Horticultural therapy enables people with disabilities to connect with horticulture while enriching lives and fostering independence.

Denver Botanic Gardens welcomes you to enjoy the beauty of our Sensory Garden at its peak and the benefits of our Summer Therapeutic Horticulture Program, offered June through September. This program, facilitated onsite by our staff and/or trained docents, is a highly interactive garden experience designed for seniors and people with disabilities. The Summer Therapeutic Horticulture Program is geared toward people in special education programs, rehabilitative centers, adult daycare groups and assisted or independent living facilities.

Based on your group’s horticultural needs, your expectations and your available time, choose from our two options below. If you are not sure what option to choose, our staff horticultural therapist or adult program coordinator will assist you in your decision.

Sensory Garden Tour
Imagine a unique, intimate garden with colorful displays of flowers at their summer peak. A garden designed with the idea in mind to accommodate individuals of varied abilities offering them a relaxed and joyful experience. Bring your group and take a guided one-hour stroll throughout this cherished garden.

Summer Sensory
Visitors encounter connections with plants using the five senses, and gain social enrichment while enjoying a change of pace in a safe, restful location: the Sensory Garden. Each Summer Sensory session includes an introductory walk through the Sensory Garden experiencing a variety of plants plus an activity of your choice.

Available activities:

• Flower Arranging
  Create a seasonal flower arrangement. Participants learn and perform the steps to create a one-of-a-kind floral arrangement to take home and enjoy. Hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and creative expression are accomplished during this activity. Flower Arranging is suitable for all-level functioning populations.

• Making a Topiary
  Make a topiary frame, transplant an ivy plant and train the plant to the frame. Modifications of the activity allow high and low-level functioning populations to work with soil and topiary materials. This activity can be geared toward high or low-level functioning populations.
• Plant Propagation
  Make stem cuttings from hardy houseplants of your choice. Working with soil and plant materials develops hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills in a highly social setting. Plant Propagation is geared towards high-level functioning populations.
• Pretty Pots
  Participants will decorate clay pots and transplant hardy houseplants or herbs. Experience your sense of touch and sight by working with soil and plant materials.
• Terrariums
  This activity creates a hands-on experience in creating an open or closed-air terrarium. Participants learn how to make a terrarium from hardy houseplants to take home and enjoy. The activity develops fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination in a highly social setting.

Dates, Times and Admission
Denver Botanic Gardens
10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
June 5 to September 30 - Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays

Cost
$75 for for-profits, or $50 for nonprofits

General Info

• Programs are offered by reservation only.
• Payment is due upon booking.
• Cancellations, made by the Gardens or by facilities, greater than one week prior to the program will receive a full refund.
• Cancellations with less than one week notice (weather cancellations excepted) are not refundable. If cancellation is made by the Gardens, we’ll seek to reschedule your program.

Questions? Email us at tours@botanicgardens.org.

To schedule a program for your group, fill out a request form and send back to us at tours@botanicgardens.org, or call 720-865-3539. We also have our Winter Therapeutic Horticulture Program this winter, which is the winter version of the same program.