September 5, 2001

Garden growth heals hearts

Munson Art Therapy plants Healing Garden at library

By LISA PERKINS
Herald staff writer
       A garden can be more than a place to grow flowers or vegetables, it can also be a place to heal hearts. Children dealing with grief have found the "Healing Garden" in the children's learning garden lives up to its name-it helps them heal.
      Helping children deal with grief is the job of Barb McIntyre. As the Art Therapy Coordinator of Munson Home Health and Hospice, McIntyre knows what a challenge helping grieving youngsters can be. That is why she was so excited to learn of the opportunity to create the "Healing Garden" when the Traverse Area District Library offered garden plots in their children's learning garden.
      "It is a wonderful gift that the library has provided these plots for us," said McIntyre who, along with horticulturist/hospice volunteer Kathryn Kohlhaas, helped 15 children from her art therapy class design, plant and maintain their garden.
      "The kids decided how it should look. It is designed to look like a clock, they came up with the idea that death and life happen only in time," McIntyre said. "There are stepping stones that the kids made in memory of their lost loved ones that surround the clock."
      The garden, which was planted on July 3, includes everything from beets and peppers to marigolds and bachelor buttons and everything seems to be thriving- including the gardeners.
      "I really like doing this a lot," said 11-year-old Ivy Worm of Traverse City, who is gardening in memory of her aunt. "It is fun to work in the garden, both of my parents like to garden, so it is kind of natural for me."
      Kohlhaas thinks that working in the garden is a natural way for anyone to deal with grief.
      "You are working with the life cycle when you garden, I see it as symbolic, seeing the cycles that exist in nature. Gardening can be very healing."
      McIntyre plans for the lessons learned in the "healing garden" to continue on long past the first frost.
      "We are planning to make some kind of a stew from the vegetables we harvest out of here and share them with the class, I may even use some of the dried plants in projects. It's a great way to see that death is part of a cycle."