Mobile springtime: Moses Lake nursing home residents tend to indoor garden

MOSES LAKE — Living in a retirement facility can leave some residents missing the days of planting flowers in springtime or tending to a garden. These feelings are only compounded in the winter, then tripled by a year-plus of pandemic restrictions.

All of this has left nursing homes scratching their heads for innovative solutions. For Lake Ridge Center in Moses Lake, theirs was Seattle-based Eldergrow, which provides indoor therapeutic sensory gardens.

“I don’t have a yard right now, so I don’t have a place to plant stuff,” said Lake Ridge Center resident Sharon Phillips. “It makes me sad to have spring and not be able to go out and dig in the ground and plant bushes and stuff, because I do love to plant.”

When Lake Ridge Center Recreation Director Kassandra Kauffman heard about the program, provided through grant funding from the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, she thought it was a great opportunity, she said.

Lake Ridge was one of seven skilled nursing facilities statewide to receive two Eldergrow indoor therapeutic sensory gardens and Eldergrow’s innovative therapeutic horticulture program, according to argentum.org’s website. Columbia Crest Center in Moses Lake was the only other local facility.

Once a week, Eldergrow staff visit Lake Ridge, wheeling in a vibrant cart of fuschias, geraniums, mint, really anything the residents want to see and grow.

“It gives people a sense of purpose,” said Kristin Wenke, Eldergrow host. “There’s a lot of people, especially in our area, that were farmers or have gardens outside or have houseplants inside, so this is something that’s familiar for them to do.”

Therapeutic horticulture reduces depression, improves balance and lowers risk factors for dementia, she said. With the residents, she grows plants that stimulate the senses – colorful plants, soft plants, aromatic plants and edible plants.

Visiting with a family member with severe dementia, which is common at Lake Ridge, can be challenging, she said. Gardens give loved ones something immediate to talk about. The standing fuschia, for example, with long, pink blooms that resemble trumpets, often spark conversations about what musical instruments residents play, she said.

One resident loves the mint, Wenke said, as it brings back all these stories of her dad who worked on a mint farm. Working with plants is soothing when someone’s agitated, she said. She’s seen the garden completely reset a resident’s mood for the whole day.

Wenke unearthed a dying viola on a recent Tuesday and replaced it with oregano.

Resident Tony Coates’ favorite thing about the mobile garden is all the colors, she said. It really brightens the hallway.

Phillips has been a lifelong gardener, she said. She loves roses and stargazer lilies the most. The stargazers smell like Old Spice, she said.

“You cut one of them, put it in the house and water, it’ll last two-three weeks with a wonderful smell throughout the house,” she said. “It’s just marvelous.”

The indoor garden has made an impact, Kauffman said.

“For therapy a lot of (residents) are motivated by, ‘Hey let’s walk down and check out the garden,’ and they get to sit by the garden and enjoy the scents and everything,” she said. “It’s been great. They all love it. We take it down the hallway and they’re all like ‘Ooh, ahh, pretty colors.’”

Sam Fletcher can be reached via email at sfletcher@columbiabasinherald.com.