Urban Oasis Uses Horticulture Therapy to Renew Lives

Inside the main greenhouse at Urban Oasis 

 

Susan Palm is as cool as a cucumber. She has to be to tolerate me, her husband. This attribute also applies to her profession.

In almost seven years of employment at Urban Oasis, the horticulture therapy and job-training program of Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, Brooklyn's state hospital, she has learned to trust nature, which will take its course...

if Susan and other workers sow, winnow, transplant, fertilize, weed, water, control pests, and harvest in a timely, organic manner. Now that doesn't sound like too much work, does it?

However, the goal of Urban Oasis is not just to see how high the bitter melon vines will grow each summer. The program offers a dozen at a time of the hospital's 250 patients an opportunity to renew their lives after the experiences of mental illness and drug addiction.

Contrary to the notion that digging in the dirt is a reversion to childhood, learning to help plants grow is one of the best ways to recover from what may seem like personal dead ends.

Most of  Urban Oasis' patient-workers--they are all paid minimum wage--learn valuable job skills, even if they don't go into the gardening/landscaping business. After discharge from Kingsboro, some get jobs in Brooklyn's burgeoning agricultural fields (on once vacant lots).

Horticulture therapy is one of the recreational therapies, such as the use of art, writing, drama, and dance to complement talk therapy. On the one hand, these approaches allow clients to express themselves non-verbally. On the other, they encourage them to take action to improve their lives.
 


Rudbeckia grown at Urban Oasis

 

Urban Oasis was the brainchild of Susan Braverman, a rehabilitation counselor for 40 years at Kingsboro who became a specialist in gardening. It started in 1997 with patients growing a few vegetables for sale to the staff, and developed into two greenhouses and two large outdoor plots supplying the outside community as well.

Before retiring in 2010, Braverman worked closely with the hospital's administration, the NY State Office of Mental Health, Cornell University Cooperative Extension, NY State Department of Agriculture and Markets, the Horticultural Society of NYC, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to assure Urban Oasis flourished.

In a 2008 Community Gardening interview, Braverman explained, "What is most meaningful to me about Urban Oasis is the amazing group of clients I work with. They are my heroes, who teach me lessons in horticulture and life, making our program a beautiful Eden."      

The current three-member staff, assisted by these clients, run a weekly farmer's market popular in the largely Caribbean East Flatbush neighborhood, contract with a half-dozen community gardening groups in Brooklyn to provide "veggie and flower starts" in the spring, and sell both indoor and outdoor plants to walk-in customers. The income from these sources offsets the non-staff costs of the program.

Beatrix MacLeod, Urban Oasis Coordinator

As the senior employee of Urban Oasis, Susan Palm is an example of gardening's rehabilitation power. For 30 years, she was a commercial artist in the fashion and home goods industries. Unfortunately, computer designs eventually made her hand-painting skills obsolete.

A lifelong gardener--she grew up in the much hardier Zone 4 of Menasha, Wisconsin vs. Brooklyn's Zone 6--Susan was first drawn to flower garden design because of her aesthetic eye. Fortunately, Susan Braverman recognized her potential as an urban farmer who could teach gardening to people recovering from mental illness and substance abuse.

To appreciate the scope of the Urban Oasis operation, you can  peruse the spreadsheets Susan maintains for keeping track of the dozens of vegetables, herbs, and flowers they grow. Or you can experience the bounty in its seasonal glory, especially such Islands' favorites as bitter melon, callaloo, Malibar spinach, long beans, okra, eggplant, cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers, basil, thyme, and lemon balm.

All this nurturing of people and plants keeps Susan healthy and employed past retirement age. l'm "rooting" for her to continue.