Creating a Senior-Friendly Garden

Limitations that may develop with aging don’t have to hinder favorite leisure activities. One popular activity that can be practiced for a lifetime or even taken up for the first time in later years is gardening. Older adults can get the job done despite mobility, vision, or stamina issues with some adaptations in how they garden. With some forethought and intention, seniors can practice the joy of growing things long into old age.

The Benefits of Gardening for Older Adults

Gardening’s benefits on the mind, body, and spirit are well known. They include:

• Exercise: All the bending, stretching, lifting, and moving with gardening can help keep joints loose and muscles strong.
• Mood enhancement: The tranquility and ritual of gardening can have a calming effect, induce a meditative state, and help prevent or manage anxiety and depression.
• Mental acuity: Planning for the growing season, adapting to weather conditions, and keeping supplies in stock require mindfulness about what needs to be done next.
• Sense of purpose and accomplishment: Seeing something through to completion is a satisfying accomplishment, especially when you see a live thing grow from seed or plug to full blooming glory. Having a purpose adds meaning to life, and the responsibility and nurturing necessary to help plants thrive is a purpose with a result you can see, smell, touch, and even eat.
• Hands-on connection to nature: Getting your hands in the dirt is about as intimate as you can get with the natural cycle of things. There’s no more personal, visceral way to go green than to garden.

Gardening Can Increase Quality of Life

Some additional benefits of gardening on the quality of life include the following:

• An outdoor or indoor garden adds life and color to the environment.
• Gardens provide a soothing respite, sanctuary, and oasis to relieve stress and worry.
• Tending a home or community garden can provide a social engagement dynamic that might otherwise be missing from one’s life. Consider inviting family, friends, or neighbors to garden with you. It can be a fun, productive intergenerational activity for seniors to do with adult children and grandchildren.
• Flowers, shrubs, and trees add beauty and curb appeal.
• Planting vegetables offers the practical advantage of harvesting fresh, homegrown food that can complement home-cooked meals and healthy diets.
• Gardening outdoors exposes seniors to vitamin D-rich sunlight, something that many older adults lack in their sedentary, indoor lifestyle.

Gardening Tips for Seniors

Because gardening does require effort and flexibility, it’s best to do some light stretching before and after to limber up and cool down overworked muscles. If you have existing health conditions, consider consulting your physician before you start. Experts advise the following tips to create a senior-friendly garden that reduces physical strain:

• Purchase ready-made or build your own raised beds, boxes, or containers. A raised planting area requires less bending and reaching than a ground-level plot, thereby easing access for watering, weeding, maintaining, and harvesting. Make sure the raised bed containers leave just enough room on all sides to reach the center without strain. This form of gardening is suitable for vegetables, flowers, or ornamentals.
• Place stable stools, chairs, or resting places around the garden for taking breaks.
• Create shaded areas to avert direct sunlight. This is particularly important in summer when the risk of heatstroke is greatest. Equally critical is ensuring easy access to drinking water to avoid dehydration.
• Choose long-handled, lightweight tools, such as clippers, shovels, and spades. These tools can reduce bending, something that an older adult with sore, stiff joints will appreciate. Accessory foam grips can soften handles and improve grips.
• As stretching becomes difficult, consider a grabber or extension pole for getting at weeds and branches.
• Purchase or devise garden kneelers (pads) to help relieve stress and strain on knees, hips, and lower back muscles and ease getting up and down when working the soil or weeding.
• A wheeled garden caddy or portable container can store tools and supplies so you have them ready. Multipurpose store-bought units feature compartments for storing pots, plants, and other items. Just be sure to get or build a caddy that makes sense for you and your space in terms of size, weight, carrying capacity, and ease of movement. You don’t want something too small or fragile. You also don’t want something unwieldy.
• Planting plug plants eliminates the seed-sowing stage. These are seedlings or cuttings grown in single units in modular trays for minimal root disturbance when planting or potting. You can also use transplants.
• Container gardening is a low-risk, accessible option. Make sure containers are on casters or stands and made of lightweight material so they are easy to move.
• Before investing in plants, read the growing directions to learn their recommended soil, mulching, light, and water requirements. Knowing these things before planting can save money, time, and extra trips to the garden center.
• Use seed syringes, seed tape, and seed-soil mixes to ease planting.
• Keep the garden small, simple, and contained to avoid overexertion. If outdoors, avoid working during the heat of the day. Avoid planting things that spread easily, require frequent trimming, or attract pests.

Safety Tips for Creating Senior-Friendly Gardens

• Make sure pathways and open surfaces are flat, level, and free of obstacles so the older adult can safely navigate unassisted, with a cane, or in a wheelchair.
• If low vision is a primary concern, consider affixing brightly colored tape or cloth to planters to help identify and demarcate various garden features. You might also install DIY colorful rope guides by stringing rope on poles or stakes to create a rope border along pathways, flowerbeds, or other garden features.
• Since watering is essential and can require much effort, consider installing a watering system or a portable rain barrel attached to a mobile hose cart to get the water where it’s needed without all the energy spent fetching water and untangling hoses.
• Ask around at community gardens or search online for a garden share program that enables a guest green-thumb enthusiast to use part of a senior’s garden for their growing activities in exchange for maintaining the entire garden. It’s a win-win for both the residents and the guest gardener.
• Resources for beginners through master gardeners to get questions answered are as near as apps, websites, garden centers, university horticultural departments, and county ag extension services.

How Right at Home Can Help

Right at Home care experts work with families to reduce the risk of falls for older loved ones. Our caregivers can help encourage exercise and senior-friendly activities and lend a steady hand when needed. To learn more, visit our fall prevention webpage to download our free Fall Prevention Guide. Or use our office locator to find your local Right at Home and ask an aging expert for a care consultation today.

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