Flower Therapy - Ann Arbor Farm & Garden

HomeFlower Therapy

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful: they are sunshine, food, and medicine to the soul.” ― Luther Burbank

Our 60 Years of Service

For nearly six decades, Ann Arbor Farm & Garden members have been proving the accuracy of Mr. Burbank’s statement, one bouquet at a time. Our Horticultural Therapy (HT) program, now called Flower Therapy, uses flowers donated by local businesses to create small floral arrangements for hospital patients and local residential social service facilities.

Until 2020, the Flower Therapy program was based at Mott Children’s Hospital, with two sessions scheduled monthly September through May. Recognized as one of the hospital’s longest-serving volunteer groups, our flower therapists brought joy and a healing touch of nature to young patients and their families.

The Covid pandemic shuttered the Mott program, but our stalwart flower therapists were determined to continue this meaningful service. Led by Chair Karen Mikus and Co-Chair Nancy Asin, the group established a monthly bouquet-making activity in a borrowed space. The small, bright arrangements were then delivered to Alpha House, Ronald McDonald House, and Safe House. In 2022-23, more than 1,000 bouquets were distributed.

In September 2023, Flower Therapy returned to Mott Children’s Hospital so that young patients and their extended family members can once again make cheerful bouquets to take to their rooms or give to their favorite nurses or doctors. Parents also come to make arrangements while their children are in surgery.

Also in September 2023, for the first time, Flower Therapy began on the 9th floor of Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital with patients whose pregnancies are at high risk for complications. There is a bright, windowed space where the women can gather to chat while making bouquets for their rooms, their nurses, and often their janitor. Flower Therapy not only brings the joy of flowers, it decreases the isolation and boredom of being restricted to a hospital room.

Flower Therapy
Flower Therapy is a program that Ann Arbor Farm & Garden has offered for decades at Mott Children’s Hospital. Currently, Flower Therapy is held on the second Wednesday of each month at Mott Children’s Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital (both in the same building on the medical campus).

There are two shifts at Mott (10:00 am-12:30 pm and 12:30-3:00 pm) and one shift at Women’s (12:30-3:00 pm).

Each month Flower Therapy volunteers pick up buckets of flowers donated by local Ann Arbor florists. These are then delivered to Mott Children’s Hospital’s Family Center where volunteers spend an hour prepping the stems and placing them on tables. Volunteers also wrap clean soup cans with colorful foils to become vases.

When the flowers are prepped and ready, child patients and their families are invited to select vases, choose flowers, and make arrangements. Ribbons are provided to add extra flair. Bouquets can be brought to patients’ rooms, taken home or given to favorite doctors or nurses.

On Women’s Ninth, volunteers bring Flower Therapy to women with high-risk pregnancies, their families and friends. First, flowers are prepped and cans wrapped into vases. Then the women or family members choose flowers and greens for their arrangements. Sometimes nurses make bouquets for patients restricted to their beds. Often patients stay to chat with volunteers and each other to alleviate some of the isolation they experience.

On both floors, almost always patients and family members leave with big smiles on their faces! Volunteers do, too!

Cleaning up at the end of sessions is part of volunteers’ responsibilities, as is recording hours volunteered with Volunteer Services.

It is important to know and remember that volunteers may not ask patients and families any questions about why they are at the hospitals. However, volunteers may say to patients, “We are not allowed to ask you any questions but we are allowed to listen.” Sometimes patients share and sometimes they don’t.

All volunteers are required to join Ann Arbor Farm & Garden (our funding sponsor) and to go through the University of Michigan Hospital’s volunteer application process.

Being a Flower Therapy volunteer requires commitment, reliability, and flexibility. Volunteers must work well with both children and adults.

We invite you to consider joining this meaningful and rewarding volunteer experience.

Contact: Karen Mikus, Chair
Flower Therapy Program
Sponsored by Ann Arbor Farm & Garden
saren82049@gmail.com
Text Karen at (734) 649-1927

Horticultural Therapy

Although the Woman’s National Farm & Garden Association didn’t invent horticultural therapy, the organization played an important role in its history and development. With the work of Miss Elizabeth Hall in the 1920s, through the pioneering work in the 1950s of Alice Wessels Burlingame, a WNFGA Michigan Division member considered the founder of the modern HT profession, Farm & Garden at all levels has actively supported and encouraged the field of horticultural therapy. In fact, the first committee of the newly formed Ann Arbor Branch in 1947 was a horticultural therapy group; it was that committee that started our ‘Flower Ladies’ tradition of service. Dig deeper into our HT history.