A Sensory Garden For Those Who Need It Most

Program expansion that serves everyone 

Cornucopia Adult and Family Services provides family-oriented, daytime services for the elderly, frail, and individuals with intellectual disabilities. We are excited to announce that one of our greenhouse services have recently expanded to include a Horticultural Therapy program.

The Horticultural Therapy program focuses on the individuals and the community we serve.  Participants are able to take part in weekly classes with our trained staff and Horticultural Therapist, but the community is also able to participate in quarterly workshops.

A garden for all your senses 

We welcome you to share ideas about how they would like our greenhouse to support our community. As part of the plan, we are starting construction of a sensory garden right in our backyard. The sensory garden will feature adaptive equipment and gardening techniques that will allow all of our participants to be involved. Part of the sensory experience is watching growth and change occur, looking for the surprises, making daily discoveries and being an active participant.  

Some proposed features for our new sensory garden include:

• Tired Gardens - We can create unique gardens from old tires, painted in bright colors and stacked to provide homes for gourds, sunflowers, morning glories and iris.
• Barefoot in the Grass - An accessible patch of soft grass where bare feet can connect with the earth can have real therapeutic value. This can be magnified when you add a bottle of bubble solution and dance on the grass. This can be a great garden party.
• Butterfly Picnic - This provides opportunities for entertainment, education and environmental action. There will be plants that provide larval foods as well as water and feeding stations for the adult butterflies. Feeding stations involve pieces of fresh fruit that are changed on a daily basis.

These are just some of the special features that, working together, we can create this spring. We also welcome your input, thoughts, ideas, and suggestions as we are growing this new program. Green thumbs and dirty hands are also welcome.  

If you would like to be involved in creating and/or maintaining one of our sensory garden features, please contact Reina Martinez at [email protected] or (505) 877-1310.