Ron Smith Care
Centre residents, staff and volunteers are full of smiles after having planted
violas and pansies for Mother’s Day.
Rand Aid
Association’s Ron Smith Care Centre’s gardening group meets every other week in
one of the wings at the care centre. At their last gathering, the group enjoyed
planting violas and pansies for Mother’s Day.
The gardening group
is run by volunteers Leung and Elaine Ho. Leung, a horticulturalist, has a
Baccalaureus Technologiae in Horticulture from UNISA and a special interest in
using gardening activities for therapeutic purposes.
He adheres to
the belief that plants, gardening activities and the innate closeness we all
feel towards nature can be used as a vehicle to bring certain therapeutic
benefits to participants.
Over time,
simple gardening tasks practiced in a group can provide sensory and memory
stimulation, increase movement, improve orientation to reality, increase a
sense of community and decrease feelings of loneliness and isolation.
Ron Smith Care
Centre residents spent an enjoyable morning planting colourful flowers into
lovely ceramic shopping bag pots, which were designed and made by Leung.
The Ron Smith
Care Centre has plants for sale and the proceeds are used for operating the
gardening programme.
