Horticultural Therapy Points Student in New Direction

Posted in Learning Experiences, People on April 28 2009, by Plant Talk

Anne Meore is a graduate of Continuing Education’s Horticultural Therapy program and has her own horticultural therapy consulting business, Planthropy, LLC.

It’s not always easy to see where you are going when on the proverbial “career path.” At times the path tends to be longer than expected and sometimes a bit bumpy. At age 44, I can finally look back with a bit of clarity and see how I finally made it to today.

With advanced degrees in Elementary Education, Psychology, Counseling, and Social Work, I’ve had the opportunity over the years to work with various populations, each with differing needs and more than I could adequately provide for, especially from behind a desk.

But that’s where it began for me. During counseling sessions, something would happen when we fiddled with the plant on my desk, listened to the sounds of birds, smelled the fresh air through the screen, and watched as Mother Nature danced outside the office window. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what made it work, but I knew it did work. So I began conducting sessions outdoors in the natural world. A novel idea, I thought. I think I will call this therapeutic milieu “horticultural therapy.”

It wasn’t until I received the Continuing Education catalog that I discovered that horticultural therapy wasn’t my invention after all. How naive of me to try to take credit for a field that has been in existence since the time of Egyptian civilization.

I enrolled in Introduction to Horticultural Therapy and was led through the historical background, foundations, and applications of this field by Katherine Sabatino. An experienced horticultural therapist, she was able to take years of personal contemplation and tie it up in a nice big bow for me. My decision was made, my career path defined, with all arrows pointing toward horticultural therapy.

The instructional staff facilitated my learning process throughout the course of study. The expertise and experience of these very people are what distinguishes NYBG’s program from others.

After taking a number of classes, I decided to immerse myself further in one of the Summer Intensive sessions. Intense it was, but well worth it, especially time wise. Intensives cover a lot of material in a short period of time. (Two Summer Intensives are offered in Horticultural Therapy: Intensive I is three weeks long and Intensive II is two weeks; each consists of five-day-a-week classes. Upon the completion of all five weeks and a 100-hour internship, you can receive a certificate.) The continuity of class work followed up by site visits allowed me to see abstract concepts become concrete. It was this coursework that provided me with the horticultural therapy techniques I now use on a daily basis in my own practice.

Since receiving my Botanical Garden Horticultural Therapy Certificate in June 2007, my career has taken off. Botanical Garden instructor Pat Czarnecki took me under her wing as a therapist in her company, GreEn’ergy, where I should be paying her for all that I have learned! I established my own horticultural therapy consulting business, Planthropy, LLC, in the fall of 2007. Business is expanding quicker than time allows, with programming for the elderly, children, and community organizations. I’m also developing and implementing horticultural therapy programs for school districts in Orange and Rockland Counties in New York.

The Continuing Education program offers two Summer Intensive sessions in Horticultural Therapy. Individual courses are also held throughout the year. A free Career Information Session on Horticultural Therapy, Landscape Design, and Floral Design will be held Wednesday, May 13, 6–8 p.m. at the Arthur and Janet Ross Lecture Hall.