A Blooming Business: Expanding Plant-Based Mental Health Services

Since 2016, Plants and Blooms Reimagined (PBR) has been serving Washingtonians with therapeutic horticultural practices, intersecting mental wellness, environmentalism and education by using repurposed plants, workshops and presentations to strengthen people’s connections with nature.

The nature-based wellness organization announced on June 26 at its inaugural Garden Party fundraiser that it will expand its outreach and impact with the launch of its Bloom Mobile initiative, scheduled for July. This development, a repurposed vehicle that will enhance PBR’s plant recovery and delivery services, will also enable the organization to strengthen its presence in the community. 

“To take as much of the experience to where people are is the vision,” Kaifa Anderson-Hall, PBR founder, president and CEO, told The Informer. “That really is the vision for PBR, in terms of creating the greatest access possible for the greatest number of under-resourced folks [who] don’t get into outdoor community garden spaces.” 

PBR recycles donated flowers and indoor plants from various events, florists and farmers’ markets to improve its clients’ quality of life through gardening demonstrations, bouquet arranging and other plant-based activities. After nearly a decade of service, the organization remains committed to supporting vulnerable communities through their wellness journeys, with its current partners including: Seabury Resources for Aging, McClendon Center, So Others Might Eat (SOME) and N Street Village. 

“To be able to see it grow its seed, to be able to grow from its humble beginnings, where [Anderson-Hall] used to just talk about it, to now celebrating the Bloom Mobile… and celebrating a lot of the people that have gone on her journey,… just warms my heart,” said Jennifer Jefferson, one of PBR’s founding board members. 

Anderson-Hall’s concept for PBR and its Bloom Mobile was conceived in 2015, after she caught a glimpse of the Children’s National Hospital Bloodmobile, a mobile blood donation service. At that moment, her brain transposed the “d” for an “m,” making the vehicle read “Bloommobile.”

“It was like an epiphany,” Anderson-Hall told The Informer. “Expanding and advancing awareness of the importance of nature-based connections, even in the context of something as intimate as indoor plants and cut flowers… is the next piece.”

‘It Automatically Centers People’: Reclaiming Wellness Through Nature 

According to the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA), the practice of horticultural therapy gained popularity in the 1940s and 1950s through rehabilitative care for hospitalized war veterans. Research shows horticultural therapy boosts patients’ cognitive and language skills, socialization, memory retention and task initiation. 

Due to its wide range of physical and mental benefits, this form of wellness can enhance the health of various patients. 

“In physical rehabilitation settings, horticultural therapy can help strengthen muscles and improve coordination, balance and endurance,” said the AHTA. “In vocational horticultural therapy settings, people learn to work independently, problem solve and follow directions.” 

Even though this practice has been used as a reliable resource to assist in alleviating mental health issues for decades, some people have been skeptical of horticultural therapy when first introduced to the concept. This was the case for Patrice Williams, a participant with the McClendon Center’s Mental Health Services Integrated Care Program. 

Williams had her first experience with plant therapy in 2021, upon leaving treatment for mental health and substance abuse, when participating in one of Anderson-Hall’s programs at the McClendon Center. Despite her initial hesitance to the experience, Williams is now a self-proclaimed plant lover.

“I was really resistant and reluctant at first because I thought that was weird, but I guess now I’m weird,” she told The Informer. “What helped me was relating plants to our humanity. I feel like by the second class I was hooked.” 

Williams shared that one of the most significant things she’s gained by participating in horticultural therapy is a deeper understanding of her grandmother, who was an avid gardener. Through learning how to use the practice as a self-soothing method, she realizes why her grandmother, who raised her, spent so much time taking care of the plants in her yard. 

“It looks pretty, it feels pretty and it makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something,” Williams told The Informer. “Now, I appreciate plants more, and my grandmother more for trying to incorporate that into my life.” 

Anderson-Hall has had an affinity for horticulture since the 1970s, when she participated in the Washington Youth Garden (WYG) program in middle school. At the end of the classroom component of the program, she was given a plant to take home, which catalyzed her love for indoor plants. Later in her adult life, Anderson-Hall became the director of the WYG for five years, which further fueled her passion for plant therapy and education. 

“Working directly with plant and nature-based experiences, for me, what I’ve seen is that it automatically centers people and provides a safe place for folks– a place of non-judgment,” she told The Informer. “I think oftentimes nature in itself can be minimized… and people don’t make intentional connections with it or understand the benefits that derive from our relationship with it.” 

Horticulture has been one of Jefferson’s passions since her childhood. The PBR founding board member recalled that growing up in D.C., there weren’t many plants, but many of the elders around her would keep up with their gardens, taking care of roses and zinnias, which sparked her interest in gardening and plant care. 

Jefferson would watch horticultural television programs like “The Victory Garden,” which further blossomed her passion. Through her growing interest, she found many community gardens in the city that helped people understand the intersection between flowers, people, joy and health. 

“Many of us, whenever we have any kind of ailments, aches, pains or concerns, we usually look at it from a bottle in a pharmaceutical sense, [but] if we look at our grandmothers and ancestors, many of the answers were grown right in the yard,” she said to The Informer. “So for me, it’s just about that connection where health is something that you don’t necessarily have to buy. You can just grow it.”  

Having witnessed PBR from the very beginning, Jefferson hopes that the organization continues to be successful in helping the community and bringing Anderson-Hall’s dreams to fruition. 

“I look forward to another couple of years… where we can all come together and say, ‘You remember the Bloom Mobile? Well, now we have a fleet,’” she told The Informer. “I’m excited to see where this is going to continue to grow.”

This post appeared first on The Washington Informer, then on Word In Black.