Rosemary coats my fingers, filling the nose with the homely scent, pulling memories of home-cooked meals and summer brunches at the local brewery. The Thai basil in the same raised stone bed pulling for attention, sparking ideas for recipes I have to try when I get home. The mint makes my mouth water, making me miss the simplicity of chewing gum, banned in this city. The sage reminds me I am running low in my spice cabinet. The spice planter lies in the middle of the green-encased path. I move on over the pond on the bridge now encased by crepe ginger, the flowers overflowing, blocking any view of the city beyond. As I walk through the park, the soft sounds and the vibrant colours of greens and purples almost made me forget to take photos, the whole reason I’m here.

As I sit in the open grassed area I notice an elderly man taking a nap on one of the benches, using the restorative space to take a break from the physical labour that his landscaping job requires. I watch another, an old lady following the butterflies with her eyes, a symbol of peace and change. The therapeutic garden laying in wait for the vulnerable community to use; to rebuild muscle, to relax, to stimulate the mind, to help.

Last year the Bunbury Regional Hospital opened WA’s first ‘therapeutic garden’, but what is it and where did the idea come from?

Therapeutic gardens are specially designed green spaces aimed at providing calming and restorative properties for their visitors. Their use can be traced back to ancient Rome and Greece. They work by stimulating the mind, senses and muscles to combine the mental and physical wellbeing for individual holistic health treatments. The colours, landscape variation, and active pathways and exercise areas encourage visitors to engage with their surroundings to decompress.

Singapore saw it as a way to combat their increasing rates of anxiety, depression, and their rapidly ageing population ten years ago. These pressures prompted the Singaporean government to create their own therapeutic garden in HortPark in 2015, under the supervision of the National Parks Board (NParks).

This prompted them to release a design guideline booklet in 2017 in preparation for their future projects creating a standard requirement framework for all public therapeutic gardens under NParks. The Board has built a total of 13 therapeutic gardens over the island since then, and plans to have a total a 30 within the next five years under their urban greening program Project 2030.

The guideline outlines the design basics required of all NParks therapeutic gardens, including: benches with armrests at regular intervals; flat pathways; and sensory walking trails. The booklet also outlines the thinking behind these gardens and how they operate to help vulnerable communities, like senior citizens and those with dementia. The gardens are built on Roger Ulrich’s 1991 Stress Reduction Theory which says unthreatening natural environments will allow the body to relax and recuperate.

Alongside stress reduction theory, the garden design operates under the presumption of Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory (1989) where we have limited ability to focus on one thing for a long time and being immersed in diverse natural environments splits that attention so we can regain that ability to focus. This is the basis of the claim to help with ADHD.

Former NParks employee, and co-author of the design guideline booklet, Xin Kai Tham left the organisation to start his own company, Terrapy SG, to provide horticultural therapy sessions to the public and clients.

“I think the parks are too focussed on the physical and they didn’t really think further than creating the garden to how it can help” he says.

Tham says the gardens help dementia through sensory stimulation that reminds users of their life while young and assists with muscular and neural degeneration by the gardens’ layouts being easily navigated and designed with mobility limitations in mind.

He doesn’t believe however, that this is enough to help slow down the progression of dementia, but the integration of horticultural therapy can.

“Working with their hands in the garden, it helps their fine motor skills and helps them remember when they were young and working on farms with their families. Horticultural therapy is more than just gardening, it is a connection to culture, like the Aboriginal Australians and their knowledge.”

Xin Tham Kai

One of Tham’s public horticultural therapy sessions caught the attention of an international missionary from Thailand.

Paul Sim is a 72-year-old missionary in Singapore, researching the benefits of horticultural therapy for his church back home.

“I want to know how it works so I can help those vulnerable in my communities. I want to help the old people and people who have been hit with natural disasters feel in control again.”

Yume Sancturary Pte Ltd. was founded by Lee Mei Kheng, who was inspired by Tham’s work and now works closely with him, occasionally attending his public horticultural sessions.

Lee stumbled across horticultural therapy to help with her mental health struggles and hopes her work can help others too.

“I got into this when I was depressed, and it helped me get out of it. I make these bound pieces to help others, and if this can help them like they helped me, that’s great. These small things show growth and if they can keep growing, they can bring it back and I will rebind it for them.”

Another former NParks employee, Jun Xiang Pong, left the organisation to start his own horticultural therapy company, Hortherapeutics.

Pong says horticultural therapy is not formally recognised in Singapore, and as such he conducts his sessions as ‘social and horticultural therapy.

“Right now, it’s too unregulated and the results are not recognised enough. I think it will take at least another ten years” he says.

Pong says his sessions involve attending different parks across Singapore and walking through the gardens, often over a couple of hours almost like a tour guide, letting the group guide the conversation recognising the local flora and fauna and reminisce about their youth.

“When they talk about something they remember, like the nutmeg and cloves, they get confirmation from their peers and that encouragement helps them keep going and thinking, helping bring back those memories that were close to being forgotten.”

Pong recently concluded a study with the National University of Singapore to attempt to validate the effects of horticultural therapy, with the results expected to be released within the next couple of years. He says an example in the study was one patient who at the beginning had limited mobility, walking only with a cane. By the end of the six-month program she would actively walk without it.

Ethan Teo from the Asian Women’s Welfare Association worked with Hortherapeutics on a twelve-week program where they were inspired to create an in-house therapeutic garden within their facilities in their upcoming renovation.

“I think having Hortherapeutics profiling this session for the seniors, I believe that maybe that maybe through your research and through the interview, you could actually bring back to your home, to Australia, to actually see if the seniors in your country do things like this and hope they can add value toward your work in the future and just hope. I hope that things will be well for you guys.”

Ethan Teo

Both Pong and Tham agree however, that as noble as the concept of therapeutic gardens are, they are not effective unless catered to specific audiences and are used in conjunction with therapeutic practices, and as such are best suited to private institutions like hospitals and assisted living homes.

The Bunbury Hospital therapeutic garden has already started conducting sessions, with one participant citing the social aspect and the gardening activities sparked a passion that was satisfying during her recovery process.

This story was produced as part of a federal government New Colombo Plan-funded Curtin Journalism Singapore Study Tour.