‘Flora Therapeia’ (Flower Therapy)

At ‘Edgeworth Lley’ we love to share the benefits and enjoyment of living and working in a beautiful heirloom rose garden through our nature based workshops.

Horticulture therapy is well known for its benefits for people with mental health issues, physical disabilities, people with dementia, and long term unemployed youth, just to name a few. But we know that everyone can benefit from spending some time with nature.  An example is the growing awareness of the importance of ‘nature play’ for children’s development. 

We take our nature based workshops a little step further and use flowers, especially fragrant heirloom roses, as our focus.   Studies have shown that simply smelling the fragrance of roses can bring about a sense of joy and begin the journey of recovery from despair. 

Our Flora Therapeia (Flower Therapy) workshops are designed to assist people in their journey of recovery from trauma and grief.   The natural green space of rolling hills in which our country garden sits provides a safe natural environment where people can spend time touching and smelling the roses. 

The scientific and therapeutic basis for our nature based Flora Therapeia workshops at Edgeworth Lley is an environmental psychology theory called Attention Restoration Theory.  Engagement with the natural environment quiets emotional cognition and facilitates a sense of well-being.  The effort for an individual to focus on the natural environment is effortless, (referred to as ‘soft fascination’), which in turn enables the mind to rest from thoughts of fear, sadness or anxiety, for example.  

In short, spending time in nature is good for the brain, developing new neural pathways that support emotional wellbeing.

I have conducted numerous workshops in my other life as an academic, researching this theory and observing the benefits to individuals from a broad spectrum of backgrounds.  But the common factor is that each person discovers or re-discovers the benefits of ‘just being’ in a natural environment, whether that is a small garden, a park, at the beach, picking flowers or just sitting under a tree.

Time and time again we have seen people relaxing and enjoying the fragrance, texture and colour of our heirloom roses at our workshops.  Sometimes individuals discover for the first time that they can do something ‘creative’ that is beautiful.  Some re-capture their love of flowers and creating, or suddenly realise they can lose themselves just smelling the roses and enjoying the green space around them.    For others it is just a time of ‘breathing’ and focussing on something other than their trauma or grief. 

So when did you last have your ‘fix’ of nature?  

Perhaps it’s time now to seek out a little green space, even a few potted plants on a balcony, and ‘just be’ in nature.  For information about our Flora Therapeia workshops find Edgeworth Lley-Heirloom Roses on Facebook and send us a message.