Gardening in Raised Beds and Containers for Individuals with Disabilities

Gardening is the number one outdoor, leisure time activity in America, with 84 percent of households involved in at least one form of gardening activity. Gardening is a source of personal satisfaction and pride providing esthetic pleasure and opportunity for relief from daily stress. Gardening is an ideal preventative therapy to maintain personal well being. With a little planning and creativity, it can be available to everyone. Disabled and elderly who have never gardened can acquire a new and rewarding hobby. With proper modification to the site, gardeners who have lost physical ability can continue this valuable activity.

While most gardening is considered part of the traditional landscape or ground-level planting, an increasing number of gardeners are discovering the advantages of gardening in planters, containers, and raised beds. These gardening styles can be readily adapted to make gardening easier for disabled and elderly gardeners. They are equally adaptable for gardening in a small backyard, a third floor apartment patio, on top of a hospital, or on the grounds of a retirement home.

DESIGNING THE GARDEN

The best design for a garden will depend on an individual's strength and personal preference. For example, among people who use a wheelchair for mobility, some people prefer to get in touch with the earth and move along the garden row with two sturdy mats, transferring from one mat to the other as they progress. In this case, short handled tools are ideal. For people who prefer to work in regular ground beds from their chair, long-handled tools make the job easier. These tools should be light weight and have small working heads so that exceptional strength is not required for the leverage to lift them.

An alternative is to build raised beds so that the plants and soil are at a convenient height to maintain from a seated position. If twisting to the side is difficult, consider a shallow planter mounted on legs or set on a tabletop that allows for the knees to fit under it. While this limits the choices of plants, many herbs and low growing annual flowers will perform well in a planter only 4 inches deep if watered daily in the heat of summer.

A new gardener who has a visual impairment may build self confidence and develop skills in a bed that can be worked while standing.

Avoid the urge to plant too many herbs and other fragrant plants that can overwhelm each other with conflicting odors. Look for plants with interesting textures (i.e. Lamb's ear), sounds (i.e. the seed pods of Siberian Iris), and certainly taste (the miniature tomato, Robin, is a heavy producer all season in only 6 inches of soil).

PLANNING THE GARDEN

The first step in planning a raised garden is understanding the needs and abilities of the gardeners. The garden area should be as small as possible to adequately meet these needs. As the garden size increases, the fun of gardening tends to change to drudgery. All of the raised beds or planters should be easily accessible and arranged in a fashion to fit together as an attractive landscape unit. Avoid the tendency to line up little garden plots in rows resembling grave yards. Trees and shrubs can be used to enclose one or more sides of the raised garden site, providing both privacy and a pleasing backdrop, but avoid shading the garden with excessive plantings. Beds and planters can be designed to fit individual needs; however, standard dimensions for raised beds are given in Table 1.

Standard Dimensions for Raised Beds

Wheelchair Semi-Ambulatory Ground

Height 2-2.5 feet 2.5-3 feet 1/2-1feet

Width 2 feet 2 feet 2 feet (one-sided)

Width 3-4 feet 4 feet 4 feet (two-sided)

Diameter 3-4 feet 4 feet 4 feet (circle)

Raised beds generally are 3 to 4 feet wide and as long as desired. However, depending on the individual's strength and endurance, it would be wise to limit the length of the bed to 10 or 20 feet to prevent overexertion in circling the bed.

ADVANTAGES OF GARDENING IN PLANTERS, CONTAINERS, AND RAISED BEDS

Due to the many materials available and to the many types of raised planters, adaptability to the disabled individual's needs is great.