The Enabling Garden

Up in the distant suburb of Glencoe is Chicago’s Botanic Gardens. On a joyfully rainy September day, I took the Metra north to toddle around the lakes and trees.

I met a few hummingbirds and attempted to take photos of them. They’re so small and fast that they would require an extremely expensive camera to photograph. I did my best with my old iphone, and down below is a vaguely hummingbird shaped blur.

The hummingbird is circled in red.

The Chicago Botanic Gardens has a strong theme of home gardening. It’s very different to Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens where the experience is primarily about the grandeur of landscaping. In the CBG, there are lots of signs encouraging visitors to take inspiration from the plants and apply what they learn at the gardens to their own gardens at home. (Sadly my apartment does not come with a garden so I cannot do as instructed.)

On the Botanic Gardens map, there was something called the Enabling Garden.

“How can a garden be enabling?” I wondered. (If you’re in the Enablers Network, you might think this a silly question to ask.)

So off I went to investigate the Enabling Garden.

The Enabling Garden is a section of the Botanic Gardens that demonstrates how gardens can be designed to make gardening accessible for people of all abilities. Here’s what the sign leading into the garden says:

“No matter what your age or physical ability, gardening doesn’t have to be a challenge. This garden shows you that in a well-planned space, anyone can garden. Inside you’ll find ideas that make gardening easier for everyone.”

The garden itself is very pretty, with tiers of green foliage, symmetrical flower beds and cascading water features.

Here are some of the tips scattered around the garden:

Gardening by Touch

“Have you ever thought of gardening by touch? Notice the metal grid in this garden bed. It helps gardeners with low vision easily locate plants by counting squares.”

Hanging Baskets

“The baskets around you are on pulleys. With pulleys you can easily raise and lower baskets to care for your plants.”

Unfortunately the pulley handles had been removed so I couldn’t try out the pulley system for myself.

Raised Plant Beds

I didn’t take a picture of the associated sign, but it spoke about how raised plant beds and giant plant pots make it easier to access plants without having to get on your knees to dig around at ground level.

On a similar note, there was also a raised grass lawn so people could sit on grass without having to get down to ground level.

Assorted other gardening tips

• Use solid paving with enough texture to provide good traction and non reflective colours and textures to improve visibility. Change the texture of the paving to signal the threshold between different areas.

• Use large handles or levers rather than knobs that are hard to twist

• Fill pots with a lightweight mix that drains well and discourages pests and diseases

• Use gardening tools that are specifically designed with enlarged hand grips and that are brightly coloured to make them easier to find

• Consider your most comfortable position for working and place your plants where you will be most happy to tend to them. Growing plants in containers or vertical growing systems is the easiest way to raise the height of the soil.

• Plan ahead for easy access to a water source to minimise dragging water hoses around or tripping over water hoses. In-ground sprinkler systems or soaker hoses are a good alternative.

• Choose plants that are well suited to your soil, water and sunlight conditions.

• Put plants that you love to tend, smell or touch where you can easily access them.

I thought the concept of the Enabling Garden was really interesting, because it went beyond seeing people with disabilities as consumers navigating someone else’s environment. It envisioned people with disabilities as the people controlling the environment and exercising their skills in landscape design and gardening. It went beyond plain access, where people with disabilities can purchase products and services, and deeper into inclusion, by enabling people with disabilities to take control and be the ones designing and delivering said products and services.

Unfortunately the tips in the Enabling Garden can't make up for my inability to keep a single succulent alive for longer than a month.