Showing their flower tape bracelets

October is national Farm to School Month, a celebration of connecting students to the many organizations and programs that have growing plants and children in common! A program here in North Carolina has the spotlight this month as we chat with Greg Stivland about his school program:

My name is Greg Stivland, and I am a pediatric occupational therapist and registered horticultural therapist currently working in the public schools in Durham, NC. I developed the Exceptional Gardeners program as my final project for the HT management class that I completed through the Horticultural Therapy Institute (HTI) in 2022. Funding for the start-up costs was obtained through the principal at my elementary school and through a PTSA grant at a high school where I work. My salary is covered through the school district, so the initial costs included one time costs for equipment needed such as plant light shelves, potting tidies, pots/trays, watering cans, and light timers. The idea was that once we started selling plants, we could cover future program costs through plant sales and donations. We just completed our third year of Exceptional Gardeners programming!

Flowers ready for tape bracelets

The Mission and Program Goals 

Exceptional Gardeners is an indoor Horticultural Therapy program for children and young adults with a variety of abilities to support social inclusion, acquisition of vocational skills, participation in meaningful occupations, and to enhance quality of life during and after their school career. It is designed to incorporate therapeutic, vocational, and social/emotional opportunities for students being served. Goals include:

–Expand therapeutic opportunities for student involvement in developing physical, social, vocational, and self-regulation skills.
–Improve conditions both inside and outside the school to support stress reduction and improve attention.
–Demonstrate gifts that students in the Special Program classes have to offer and how those gifts help to benefit the entire school community.
–Produce enough revenue to cover expenses/supplies needed to operate the Exceptional Gardeners program.

The students involved in this program participate in a variety of activities including house plant propagation, house plant maintenance, plant pest and disease management, plant marketing and sales, and giving back to the school community through plant donations and giveaways. Indoor house plants we have propagated include: spider plants, tradescantia zebrina, golden pothos, monstera adansonii, vicks plant, Cuban oregano, and Mexican mint to name a few. Students have also propagated outdoor plants including African blue basil, a variety of coleus, and garden peas. They have also grown, harvested, and tasted microgreens in the classroom. Each classroom has their own plant light shelf so plants the students propagate stay in the classroom and they get to see them grow and change. Ideally, students in the classroom are given the responsibility of watering the plants once per week. I also come by weekly to check on the light shelves to be sure the lights and timers are working correctly.

Light shelves provide a healthy growing space between sessions

All students currently participating are in Special Program classes and have Individual Education Programs (IEPs). Students have a variety of abilities and diagnosis including Autism, Down syndrome, developmental delay, and intellectual disabilities. Group sizes range between 4 and 8 students. During Exceptional Gardener activities the classroom teacher and instructional assistants (2-3 per classroom) also help assist students and manage safety concerns as needed. Sessions occur 2-3 times per month, typically last 30 minutes, and are planned around the classroom’s daily schedule.

As an occupational therapist in the schools working with students with IEPs, my primary purpose is to help students engage in school tasks (academic, self-care, social, vocational) and work toward goals on their IEPs. As one example, I had a student who had a goal to be able to carry her lunch tray from her desk across the room to the garbage can (to throw away left overs/trash) without spilling the contents of the tray. During the Exceptional Gardeners activity of planting rooted cuttings of Spider Plants, after this student potted up her plant into a 3.5” pot, I asked her to pick it up and place it in a tray I had placed on a desk on the other side of the room. After doing this successfully, to make the task more challenging I then asked her to carry two plants (one in each hand) across the room and place them in the tray. She was then able to work on developing this skill addressed in her IEP goal in a different way. The nice part of this is that each student typically gets to pot up 3-4 plants, so there is repetition of the skill and all of the other students also got to practice this life skill. If a plant got dropped and dirt ended up on the floor, then we got to work on another self-care skill (using a broom and dust pan). After several sessions, her teacher made a point of letting me know that the student who was working on this lunch tray goal had made significant progress successfully carrying her tray across the room without spilling. Other students might be working on other skills including: handwriting, following a handwashing routine, increasing their participation in activities with novel sensory stimulation, remaining seated for the duration of a table top activity. All of these goals can be addressed during Exceptional Gardeners activities! I haven’t come across a goal yet that can be addressed using plants or plant based activities.

Developing fine motor skills while potting up new plants

Many of the students I work with have also shown great progress with waiting, turn taking, and sharing materials during these activities. Sometimes, as adults, we feel like everyone needs to be engaged all the time – and what I have found (okay this isn’t true 100% of the time) – but, what I have found is that frequently the students enjoy watching their peers complete the activity and then excitement builds as the potting tray and tools are passed along. With younger students we often count the completed pots after each student has potted up their plant, providing reinforcement and repeated practice on counting and 1:1 correspondence.

In terms of building a therapeutic relationship with students, it is important to have a plan for your TH/HT activities, but being able to adjust that plan is also key. Like any human being, kids have good days and bad days. They might put their hands in the potting mix one day and the next time refuse. In a school setting, having the teacher and instructional assistance, who know the students well, participating in the activity – they know if a student needs a break or needs to be removed from the activity which is infrequent but can happen. I try to have 2-3 other activities that students can participate in if the planting activity just isn’t working for them that day, like filling watering cans, plant coloring sheets, helping with cleanup, or scooping and pouring.

I’m currently working on a curriculum for the Exceptional Gardeners program that will include planning and activity instructions as well as how those activities support instruction using the common core and extended content standards. There isn’t a website yet, but if you have any questions about the Exceptional Gardeners program, feel free to reach out!

greg.stivland@gmail.com