Plants Suitability Analysis for Horticultural Therapy Activities
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Feng, Yu-Ting
Abstract
Horticultural therapy is a kind of complementary therapy, which improves physiological and mental health through plants, horticultural activities and nature. A lot of western herbs were used for horticultural therapy in Taiwan recently, but some does not adapt to climates of Taiwan. Therefore, the conditions suitable for plants used in horticultural therapy and recommendation form were in urgent need.
Suitable plants screening form was created according to the importance of screening indices including easy to maintenance (M), visual sense (V), aesthetics (A), smell sense (S), multiple uses (U), gain achievement in short time (T), easy to reproduction (R), cultural meaning (C) and edible (E), and analyzed from literature review and questionnaire. Above factors were arranged according to its importance. Principle component analysis showed the indices could be classified into three categories. Plant property-related indices including (S), (U), (C), and (E). Group 2 was composed of feeling towards plant appearance-related indices including (V) and (A). Group 3 was composed of maintenance-related indices including (M), (R), and (T). Since principle component analysis was not suitable for calculating weighting in this data, the weighting of each conditions was 1.
Growth conditions of common summer and winter bedding plants and herbs were investigated, and results were used for evaluating the maintenance difficulty. These plants were cultivated following organic farming methods. Visual plants including blue daze (Evolvulus nuttallianus), star cluster (Pentas lanceolata), periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), and globe amaranth (Gomphrena globosa) were suitable for summer; mealy cup sage (Salvia farinacea) and impatiens (Impatiens walleriana ‘Super Elfin XP Lilac’) were suitable for winter. Smell and taste plants including perilla (Perilla frutescens), lemon basil (Ocimum basilicum ‘Citriodorum’), spearmint (Mentha spicata), and chocolate mint (Mentha Piperita ‘Chocolate’) were suitable for summer; patchouli (Plectranthus amboinicus) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa) were suitable for winter. Melampodium (Melampodium paludosum), coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides), basil (Ocimum basilicum), lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), and leafy sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) can be used all year-round. The suitable plants scoring formula was set as Score (S) = (M) + (V) + (A) + (S) + (U) + (T) + (R) + (C) + (E) + (Y). According to the formula, basil, lemon balm, patchouli, spearmint, perilla, pineapple sage, and lemon basil were excellent plants suitable for horticultural therapy, whereas impatiens, globe amaranth, coleus, star cluster, blue daze, periwinkle, mealy cup sage, melampodium, lemon verbena (Aloysia citriodora), chocolate mint, leafy sweet potato, rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis), and stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) were good materials for horticultural therapy.
Seedling forest was a common activity in horticultural therapy, and was easy to manipulate. But germination rate was low in some species due to seed dormancy. Common fruit seeds were screened for low manipulation to achieve high germination rate in short time. Results showed that dragon fruit (Hylocereus undatus) and tomato ‘Santa’ (Lycopersicon esculentum ‘Santa’) seeds can be directly sown, guava (Psidium guajava) seeds required one-week soaking, and pomelo (Citrus grandis) seeds required both soaking and seed-coat removing. These seeds can achieve high germinate rate in two weeks. The nutrition of papaya was rich, but seeds were hard to germinate. Papaya ‘Tainung No. 2’ (Carica papaya ‘Tainung No. 2’) seeds soaked for 0.5-2 hours in 500 ppm gibberellins (GA3) had higher germination percentage. Dragon fruit was suitable materials for seedling forest in summer, pomelo was suitable in fall, and guava can be used all year round.
Herb tea was another common activity in horticultural therapy. Recently, the health benefits of herb tea were concerned. To determine the relaxing effect of drinking herb tea, saliva were collected before and after drinking herb tea, and analyzed for cortisol concentration. The main ingredients in the tested herb tea were lavender and chamomile. The cortisol concentration of subjects which average age at 45-60 years old was significantly lower after drinking herb tea. However, the cortisol concentration of subjects across different ages was lower only at 90% confidence intervals. Nevertheless, 81.4% of subjects agreed that drinking herb tea causes relax, sleepy, peaceful, and resulted in better mood.
In conclusion, recommended summer and winter common bedding plants and herbs in northern Taiwan, and fruit seed for seedling forest can be used in horticultural therapy activities. Horticultural therapeutic activities such as seedling forest and herb tea tasting should use suitable plants according to activity types and seasons to improve horticultural therapy effects. Drinking herb tea was a good horticultural therapy activities to induce relax.
Subjects
園藝治療
園藝活動
香草茶
種子森林
腎上腺皮質醇
Type
thesis
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