Have you been a lifetime gardener? Or have you picked up this fun activity after you retired?

No matter when you pick up gardening, you can continue this sustaining hobby well into your senior years.

Vertical and raised bed gardening makes it easier to tend to edibles and cut flowers. At the same time, drip irrigation and other accessible gardening products save on bending down or standing for long periods.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the joys of accessible gardening, especially tailored for seniors. We'll delve into the benefits of gardening at this stage of life, offer some helpful tips on making your garden more manageable, and address some of the common challenges you might encounter.

The Benefits of Gardening for Seniors

If you’ve been a lifetime gardener, you know the many benefits of gardening, including physical exercise, mental wellbeing, and social engagement.

Whether pulling weeds, adding mulch, or plucking cherry tomatoes off the plant, you engage in these mobility and flexibility activities while working outdoors. Here are other benefits of gardening as a form of exercise:

• It’s a fun way to exercise
• It uses all of your motor skills
• It uses muscles that build endurance and strength
• It prevents osteoporosis
• You feel more relaxed, and it reduces your stress levels
• It stimulates you as you work outdoors and with nature
• It improves your well-being as you interact with other gardeners or share your harvest with neighbors
• It provides nutritious, uber-local produce for you to eat.

Challenges Seniors Face When Gardening

While many seniors enjoy gardening, some into their 80’s and 90’s, you may face unique challenges. For example, physical limitations make bending or kneeling painful or nearly impossible. Also, traditional garden layouts are at ground level, requiring a lot of bending and kneeling to complete gardening tasks.

Then there’s the issue of balance when moving among gardening spaces, which could lead to falls or tripping over things.

You also need to be aware of these other challenges while gardening:

• Thinner skin makes you more prone to sunburn and bruises
• The hot sun can lead to dehydration and heat stress
• Stinging insects lead to bug bites.
• Tripping hazards to lead to broken bones
• Memory issues, especially if someone has cognitive decline like dementia, can be a concern.

Adaptive Tools and Techniques

Fortunately, there are adaptive tools that help seniors stay gardening for as long as possible. Adjustable raised garden beds and wheelchair-facing garden tables allow folks who can’t bend or stand to grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers.

There are many other gardening tools and equipment available to help with adaptive gardening that you can buy online or at your favorite retailer:

1. Ergonomic garden hand tools: Gardeners of all ages want gardening tools that make digging, pulling, and planting easier. You can find ergonomic garden hand tools that allow you and others to garden without aggravating carpel tunnel syndrome or arthritis.
2. Cordless shrub shearers and hedge trimmers: Lightweight, cordless shrub shearers and hedge trimmers can maintain your shrubs without standing, kneeling, or bending.
3. Ratchet pruners: Older gardeners don’t have to give up pruning out-of-control trees and shrubs, such as Rose of Sharon and Crepe Myrtles. With ratchet pruners, you cut branches in stages, and the unique mechanism in ratchet pruners reduces hand fatigue for people with arthritis.
4. Garden rolling rocker: The garden rocker is an ergonomic seat that moves with you as you move side-to-side and forward and backward. You can weed, plant, snip, and prune while seated and not having to bend.
5. Pole saw: Using a pole saw with a long shaft for reaching up high without needing a ladder protects you from falls as you trim tree branches. Look for pole saws that are lightweight and come with a comfortable grip.
6. Long handle garden tools: Using a wheelchair or scooter, you can still dig in the soil without bending over or straining your back when utilizing long-reach garden tools. Many long-reach tools are ergonomically made with non-slip handles with soft grips. The lightweight shaft doesn’t put extra stress on your arm, either.
7. Drip irrigation kits: While long-handled garden hose wands are available, conserve your arm strength, save water, and produce healthy plants when investing in a drip irrigation kit. The pressure-compensating emitters provide uniform output while delivering large water droplets right to the roots of the plants. You can install the drip irrigation kit or hire a landscape contractor to install it for you.

Tailoring the Garden Space

When designing a space for adaptive gardening, there are some important considerations to put in your landscape design. Here are eight pointers for creating a functional, adaptative garden:

1. Ensure there’s ample room between table gardens or rows if you use a wheelchair or scooter while gardening
2. Include shaded areas and benches so you can take a gardening break from the hot sun
3. Ensure that your drip irrigation system can hook up to your home’s water supply
4. Make sure all walkways are non-slip and flat
5. Add a garden shed near your gardening space to put away all garden equipment safely
6. Consider vertical gardening, elevated gardening beds, and gardening tables so you don’t have to put a strain on your back—design them so they get ample sunshine and are close to a water source
7. Add handrails and have non-visual stimuli at path intersections, using wind bells, chimes, or fragrant plants that cue you to the intersection if you’re visually impaired
8. Add landscape lighting to your garden paths to keep working into the evening hours and provide safety while showing off your edibles and flowerbeds to your friends and family.

K-Rain’s Drip Irrigation Kit Keeps Your Plants Alive and Well

K-Rain’s Drip Irrigation Kit removes the physical strain on your body when watering your plants. This drip irrigation kit is easy to install, compatible with other brands, and conserves water.

Shop our products online or find them at a retailer near you. Need help with your K-Rain irrigation system? Call us at 800-735-7246 or email us. Get quality and convenience with K-Rain. Make your landscape thrive with adaptive gardening.

Sources:
AccessibleGardening.com.
BetterHealth.vic.gov.au.
FamilyHandyman.com, 9 Adaptive Tools to Make Gardening with Disabilities Easier.
NGB.org, Adaptive Gardening is Cool at Any Age.
TheSpruce.com, 4 Types of Hand Pruners and How to Choose.