Two people in summer clothes and backpacks examine yellow flowering plants in a sunny garden

The People-Plant Connection

Wellness Symposium
October 7, 2026

9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Explore how the field of therapeutic horticulture promotes wellness by tapping into the powerful connection between people and plants.

Join us for a day of community, learning, and inspiration as you discover how nature-based experiences can be integrated into a wide range of settings—from established healthcare programs serving specific populations to a growing movement on college campuses focused on student well-being.

Hear from leading practitioners as they share real-world impact stories, including the nationwide Campus Rx program, NYBG’s THRIVE program supporting Veterans in partnership with the James J. Peters VA Medical Center (Bronx), and insight into NYBG’s Therapeutic Horticulture Certificate Program and its faculty.

Leave with fresh ideas, practical applications, and a deeper understanding of how the people-plant connection can transform health and community care.

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Speaker at the podium in the Ross Lecture Hall with the lights dimmed

Keynote: A Path to Student Wellness through Nature

10:15 to 11 a.m.
Ross Hall

While it has long been recognized that spending time in nature is beneficial for human well-being and access to nature should be seen as a basic need for all individuals, the mechanisms underlying these benefits are being increasingly revealed through scientific research. Recent research also shows that engagement with green and blue spaces may be especially impactful for those with disabilities and populations in lower socio-economic communities.

Backgrounding his presentation with these findings, Donald A. Rakow, Ph.D.—Founder of Cornell’s Nature Rx and National Campus Rx—will describe the current psychological and emotional crises college students face today, and the rise of the Campus Nature Rx Network (CNRx). The CNRx network has grown rapidly over the past seven years as a low cost, non-pharmaceutical approach to address student health on college and university campuses. Dr. Rakow will detail why this method works, why institutions are adopting it, and how it can be applied to schools of any size and location.

Donald A Rakow, Ph.D.: Founder of Cornell’s Nature Rx and National Campus Rx

Dr. Donald A. Rakow is an esteemed associate professor, retired from the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University. He served as the Elizabeth Newman Wilds Executive Director of Cornell Plantations (now Cornell Botanic Gardens) between 1996 and 2013.

Dr. Rakow’s research interests include the human benefits of time in nature and the history and management of botanical gardens in Europe and North America. He has written extensively on these subjects and is the lead author of the texts “Nature Rx: Improving College-Student Mental Health,” “Public Garden Management,” and “Public Gardens and Livable Cities.”

During his tenure at Cornell, Dr. Rakow developed the Nature Rx@Cornell program and taught “Public Garden Management,” “Coffee, Cloves, and Chocolate,” and “Nature Rx.” He also created and co-directed the Master of Studies Program in Public Garden Leadership.

Dr. Rakow has a long association with the American Public Gardens Association, for which he served as a member of the Board and chaired several committees. He’s also the recipient of both the APGA Service Award and Award of Merit.

Currently, Dr. Rakow co-directs the Campus Nature Rx Network of 115 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. He also writes for various periodicals and speaks frequently on the ways that nature engagement can improve people’s well-being.

Panel Discussion: Therapeutic Horticulture in Practice

11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Ross Hall

Learn about the integral part Therapeutic Horticulture programs play in enriching the quality of life for our local community members and hear about it from those on the front line providing them. Panelists will share challenges, how-to tips, and lessons learned along their journey, bringing the benefits of the people-plant relationship to a variety of service communities.

A person with long gray hair poses for a photo in a sunny room

Panel Moderator
Anne Meore, LMSW
Registered Horticultural Therapist

Anne Meore LMSW, HTR, is a licensed social worker in NY and a registered horticultural therapist with the American Horticultural Therapy Association since 2012. She is a faculty member at the New York Botanical Garden and serves as the Horticultural Therapy Program Coordinator for THRIVE (Therapeutic Horticulture & Rehabilitative Intervention for Veteran Engagement).

Anne is the Garden Projects Coordinator for Good Samaritan Hospital, a member of the Westchester Medical Health Network, Suffern, NY. Since 2011, she has been responsible for designing & managing therapeutic garden spaces & conducting Horticultural Therapy programming in the accessible and therapeutic, Garden of Hope at Good Samaritan Hospital, and other therapeutic spaces in the hospital system.

In addition to her work at NYBG, she is the owner of Planthropy LLC, which in 2022, designed and installed the G.R.O.W. Garden (Gardening for Resilience & Optimal Wellness), the first therapeutic garden on campus of the J. J. Peters VAMC in the Bronx, NY, where she provides therapeutic horticulture programs & garden education for Veterans & VA staff support.

Panelist
Ann Feder, LCSW
James J. Peters VA Medical Center’s Resilience and Wellness Center Founder, NYBG Volunteer for the THRIVE Program

Ann Feder is a retired licensed clinical social worker who received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from NYU. She most recently ran the Resilience and Wellness Center Program at the Bronx VA Medical Center, a program she developed and launched in 2018 with clinical and research colleagues, and for which she still serves as a consultant.

Prior to this, she has served in the following roles: VA NY Downstate Regional Mental Health Care Line Director, Director of Mental Health Services at the Bronx VAMC, as well as Chief of Social Work. During her 42 years at the VA, she served on multiple advisory boards and presented at regional and national conferences. She is currently also actively involved with the National Psoriasis Foundation and the Board of the One Sandwich at a Time organization.

In 2019, she developed a partnership program for veterans at the New York Botanical Garden, which teaches veterans whole health-based horticultural therapy to cope better with their mental health issues. Ann remains active in this program as a volunteer and has expanded her horticultural therapy activities to the Bronx VA veterans’ garden. Ann’s interests include developing community partnerships, expanding gardening opportunities for veterans, and increasing wellness and whole health initiatives, especially in the suicide prevention realm.

Panelist
Fatemeh (Vic) Haghighi, Ph.D.
Researcher at James J. Peters VA Medical Center, THRIVE Program

Dr. Fatemeh Haghighi is a professor with tenure in the Department of Neuroscience at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a Senior Research Career Scientist at the Bronx James J. Peters VA Medical Center. Her research focuses on understanding how genetics as well as environmental exposures, specifically relevant military exposures, result in molecular changes contributing to suicide and brain injury in our Veterans.

Beyond her basic research activities, Dr. Haghighi has also been involved in clinical quality improvement efforts where she has built a strong partnership between the VA Whole Health Program and the New York Botanical Garden, key contributors of the work presented herein. She is a founding member of the Resilience and Wellness Center (RWC) James J. Peters VA Medical Center, an outpatient program under the auspices of Whole Health that focuses on complementary and integrative interventions, including horticultural therapy, for at-risk Veterans to improve their overall wellness.

Panelist
Hilda Krus, HTR
Senior Director of Therapeutic Horticulture and Workforce Training at Horticulture Society of New York

Hilda Krus is the Senior Director of Therapeutic Horticulture and Workforce Training with the Horticultural Society of New York. She builds curriculum and oversees therapeutic horticulture programming at the Hort’s TH sites in supportive housing, older adult centers, correctional facilities, and internal workforce training HORTNYC, and ensures that all work at The Hort includes people-to-plant elements.

Hilda is a registered horticultural therapist (HTR) and social worker (MSW, University of Essen, Germany). She has served on the board of the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA) and enjoys exchanging and learning at local, national, and international HT conferences. Hilda teaches “Therapeutic Horticulture for Mental Health” at NYBG. Hilda is a lifelong passionate gardener and her earliest happy memories take her back to her parents’ garden.

Panelist
Phyllis D’Amico, HTR
NYBG Therapeutic Horticulture Program Coordinator

Phyllis D’Amico, HTM, is a registered horticultural therapist with the American Horticultural Therapy Association. During her decades-long career with Newark Public Schools, she served as the Lead Science Teacher at the NJ Regional Day School where she developed a model horticultural therapy program for children and adolescents with developmental disabilities.

She specializes in accessible and organic gardening, nutrition education, nature study, and intergenerational, inclusion, and service-learning programs. Her dedication and innovative projects have been recognized by the NJ Governor’s Teacher of the Year Award. Phyllis holds five NJ teacher certifications and a certificate in Horticultural Therapy from the New York Botanical Garden. She is the Program Coordinator of the NYBG Horticultural Therapy Certificate Program and has been an instructor within the program since 1988.

Image of Composting event with BGU staff.

Networking Hour: Participating Programs

12 to 1:30 p.m.
Tulip Tree Allée

NYBG’s Therapeutic Horticulture Certificate Program
Learn to create experiences that utilize plants, gardening, and nature to empower individuals and groups whose lives have been affected by illnesses, injuries, disabilities, and life circumstances in order to achieve improvements in their cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Our certificate program emerges from a health and wellness model of human development, combined with research supporting nature as an effective therapeutic medium.

NYBG Sensory Station
Stop by this sensory station to engage your senses in the fall season, and learn more about NYBG’s touch tour and ASL tour offerings, and low sensory morning hours at the Conservatory.

Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Therapy Network
The Mid-Atlantic Horticultural Therapy Network is dedicated to fostering the awareness and application of horticultural therapy as a dynamic professional practice in the Mid-Atlantic region through education, communication and networking.

Whole Health—Resilience and Wellness Center at James J. Peters Bronx VA Medical Center
The Resilience and Wellness Center at the Bronx VA provides Complementary and Integrative Health (CIH) interventions and wellness-oriented programs that build resilience, increase wellbeing, and reduce suicide risk among Veterans. It empowers Veterans to explore what truly matters to them, such as relationships, purpose, or personal goals, and aligns their care with those values to support long-term well-being and self-directed healing.

Additional participating programs and partners to be announced.

Three people work together to mix a salad in a large wooden bowl

Afternoon Happenings

1:30 to 2:30 p.m.
Various Locations

Cooking Demo at Edible Academy—led by THRIVE Alumni
Get hands-on with healthy cooking using new recipes featuring plants grown in the Edible Academy. Led by THRIVE Alumni, learn how to create a recipe using seasonal vegetables, fruits, and herbs.

Guided Forest Bathing
Allow yourself to be fully present as you bathe your senses in the sights, smells, sounds, and sensations of the Thain Family Forest with forest bathing experiences, known as shinrin-yoku in Japan. In Japanese, shinrin means forest, and yoku means bath.

NYBG Farmers Market
The annual NYBG Farmers Market season is here with fresh local food and artisanal vendors! Visit and enjoy a variety of locally grown produce, fresh baked goods, and other specialty items to celebrate Flower Power. Curated by Market Director Pascale Le Draoulec, the NYBG Farmers Market boasts 15 rotating vendors each week with two featured farms: Fino Farms and Trinity Farms. Make your weekly produce shopping a delightful experience with local fare and live folk music of the late ’60s. Learn more below!

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