6 Ways to Renovate a Garden for Aging in Place and Senior Care
Gardening is not only a good source of nutritious fruits and vegetables, but it's also a stimulating activity with many benefits for older people. It helps incorporate more exercise that keeps your joints and muscles mobile and flexible. Edible gardening particularly provides health and psychological advantages for seniors. Tools and equipment used in it can also be adapted for more accessibility and productivity while maintaining a safe gardening environment.
Benefits of Gardening for Older People
Gardening is inexpensive and offers many therapeutic and health benefits for older people. Here are some of its benefits, particularly for the elderly:
- It is an enjoyable form of physical activity.
- It helps enhance mobility and flexibility.
- Improve endurance and strength
- Encourages the use of motor skills
- Promotes relaxation and decreases stress levels
- Improves well-being due to its social interaction aspect
How Can I Improve My Garden and Farm Machinery for Safety?
Older gardeners may benefit from adaptations to their environments, tools, and equipment that lessen the physical toll of gardening. The following are some ideas to get you started:
1. Vertical Gardening
Using walls, poles, and trellises helps create garden beds that are accessible for planting and harvesting. These are all forms of vertical gardening that incorporate mounted planters that grow plants up rather than out. Vertical gardening has fewer maintenance chores, offers more plant variety in less space, requires less weeding, and makes tending and harvesting easier.
2. Use Elevated Seed and Planting Beds
One of the reasons gardening often becomes difficult for seniors is all the kneeling and bending gardeners need to do. Using retractable hanging baskets, wheelbarrows, and containers on castors may be used to raise garden beds and eliminate the difficulty. Other ways to raise a bed include using ground-level beds, knee wall beds, salad table gardens, and waist-height beds. Raised beds require less space and improve soil drainage and soil quality.
3. Install an Irrigation System
Water is heavy, and a great way to avoid lifting water is by installing an irrigation system. An excellent lightweight watering option is using drip tape and a tube. If you install emitters, you could put them exactly where your plants are located. Using mulch also helps preserve water in the soil to reduce watering frequency.
4. Find Adaptable Tools for Easier Gardening
Since manual dexterity can be an issue, a great idea would be to improve the grip of gardening tools. Try using wrapping foam or sliding foam on tool handles to make them thicker and easier to control. Instead of power hedge clippers, use manual shears to avoid accidents. Other great gardening tools that would make gardening for seniors easier include kneeling benches, long-handled or short-handled hoes and pruners, and a wheeled garden caddy. The gardening tools also need to be lightweight and very colorful, so they are easier to spot since vision may be an issue.
5. Comfortable Resting Spots
Create shaded areas with outdoor chairs and benches where seniors can rest while gardening and admire their handiwork. These resting spots should also have plenty of drinking water since seniors are prone to dehydration.
6. Focus on Low-Maintenance Plants
Low-maintenance plants can be classified as either indoor or outdoor. These plants require minimum watering, pruning, and weeding. Some of these plants, though decorative, are a mood booster and offer air purification and defense against colds. Aloe Vera, ZZ plant, snake plant, spider plant, and cast-iron plant are some of the low-maintenance plants perfect for seniors.
Customized In-Home Wellness for Seniors
Research shows that gardening is an effective method of engaging the elderly. Not only is it a form of physical engagement, but it also enhances self-esteem, productive endeavors, and social engagement. Senior Helpers of Frederick is the leading provider of in-home senior care. We offer a comprehensive suite of programs and services that support aging-in-place, including safe gardening activities for the aged. Contact us today to find out more about our services.