News Published: 19 November 2024

About a year ago, several prominent botanical gardens in Ukraine approached us at Partnerships for Nature (PN) with a request: to assist them in developing nature healing programs, in particular Therapeutic Horticulture (TH).

A bit of background. Ukraine’s botanical gardens have been playing a critical role in cities across Ukraine since the Russian full-scale invasion began in early 2022. The gardens, a dozen of which have worked with PN for several years, offer oases of respite and recovery to displaced families, veterans, and other Ukraine citizens experiencing extreme stress and loss in these times.

In 2022-2023, BGCI teamed up with Partnerships for Nature in a fundraising campaign to keep the gardens open, to maintain their collections, and to offer public programs. Now Ukraine’s gardens wanted to offer something more concrete to their compatriots suffering from the traumas of war: structured TH programs based on the models of US gardens.

We soon identified North Carolina Botanical Garden as an excellent source of training and support for TH. NCBG has been offering TH programs and training for many years, including a popular online certificate class taken by people throughout the US and overseas. Starting in January of 2024, NCBG’s Manager of TH programs, Emilee Weaver, began conducting webinars and meetings with PN’s Ukraine garden partners to help them learn about TH practices and launch pilot programs.

In mid-2024 PN again teamed with BGCI to raise funds, this time directed specifically at developing TH and related areas, including intensive in-person training. Once again BGCI’s members, particularly US gardens, responded with generous donations – over $20,000 was raised.

Along with supporting needed garden adaptations, tools and materials, these funds helped PN to organize an intensive 3-day TH workshop in early October at Bolestrazyce Arboretum in southern Poland, just across the border from Ukraine. Thirteen leaders and staff members from five botanical gardens arrived from locations across Ukraine. They were joined by a TH practitioner from a military rehabilitation center near Kyiv, and a TH researcher from Lviv.

The workshop was led by Emilee, along with a colleague, Amy Stidham, formerly with Cape Fear Botanical Garden. The group bonded tightly as they learned about each other’s experiences and challenges in offering TH programs. They made plans to deepen and broaden programs in Ukraine in the future. Among other priorities, this will mean partnering with Ukrainian organizations directly serving those in need of therapy and rehabilitation.

“Thanks to this workshop we gained an understanding of the need to analyze existing social and philanthropic organizations in our region in order to work with them in TH programs” wrote one Ukraine participant.

“Huge thanks for the opportunity to get to know the experience of our Ukrainian colleagues, as well as that of Amy and Emilee” wrote another.

Sadly, the end of the war in Ukraine is not in sight. And when the war finally ends, there will continue to be a great need for TH, and for the unique role of botanical gardens as places of rest, respite, and recovery. The workshop in Poland was an opportunity to gather strength, knowledge, and mutual support for the road ahead. The generosity of BGCI members is helping to pave that road.