Adaptive Gardens Access for All

YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY HEARD that hospitals and health care facilities around the world are becoming attuned to the way time spent outdoors can benefit their patients. Proximity to nature can promote elevated feelings of calm and reduce blood pressure, as well as stimulate beneficial brain activity. While healing gardens have gone a long way in relieving the stress brought on by exhausting clinical treatments, some gardeners have made it their goal to bring patients even closer to nature. They’re using adaptive gardening techniques to create spaces where patients not only walk through nature, but engage their senses by interacting with the plants.

For a century, the Capper Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, has sought innovative ways to improve the lives of the more than 2,000 people with disabilities served annually. The nonprofit, which is dedicated to providing therapy services and home- and community-based support, was born in 1920 due to the determination of