Horticulture Therapy Summit

Posted: March 2, 2017 by Mark Dwyer

It’s been exciting to be involved with the Iron County Horticulture Therapy Summit up in Hurley, WI for the past couple of days. I traveled north with Mike Maddox, UW Extension Statewide Master Gardener Coordinator and Mike Geiger, a UW Grad student (Horticulture) on Wednesday as all three of us are involved in this event as presenters. We negotiated the snowy travel conditions to arrive safely and have enjoyed interacting with a wide range of therapists, activity directors, Master Gardeners and other professionals regarding the benefits of Horticulture Therapy with a wide range of supporting directives, guidance, ideas, support materials, activities and dialogue. Darrin and Amy (Iron County UW Extension), along with their Master Gardeners, have run a great event and we’ve all benefited from the ideas, sharing and resulting conversations that these events help facilitate. The North woods are beautiful this time of year and I hope to see this event continue in the future as everyone in attendance was in agreement that plants are so important for people in so many ways! I didn’t partake of the bar and bowling option seen above at the main venue hall for this event. Enjoy photos of this super event.

Mike Maddox (left) and Darrin Kimbler (UW Extension, Iron County)

Mike M. facilitated an early icebreaker that involved collaborative flower arranging (see above and below) with this activity becoming the basis for many considerations and discussions as they relate to Horticulture Therapy