Horticultural Therapist

Mikkele has a little bit of a good witch witchiness to her. She nurtures plants and people’s feelings.  While working full time as a mother, the healing power of nature revealed itself not only as curative but as a career as well.

Mikkele Lawless is a dedicated professional with a passion for harnessing the healing power of nature. She is currently an instructor at The New York Botanical Garden and a horticultural therapist at Parker Health, working with older adults in memory care, skilled nursing, and assisted living. Mikkele is a Certified Dementia Practitioner, holds a certificate in Horticultural Therapy from NYBG, and a B.A. in Psychology. She is also currently serving on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Horticultural Therapy Network. Mikkele focuses on enriching the lives of seniors battling dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases. Drawing inspiration from her creativity as a biophilic artist, Mikkele infuses her programs with innovation, offering a thoughtful and imaginative approach.

Discussion Questions:
How does being around plants and nature make you feel? Why?
What can therapy help with?
How would you feel if one of your clients or patients died? What would you do to feel better?
Think: Do you prefer to work with a certain age group? Why or why not?

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Transcript

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Danny 1:24

Mikhail has a little bit of a good witch witchiness to her. She nurtures plants and people's feelings. While working full-time as a mother, the healing power of nature revealed itself not only as curative, but as a career as well. Mikhail Lawless is a horticultural therapist at Parker Health. Mikhail, thank you for being on the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Oh, thank you for having me, Danny. I'm delighted to be here.

Danny 1:49

So, what is horticultural therapy?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Basically, it's like using gardening and time in nature to support people's physical, mental, and emotional well-being. So the idea is really simple. It's when people connect with nature, really amazing things happen, like healing and growth and renewal. And nature does most of the work. I'm just there to guide the process and help people to notice it.

Danny 2:17

What was the first thing that made you identify that horticulture, you know, gardening and therapy can go together?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Um, so when my oldest son was a teenager, he was going through a difficult time. And we enrolled him in therapy, and it he wasn't making much progress. We found ourselves jumping from one therapist to another, really trying to find the right fit for him. And one day, a therapist suggested meeting him outside, like on a park trail, and I agreed. And from that session, everything changed. So we just noticed that being surrounded by nature really allowed him to relax and feel supported in a way that if he were in an office setting, it he wouldn't have felt that way. So he was really able to open up and let down his walls, and watching the transformation was really incredibly eye-opening for my husband and I. And it was really the moment that we saw that combining the therapy in nature was just so powerful. So I would say, yeah.

Danny 3:23

That's beautiful. How long have you been doing this kind of work?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So I started doing therapeutic horticulture in nursing homes as a master gardener in 2017, so it's been about eight years now.

Danny 3:38

Okay. And a typical day. What's a typical day like for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

So I I would say that I may not be the norm for horticultural therapists. I would say most horticultural therapists out there are contractors, so they have their own business, and you know, depending on what population they work with, it might be different. But for my typical day, I'm very fortunate to have found a healthcare company that understands the power and the benefits of horticultural therapy. So I am a full-time employee there. And Parker Health Group is kind of a combination of an assisted living, a memory care, medical adult day, nursing home. We also have an in-house daycare. So what I do is I go to all these different places within Parker and do programs for them. Oh, I gear my programs towards the ability of my population at the time and really give them a sense of accomplishment. So let me give you an example. Like I was in a memory care unit last week, and we were doing like unusual plants, so I would bring in a bunch of different plants, and I really used their senses. So, you know, the texture of the plants they could feel and the sense and how different they look. And then I actually I used a little device, it's called Plant Wave, where it actually takes the electric stimuli that's inside the plant and converts it into music. So they actually got to listen to the plants, which they thought was really cool. Uh so you know, every day is really different, and I kind of like that about horticultural therapy, but I really just hone in on what their interests and their likes are, and that's kind of how I base my programs.

Danny 5:36

That's awesome. Uh what was the name of that device again?

SPEAKER_01 5:39

It's called Plant Wave. It's like uh an EKG for plants, it's very, very cool, and you can put it to different uh music, and which is what's also really cool is you know, it has like these clips, or you can attach it to anything living. And I then afterwards I had them just hold the clips with their fingers, and you could hear the different sounds within each person. So it's a very powerful, powerful tool to use.

Danny 6:10

So, what besides uh your experience with your your son on the trail, what what were there any uh any other experiences that helped you prepare for this job?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Well, I think to be a horticultural therapist, so I have a degree in psychology and I'm also a master gardener from the Ruck Rose Extension Program. So I think having you know some kind of education in human services and a really good knowledge in horticulture, you kind of need that um together. So when I realized that this is what I wanted to do, I actually went to school at the New York Botanical Gardens to become a certified horticultural therapist and kind of put everything together and um also depending on the population that you're working with, whether it's you know children with autism or uh disabilities or older adults, uh rehabilitation, you need some education as you know to what population you're going to be working with.

Danny 7:16

Which types of populations do you find in your experience or in your research, which populations are most likely to enjoy the positive effects of horticultural therapy?

SPEAKER_01 7:27

You know, every population. What really HT benefits people of all ages, all abilities. There are horticultural therapists that work with veteran communities, uh, trauma survivors, uh, some people work with special needs, physical rehab, and cancer patients. And it's interesting because I also have a friend who just works with the general public because anxiety and stress. So really everybody can use horticultural therapy. Having uh like a class that incorporates certain foods from a certain culture or plants really sparks memories. I had this woman from Italy, um, and she only spoke Italian, so he didn't really understand her all the time. But when I brought this one plant in, it was like a white Frisia, and she got so excited because she used to have that in her garden in Italy, and uh she was just, you know, so excited and she lit up, and so in that way it really helps to connect people with their heritage. Um, and also different cultures help to bring unique perspectives on gardening and plant symbolism and rituals, so it helps to enrich the therapy experience for everybody that's involved. Um, and sometimes I'll do that all, you know, if there's somebody with a background uh from I had someone from Malaysia, so we would make you know foods related to Malaysia, and it really helps them to connect with their heritage. So it's really nice.

Danny 9:10

And why why do you think someone might succeed with horticultural therapy instead of traditional talk therapy? I know you saw it uh at a personal level. Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

So there really have been a lot of studies done, and in many ways, horticultural therapy can complement or even outperform traditional talk therapy. Uh, horticultural therapy really comes from like a bottom-up approach. So it's directly engaging all of the senses in the body, um, helping to create new neural patterns. Rather than relying solely on talking through your difficult memories, you can kind of use plants and do like hands-on nature activities, which provides a sense of purpose and accomplishment and hope. So you can talk to someone, but their focus isn't really on that, so they're kind of really letting themselves just go and open up. Um, also being outdoors, you know, it helps us to feel more grounded. I don't know if you've ever heard the term biophilia, but it's it's like a concept that's like our innate desire to connect with nature. So we're all from indigenous people, and we really have that connection that we want, whether we know it or not. And it's really supporting us when we're working with plants and kind of bringing us back to you know where we came from. So I really think combining horticulture with talk therapy is really powerful and really treating the whole person.

Danny 10:53

Before before this line of work, what what did you do previously?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Well, I was fortunate that I was able to raise my four boys. Uh, but during that time when I was home, I you know, I took my garden pretty seriously. I grew a lot of herbs and uh fruits and vegetables, and I really love crafting. So I became a biophilic artist, which you know, just creating with nature, and I did a lot of moss walls, and so some of the things that I did back then, I'm actually doing in my classes now. So it really felt like just like a natural transition for me.

Danny 11:37

When you get to work, what what are you excited about for the day?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

You know what? I wake up every morning and I'm excited to go to work. It I like I don't really feel like it's work. Um it's just like my family. So I have the chance to brighten someone's day, um, showing that nature's little miracles all day long, uh, offering them a fresh perspective. And you know, just seeing the smile on someone's face, that's what excites me most about my job because that's basically what I get to do every day.

Danny 12:14

Can you talk about a little bit about what are the other kinds of places that hire horticultural therapists, perhaps like you mentioned, as contractors?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah, and I wish, I really wish, and I hope it's going to go in that direction where people start hiring horticultural therapists full-time. Um, and they do do that uh at hospitals like at Rust Institute at NYU and veterans organizations. But um a lot of people, you know, once they're certified in horticultural therapy, will start their own business, they can go into nursing homes and memory care communities as contractors, assisted living, independent living, even uh schools. Schools are starting to have, you know, or after-school programs, um, schools for children with special needs and psychiatric hospitals as well, cancer survivor groups and adult day programs. So there's really an opportunity to go out there uh because every population can benefit. So if you can, you know, just get your foot in the door and really tell them all about horticultural therapy, you have a good a good chance at staying there.

Danny 13:35

So speaking of getting your foot in the door, what uh what education or or training is required or recommended uh to become a horticultural therapist?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

So most horticultural therapists have some formal education either in horticulture or human services. It seems that a lot of the uh horticultural therapists that I've met come from a social work background or a horticulture background. But you do you don't need specifically need that. You do need to have a specialized certificate training either in therapeutic horticulture or horticultural therapy. And there are some colleges and universities that offer the certificate, such as like Temple and Bruckers, Del Val, and University of Florida. Those are just a couple. And if you didn't want to go that way, there are also specialized schools like the Horticultural Therapy Institute as well as the New York Botanical Gardens. And I am actually an instructor at the New York Botanical Gardens, and the class that I teach is therapeutic horticulture for older adults. Um, so you can become a certified horticultural therapist.

Danny 14:49

So you mentioned uh the botanical gardens, and you mentioned uh gardening being a uh part of your workplace and and your job. Uh what is the atmosphere like? Is it a uh a slow-paced or a fast-paced environment? Is it uh do you get to pick? Is it noisy? Is it quiet? Is it uh do you get dirty sometimes? Or how would you describe the environment?

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Um so the place where I work, I have my own office, which is a beautiful solarium. I also hold my classes in there, so it's filled with plants, and it always smells like flowers, and there's lots of sunlight. Um, so it's kind of like you know, basically wonderful to walk in there every day, and um, everybody I work with is super friendly. I know everybody's gonna want my job after this. Um but my days really go by so quickly. So it's not that it's slow or fast, it's I think it's what you put into it. So, you know, when I'm not preparing for a program or in a program, I am taking care of the outdoor garden, or I'm taking care of all the indoor plants, or I do a lot of floral arranging and decorating for Parker. So it's pretty non-stop, I would say.

Danny 16:16

Yeah. What what does a good day look like at your job? What makes a day a good day?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

I would say a good day is having a successful program. And by that I mean if I'm in the memory care unit and you know, there's a scent of a flower or rose and it sparks in memory from the past. Like that's that's pretty indicative that horticultural therapy is working, and uh that makes me really happy when when someone can like see a monarch butterfly hatch from a chrysalis for the first time, and that awe on their face, you know, those are the moments that I really cherish and and love. And like I had a 102-year-old woman, and we were making our own paper, and she said, I'm 102 years old, and I'm still learning. This is so great. I've never made paper before. So things like that make me uh make me really happy.

Danny 17:21

That's so beautiful. That's so nice to have those those moments. Uh now on the other side, everyone has bad days. What what might a bad day uh involve or include?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Hmm. So I think in an older adult community, it is hard to see end-of-life situations going on. Um and some a lot of my residents don't have great days because you know they're in pain or you know, they're dying, and and that is that's the hard part about my job.

Danny 18:00

I imagine there may be some emotional labor, like you mentioned, and and even potential compassion fatigue in your role as a therapist. I uh I personally volunteered at the Highland Park Senior Center for about six months when I was in college, and there were people who were over 100 who I who I got to know and they were funny and surprising and really beautiful people, and then sometimes, you know, I I might go back and they weren't there anymore because they passed away. Uh and and I was building nice relationships with people that not super close relationships, but really, you know, funny, funny stories between them, really warm times with them, but then uh they either passed away or were were not able to come anymore. And that that was really challenging. That actually maybe looking back steered me away from from social work uh or or gerontology uh uh as a as a career. Uh how have you dealt with um feeling other people's feelings too much, or just the heartbreak of helping people who uh are are towards the end of their life?

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Well, that is a great question, and I would say that that's what makes us human, being able to feel so the heartbreak, and it does happen, just being able to feel that uh is special. But really what I do is I feel gratitude. I feel gratitude for having to have known that person and to have been part of their life and have them be part of my life and have gotten to learn from them. So I really just try to focus on on the good and the gratitude because it is hard and it's challenging, but I I feel lucky, I feel lucky that I got to know that person. So that that's kind of changing the way you look at it in your mindset.

Danny 20:08

Yeah, that's uh definitely a a frame change for a lot of people that it's important for in many circumstances is just to adjust the the perspective.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, and really, you know, horticulture it's about life cycles. So I teach that a lot, that you know, when there's endings, but there's new beginnings and life goes on, and so uh I think in in that respect, you know, we we're all going to die, and it it comes and it goes, and I just think that learning to appreciate what you have now is is really imminent and what we focus on. It's really about growth and change and renewal. So I just try to make it um you know, like I give somebody a seedling, or we plant a seed and it grows into a seedling, and then the plant flourishes. So we we nurture the plant in the same way that we would nurture ourselves and each other, and then there's challenges, there's bugs on the plant. So it's it's very similar to what we go through, but I think giving someone a plant to care for, you know, really resembles what they're going through, and metaphorically, it helps them. It helps them to understand the life cycle.

Danny 21:43

Hey, I'm Danny, host of Project Labor. There's a lot of podcasts about work. A great majority of them have to do with how to be an entrepreneur, how to make more money, how to work hard and play hard, hustle and grind. You want to retire in your 30s? You want to make your first million? Well, our show won't be like that. We're gonna document and listen to the stories and successes and struggles of real people. Independent non-corporate radio, for workers by workers. Thanks for listening. With your therapy, you're working with two types of living things, people and plants. That's different than other sensory-related therapies like art or music therapy. Do you also have to care for the well-being of the plants?

SPEAKER_01 22:33

I do. I do. That is part of my job. Um, I have a pretty large outdoor garden area with lots of raised beds and gosh, so many, so many indoor plants. Um so I spend a couple hours a week caring for the plants. But I love that, and I love having the opportunity to nurture them.

Danny 23:00

What do you do? This stuff that happens at at different jobs. What do you do if a uh uh a coworker, or maybe in your case, more more often uh a uh patient is is hard to work with? Maybe they're resistant or uh confused or something else. What do you do in that case?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

So from my experience, usually when that happens, there is an unmet need. for that person. So it's trying to figure out what that person needs. And I will say that especially as a contractor, you're usually never in an activity by yourself. You always have an aid. Uh there's someone who's there that really knows the resident a little bit better than you do so they can calm them down. And if they have to, they could, you know, take them and remove them from the program if they're distracting other people. Yeah usually I I do see that you know if they want some attention or they're struggling that if you just do some like hand over hand guidance or uh clarify something that sometimes you can just calm them down yourself.

Danny 24:11

Is your most common structure of of therapy a group setting or with a few people or is it an individual setting?

SPEAKER_01 24:20

For the most part it's a group setting. I usually have anywhere from like maybe eight to fifteen people in a group. Depending on the population I'll say and like in my in the medical adult day I'll have maybe six to eight um but there are people who just come in and they'll come in with a plant and sometimes they just want to talk or they want plant care but for the most part it is more groups than individual.

Danny 24:59

So you mentioned uh anxiety and uh maybe even PTSD or other other uh ailments what are what psychological issues do you think are under discussed in our society?

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Well I can really speak to older adults and I think that that unmet need is really about loneliness and the loneliness that someone feels even when there's a bunch of people all around it's not necessarily that loneliness it's the loneliness of not being able to connect and I think when you have nature involved in that nature has its own connection that you don't necessarily need the people around you can connect with nature so um I think that that's really important but the loneliness factor in older adults you know you can put them in adult daycare you can you know place them somewhere where they can go themselves but there's still this loneliness and I I really think that that should be looked at more in a holistic way for mind body and spirit.

Danny 26:16

Switching gears a little bit uh what what is the manager employee setup uh like at your job? You mentioned some horticultural therapists are contractors or they themselves are small business owners sort of doing the marketing and and getting out there like with a private practice but at at Parker for example where you are what is the sort of uh structure of the manager employee uh relationship or or setup well since I am the only horticultural therapist there I do I have a manager and she is great and she's supportive but I don't really get to collaborate with anybody else so really I'm my own department and I it it's a lot on me so I have to make sure that I deliver therapeutic programs that I have all my supplies I schedule my own classes and maintain relationships with all the directors so it's nice to be part of a company but it's also kind of like you're on your own doing your own thing. Do you get to collaborate or interact with others? I know you're you're teaching um but are are there conferences or workshops or other opportunities to uh to share ideas and interact with uh other therapists?

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Yeah so yeah again not so much at work but um I'm also on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Horticultural Therapy Network which we are a group of horticultural therapists that come together well we come together monthly because I'm on the board but we basically educate people on what horticultural therapy is and really bring awareness to the community we do a lot of networking and um so in that way I do get to collaborate as well as at the New York Botanical Gardens working with other horticultural therapists who are teaching different classes. Has has doing this work taught you anything about your own life yeah I mean I find peace in nature and it's only reinforced that over and over again and the more that I do this the more connected I am and really don't feel that loneliness and I you feel supported and it's it just feels right. It feels like you're doing something really good for yourself you're doing something good for other people and you're doing something good for the land.

Danny 28:54

Do you think that uh there's any misconceptions out there uh amongst the public uh about horticultural therapy or maybe it's just a uh a a lack of uh awareness yeah I think most people have no idea that horticultural therapy even exists um so and maybe if they do they think it's just like gardening or a gardening club but there's really a therapeutic aspect to it so depending on the population you're with you know you're working on fine motor skills or balance so whatever the goal is that using plants in nature is your way to get there you know and really by working in this way your brain's thinking of watering a plant not the fact that last week you couldn't even hold a watering can so when you're enjoying doing doing something it's much easier to achieve these goals you're not even thinking about it. You mentioned that uh plants and in the natural world is a uh being there and experiencing these things is a uh intrinsic part of being a human uh people have been enjoying and caring uh for plants uh for for many ages how do you foresee the the future growth of this field I think HT is definitely on the rise I mean more and more healthcare systems are seeing the benefits and it really seeing the ability to help so many people and we're in a time too where we want to a lot of people want to start treating people in a more holistic way moving away from that institutional model medical model and we're focusing more on wellness and connection the mind body spirit connection so horticultural therapy really provides a way for us to engage in all of those aspects using nature to promote healing and growth so I see this field really continuing to expand in hospitals in schools you know senior living communities and as people increasingly recognize the power of plans to transform lives I can only hope and see that it it becomes more and more used all around that's beautiful yeah anytime I take my students outside uh for uh either a field trip or just some type of activity in the courtyard or outside on the field they they seem to light up uh and you know enjoy the smell of the air and the the feeling of the sun on them and it just it seems to wake them up almost soulfully not just um you know mentally uh it's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Yeah I'm so glad that you do that.

Danny 31:40

So um when you when you get home from work are are you done with plants or do you also still enjoy it as an activity outside of work?

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Yeah I don't I just don't ever stop. I think yesterday when I came home from work uh there's a field across the street and I went and harvested my dandelions so I can make dandelion pesto and dandelion tea but I you know I also have about 250 indoor plants I think the last time I counted um along with a greenhouse in my backyard so I couldn't imagine not having plants everywhere.

Danny 32:18

Do you ever get to uh take trips uh with with your patients or is your setup uh at Parker such that the being there itself is is sort of like a a trip uh or an experience uh into a green space so I try to take trips uh about once a month with assisted living uh we went to a um well we do we went to the planetarium so you know it's just it's all nature inspired as well but we went to see a butterfly house and we'll go to parks and we're gonna do a fall foliage tour at Duke Gardens and we went to the sculpture gardens so yeah I get them out there and really you know just infuse them with tons and tons of nature every chance that I can tragically uh COVID hit the world uh incredibly devastatingly and it hit senior populations very hard killing over seven million people worldwide and recently I saw that still killing over a thousand people a day uh throughout the world as a healthcare worker how did COVID affect your work so at the time of COVID I was a contractor and I had my own business at that time and I was out of work for about six months because the nursing homes really got hit so hard here in New Jersey that outside vendors were not allowed in at all.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

So there was a good I would say six months that I didn't work at all and it was really sad because a lot of the residents that I had known when I finally did go back were no longer there because of COVID. So it was really sad. But as a profession a lot of horticultural therapists went to Zoom and they did do some kind of education on Zoom. I tried it a couple times it's really hard to coordinate especially in memory care and in nursing homes to have people look at a screen so it it was it was challenging and it it did work for certain populations I'll say and I believe Parker you know just kept on. So as a full-time employee you could probably still keep doing what you were doing in a structured way that they did in COVID. But it it was definitely hard.

Danny 34:56

Mikhail I learned so much speaking with you thank you so much I really enjoyed it. I hope other people got a chance to learn about this interesting and really helpful field. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Well I just want to say thank you to you Danny because I think this is wonderful and I just want more and more young people to understand that horticultural therapy is such a wonderful career if you're into plants and nature and you're into you know therap therapy and human services and you combine that together it's out there and it's so helpful and I just want more and more people to know about it. So thank you for doing this.

Danny 35:40

Yes uh you're welcome and I uh I want more people to know about this too because this when I'm when I'm older, if I'm in a uh assisted living facility I'll definitely want even now I I would like to become more in tune with with uh the natural world around me. So it's it's beautiful work. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Thank you Dan