Gardening for Self-Care: Digging Deeper into Wellbeing Through Plants, Practice and Reflection
Members Dig Deeper Webinar SeriesAbout this experience
Many gardeners already know, instinctively, that gardening can be therapeutic. This session invites participants to dig deeper into that experience and explore how gardening can be used more intentionally to support self-care, wellbeing, meaning and connection. This intentional use of gardening, plants and nature-based activities is known as therapeutic horticulture.
Drawing on therapeutic horticulture principles, practical guidelines, reflective discussion and Tanya’s own experiences, this presentation will explore simple ways to deepen the restorative benefits of everyday gardening. Participants will be invited to consider not only what they do in the garden, but how they engage with the garden as a place for grounding, reflection, meaning and care.
Your Host
Tanya Bearup is a qualified social worker and horticulturist with over 25 years’ experience across aged care, disability, mental health, youth and family services. She is the founder of My Garden Space, a social work and therapeutic gardening service based in Melbourne. Her work combines therapeutic practice with gardening and nature-based activities to support wellbeing, purpose and connection, an approach known as therapeutic horticulture. Tanya’s practice is also shaped by her own lifelong connection to gardens and nature as places of grounding, restoration and self-care.
Tanya is an educator, presenter and advocate for the growth of therapeutic horticulture in Australia. She contributes to training and public speaking, including as a trainer in the Introduction to Working in Therapeutic Horticulture course at CERES. Tanya is Vice President of Therapeutic Horticulture Australia and an accredited social worker with the Australian Association of Social Workers.
