Planting by Headlamp
Author: Annabelle Denham | Major: Horticulture | Semester: Fall 2024
Annabelle Denham is an honors college student in the Dale Bumpers College of Agriculture, Food, and Life Sciences. She is pursuing a major in Horticulture, a minor in Entomology, and a minor in Outdoor Leadership.
During the summer and fall semesters of 2024, I completed designing and constructing my disability-inclusive and accessible sensory garden. This thesis aims to find ways to make horticulture therapy more accessible to individuals with physical or mental disabilities. My specific goal was to design and build such a garden at Camp Barnabas. Camp Barnabas is a non-profit summer camp in Purdy, Missouri, that focuses on creating an accessible summer camp experience for people with special needs. In collaboration with my mentor, Dr. Garry McDonald, and Barnabas directors, Morgan and Matthew McDavid, I completed my designs and was approved to start construction.
Once my plans were completed, my next task was to collect all my materials. ˇIn order to have accessible pathways, I needed my garden to be set on a concrete pad. Finding a concrete finisher that could travel to a remote part of Missouri was difficult. Once I had found my contractor, I had to wait patiently for him and his team to complete the concrete component of the garden. Due to bad weather, I experienced a lot of delays. Because of my internship and other obligations, I had one weekend to install the entire garden. I had lots of family and friends who helped in my work. That weekend, I spent around forty hours, in the span of three days, completing the installation. This included setting up and testing the self-watering, accessible raised beds I had designed, tilling and planting the garden’s perimeter with Ozark native plants, installing drip lines and establishing plants, and creating a solar-powered fountain system. I then installed benches, wind chimes, and bird feeders and planted the raised beds. Over the course of the next several weeks, I made frequent visits to the garden to troubleshoot and maintain. This included fixing the solar cell for the fountain, pruning plants, weeding, adding mulch around the landscaped perimeter, refilling the water tanks in the raised beds, and monitoring the garden’s growth. I also was sure to gather feedback from its visitors. Throughout the process, I occasionally met with my mentor for guidance. Dr. Garry McDonald has incredible knowledge of landscape practices and the landscape industry, and I greatly appreciate his input. This work included constant travel to and from Purdy, MO, to shuttle materials. Thankfully, I was occasionally able to spend the night at Camp Barnabas. This was incredibly helpful as I worked late into the night with a headlamp, and the commute back to Fayetteville was roughly two hours. As I wrap up my project, my next and final steps will be to gather all of the photos and feedback I have on my garden, complete the final sections of my paper, and revise and prepare to present next semester.