3rd Place Organic Bronze Award
Glade Run Gardens at St. Stephen's Lutheran Academy Zelienople, Pennsylvania

To make sure that we accurately represent the student’s views on our Therapeutic Garden Program as well as the teacher’s views, we have decided to write this essay as a true narrative, or as close to a true narrative as possible. During several recent classes, we asked students about the Program, and these are some abbreviated answers.

Educational Use of the Garden
Miss Julie: “How do you think that the garden is educational?”
Brian: We learn about plants…and the food pyramid. We also learn about the water cycle.
Jordan: We learned how to make zucchini taste good…CHOCOLATE!
Miss Julie: And did you learn where chocolate comes from?
Marcus: Trees!
Charles: And there is only one insect that pollinates that tree, and so we need to save the rainforest so we can eat chocolate!

Teacher comments: The gardens are used year round. During the school year, students attend classes in the greenhouse and gardens focused primarily on Nutrition and Earth Sciences curriculum, as developed by the state of Pennsylvania. Students learn how a healthy earth leads to healthy inhabitants, and how our bodies function with proper nutrition. During the summer, students in residential treatment create theme gardens for social and educational purposes.

Garden Maintenance
Miss Julie: “How do you take care of the gardens?”
Charles: Water, weed, water, weed…
Jordan: We put stinky fish on the plants, so their roots can eat it up and grow big.
Tyriee: I found a tomato hornworm eating our tomatoes!
Anthony: I put a worm that I found in the garden, but it wasn’t one that we raised.

Teacher Comments: The garden has been designed in collaboration with nature in order to be easily maintained. Raised beds and composted mulch help to virtually eliminate weeding, and a drip irrigation system under the mulch keeps the roots moist when rain is not enough. Healthy soil, companion planting, beneficial insect attracting plants, and eager bug-finding students is our defense against invading pests.

Social Aspect of the Garden
Miss Julie: “What do you learn about yourself when you are here?”
Marcus: It’s just fun.
Tyriee: I learned that I have good eyes to see worms!
Garrett: I’m a good cook.

Teacher Comments: Glade Run Gardens is a part of a larger organization that works with children ages 6-18 with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Our school, St. Stephen’s Lutheran Academy, is a special education facility. Our primary focus, whenever we work with our students, is building self-esteem and positive social skills. Glade Run Gardens is a therapeutic horticulture program that aims to connect children with all sorts of natural processes, social, emotional, and ecological. Volunteers from the community are also involved in working with the kids in the garden. A Spring Symposium is the annual fundraiser to raise money for the garden program.

Student’s Involvement in the Garden
Miss Julie: “What do you do in the garden?”
Zach: Everything! (All students nodded in agreement, then Zach added…) But you tell us how.

Teacher comments: Students are involved in all horticultural aspects of the garden and green house. Students assist seed saving and starting, transplanting, watering, insect patrol, stinky fish fertilizing, plant division, etc. Students also develop themes and create props for their theme gardens. Arts, crafts, and cooking are also integral parts of the Program.

Use of the Garden’s Produce
Miss Julie: “How did we use what you grew in the garden?”
Susan: We made pickles, which are really cucumbers.
Austin: We made soap that I gave to my Mom.
Charles: I like drinking the tea, the peppermint is best because it’s good for you.

Teacher Comments: Everything that is grown in the gardens is put to use in one way or another. Many of the plants that we chose to grow have a therapeutic or educational value, especially the sensitivity plants and scented geraniums. All summer long we are busy harvesting and cooking or preserving. The students learn social skills and life skills each time we work in the kitchen. This summer, we produced a cookbook of recipes from produce that the kids prepared and ate.

Impact on Students
Miss Julie: “How has the garden changed you?”
Susan: I’m still me, but now I know more.
Brenna: I like taking care of plants — they are just cool.
Olivia: I like working with the bonsai because it helps me to relax.

Teacher’s Comments: Every Program seeks to have an impact on its students. Our Program has been working on proving that students in treatment are feeling better about themselves after participation in horticultural therapy. Through a pre and post survey, hundreds of children have almost exclusively expressed that their mood improves. The goal of the Program is three fold; to help build self esteem, to teach children how to gain control over their emotions through coping skills, and to help children to understand the natural world and how to best care for it, therefore caring for ourselves.