Disabled Gardener

Question for Pat:
What are some ways to set up a new garden to still provide some ways for handicapped or elderly people who want to participate in some gardening? Would you used raised beds and pots or terraces or other?

Answer from Pat:
I have been somewhat disabled for many years with painful knees that make if difficult or impossible to stand for a long time. Despite this problem I am still gardening, though not as much as I used to. I have found many ways to garden: One is to use a long-reach, cut-and-hold pruner for dead heading climbing roses and for pruning bougainvillea. Several times a year I clip off the tips that have bloomed on my bougainvillea in order to stimulate it to create more fresh growth that will then bloom again. I have even sat in a wheelchair after a knee operation and put a trash barrel at the same distance from me as the length of the pruner so I can put all the trimmings straight into the barrel from the tip of the pruner after each cut. I use trash cans with movable handles. I cannot lift them, so I drag them on the ground from place to place.

As far as set-ups go, I think the main tip is to have many chairs and benches here and there throughout the garden. With the help of somewhere to sit I can then use a long-handled “winged weeder” to cultivate and weed. I tie a little spoon on the end of a stick to plant seeds or I simply toss seeds on the ground and rake them in. I have thrown fava beans on the ground and stuck them in with my cane. They all grew! The other day I was able to dig out a gopher hole, set a “Black Hole” (Don’t get the “Black Box”, it’s no good.) gopher trap into the hole and cover it with some leaves and earth while leaving the end open as one is supposed to do and I did all this while sitting in a chair. The next day I had caught my gopher. I spilled him out into the hole and covered him over with earth as a message to other gophers not to mess with this gimpy gardener!

Yes, raised beds, high pots, terraces and planter boxes are great also. I use all of these in my garden.