (49:12):
So there's probably I would say
maybe about 10 universities thatoffer the horticultural therapy
coursework.
Of course there's a lot moreuniversities where you can then
get the horticulture in thehealth and human sciences
coursework.
So, like introduction topsychology, developmental
psychology, social sciences, Ithink pharmacology is a good
(49:35):
course, aging youth developmentthere's a lot of good courses to
take.
And I think I haven't looked atthe requirements from HTA for a
while, but they might haveactually specific courses that
they require.
Now that you have, I'm not sure.
So I would just recommend thatyou go to the American
(49:56):
Horticultural TherapyAssociation it's just ahtaorg
and look at professionalregistration and it'll show you.
There's some public gardensalso that offer the coursework.
And then there's theHorticultural Therapy Institute,
(50:17):
which is located in Denver,colorado, and they actually
deliver their program across thecountry.
So I know a lot of people taketheir program.
Lara Brindisi (50:27):
It's very good yeah, oh, okay, great.
And so, on the other side, ifpeople are listening that wanna
receive Horticultural Therapyand they wanna incorporate it
into their lives, but maybedon't have access to formal
therapy sessions, how would theygo about incorporating it into
their life?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (50:45):
Yeah, you know, I think that's a good
question and I think you know,if you think about mindfulness,
I think that's a really good wayto approach it.
So when you're out in nature,be mindful of nature.
(51:06):
When you're at the farmer'smarket, be mindful of the
produce that you're looking at.
And even if you have only onehouseplant in your apartment or
your home and you're watering it, be mindful while you're there
(51:29):
watering it.
Smell the difference, becausewhen you're watering you're
gonna smell that soil, right,and if you don't smell it
anymore, it's time to put freshsoil in there.
But I think it's related tobeing mindful.
You know, and I think my dad hadan orchard and a big garden and
(51:55):
the garden got bigger andbigger when he retired and of
course I would talk to him aboutdon't you feel better when
you're out there?
And of course he was a WorldWar II veteran.
I mean he was a guy and he wasjust like chuckle, you know, but
as he got older and like he hadknee problems and his doctor
(52:20):
told him to go walk in the mall,which like he's not gonna do
that.
I mean he probably never evenbeen in the mall, you know, and
he'd mentioned that to me onetime and I said well, dad,
instead of driving your tractoraround all the time when you're
out in the orchard, why don'tyou walk?
And or at least, if you takethe tractor out with your wagon
(52:42):
with all your tools in it, thinkabout walking for many trees
before you move the tractor.
And he went oh yeah, I can dothat.
And I think I just saw with mydad that he became more aware of
how he was feeling good when hewent out in the orchard, cause
(53:04):
he didn't have to be out there.
I mean, this was Michigan,right, so he wasn't out there
every day year round.
And when there would be periodsof time when he wasn't out
there and then he'd go out there, I think he started just going.
You know what I do feel betterwhen I'm out here.
Even when he would just walkaround the orchard to look at
the trees and make a note ofwhat had to be done next, he was
(53:26):
feeling better.
So I think for all of us justbeing mindful and if you have a
garden and you're just like youknow, I gotta go out there and
work maybe that's how you start.
But once you get out there,just be mindful, smell, listen,
feel with your plants.
(53:47):
I think that's the way to do it.
Lara Brindisi (53:49):
Yeah, and that's the true theme of therapy, right
?
I feel like all therapies comeback to being mindful.
So that's how I know you're thereal deal.
Yeah, and then I guess the lastcouple of questions I have for
you is you know, what do youwant the public to know about
horticultural therapy and thenhorticultural therapists to know
(54:09):
about your research?
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (54:12):
Yeah, well, I mean, I think you know,
first of all, it's really easyfor us to think well, we all
feel better when we're around,especially if we're
horticulturists, right, if mostof the people that are listening
to this are horticulturists,they're just gonna go.
Well, yeah, you know, and theyprovide us, you know, I mean,
there's so many benefits fromplants, right, our oxygen, they
(54:33):
provide shade.
You know, they modify theenvironment.
I mean, there's just, you know,water management, there's just
a whole lot of things, right,and so it's easy for us to take
plants for granted.
And so I think the first thingis to just go yeah, there's a
lot of benefits from plants,from gardening, from
(54:55):
horticulture.
But when we talk abouthorticultural therapy, versus
all the other many, many, many,many benefits that we have from
horticulture, it is a distinctprofession that have trained
professionals selecting specifichorticultural tasks or
(55:16):
activities that are known tohelp with the health issue that
that person is in treatment for.
And so I think that's reallywhat I'd like people to start
really recognizing versus, youknow, therapeutic horticulture
(55:37):
or garden therapy or socialhorticulture, where we have all
these benefits.
You know, if you think about,for example, someone who runs a
community garden, right, someonewho runs a community garden is
gonna talk about an awful lot ofbenefits beyond the tons of
produce that they produce everyyear.
Right, there's social benefits,there's public health benefits,
(56:00):
there's, you know, there'sactivist benefits, you know they
save neighborhoods sometimesbecause of a community garden.
So, but that's not horticulturetherapy, because those are
community dwelling people thatare coming together to have
produce or flowers and socialize, maybe to change the
(56:24):
environment and abandon lot andan inner city to something
beautiful, right, but they'renot there in treatment being led
by health professional.
And so that's really what Ithink, what I wanna say about
horticulture therapy versus allthe other benefits that we get
from horticulture.
Lara Brindisi (56:43):
Got it.
So you wanna make sure thateveryone knows horticultural
therapy.
Is this distinct, very specificfield meant for treating people
through horticulture, whereasyou know gardening and all of
these other activities?
They could be really, reallybeneficial, but it is a separate
field and a separatecategorization.
Yeah, yeah, okay, great.
Well, thank you so much forthis interview, dr Shoemaker.
(57:06):
It's been a pleasure to haveyou on.
Dr. Candace Shoemaker (57:09):
I've really appreciated it's fun.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam Humphrey (57:15):
To find Dr Candice Shoemaker's research.
You can find some of her workin HORT Science and HORT
Technology, which are opensource peer-reviewed journals
published by the AmericanSociety for Horticultural
Science.
Links to these articles will beprovided in the show notes.
Lara Brindisi (57:30):
If you'd like more information about the
American Society forHorticultural Science in general
, you can go to ashsorg Sam.
If people wanna follow yourwork, that's the best way.
Sam Humphrey (57:41):
You can find me on LinkedIn at Samson Humphrey
Lara.
And what about you?
Lara Brindisi (57:45):
You can follow me on Instagram at theplantphd, or
on LinkedIn with the tag LaraBrindisi.
Sam Humphrey (57:52):
Thanks for joining us.
Stay tuned for our next podcast.
Lara Brindisi (57:59):
ASHS podcasts are made possible by member dues
and volunteerism.
Please go to ashsorg to learnmore.
If you are not already a memberof ASHS, we invite you to join
us.
Ashs is a not-for-profit andyour donations are tax
deductible.
This episode was hosted by SamHumphrey and Lara Brindisi.
Special thanks to our audioengineer, Alex Fraser, our
(58:21):
research team, Lena Wilson andAndrew Comatz, our ASHS support
team, Sarah Powell and SallyMurphy, and our musician, John
Clark.
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