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1. The good impact of plants in the different forms of the crowd

The relationship between human beings and nature is mutually beneficial. Plants have great functions for individuals, community and human culture.

1.1 Individual

For individual, plants promote spiritual relief like stress reduction and it leads to a drop in blood pressure, muscle tension because physiology and psychology are interrelated. Besides, from the psychological factor, people can directly do exercise through gardening. In addition, people prefer scenes with nature (Sharon P. Simson & Martha C. Straus, 1998). Just a small window of scenery with natural elements can increase people’s satisfaction for life (Ruth Kjærsti Raanaas, Grete Grindal Patil and Terry Hartig, 2011). And in the surroundings with nature, human beings are more likely to be in good mood and be healthy. Also, they have energy to maintain and improve the community environment.

1.2 Community

Community is a group of people with shared values (Sharon P. Simson & Martha C. Straus, 1998). Nature may be a part of the bond because it would be a topic what people talk about to facilitate communication. Apart from this, plants can clear air, adjust the temperature and reduce pollution to establish a environment suitable for human life, but also suitable for their life. And human beings develop environmentally sustainable. In addition to the substantive reasons, there are also ornamental reasons. As mentioned above, people prefer scenes with nature. Therefore when choosing living environment, the surroundings  with nature, such as the community with a park, is more popular, which is also its economic value. And people are willing to invest in this aspect. It also increases the satisfaction of neighborhood. For a particular age group, children, closing nature can cultivate their curiosity result from the wonders of nature and motivate to have the concept of understanding plants.

Finally, nature also has influence on human culture like arts and philosopher. In art, people would get inspiration from plants while in philosophy including poetry, some use plants as metaphor, which is more vivid and interesting.  

Compared with before, human beings attach more importance to nature instead of only focusing economic development (L. L. Wolfenbarger and P. R. Phifer, 2000).

2. The different effect of plants varied by different appeared forms

There are many ways for plants to appear around people, mainly two types: outdoor plants and indoor plants. The forms determine the sensory impact of plants on humans and it influents psychology.

2.1 Outdoor plants

A good view of nature through the window is beneficial self-reported physical and mental health although the degree of change varied with gender (Ruth Kjærsti Raanaas, Grete Grindal Patil and Terry Hartig, 2011). Outdoor plants are visually oriented instead of interaction. Through visual stimulation, the human mind relaxes and relieves anxiety.

However, the view from the window may make distract because of the interesting characteristic in the nature scenes. If an accounting task or classification, which require much attention are performed, the view from the window would be the distraction factor. While the enjoyment of viewing plants would facilitate inspiration of  creative task like music and art. Because the process of viewing increases positive mood and positive mood leads to the increase in creativity (Ruth Kjærsti Raanaas, Grete Grindal Patil and Terry Hartig, 2011).

2.2 Indoor plants

Apart from visual enjoyment, human beings can interact with indoor plants via watering and caring for them and they also can talk with plants to reduce stress. In the way, they could get satisfaction when they see tangible results like good state of plants they raised.

Especially in the workplace, where there is a lot of pressure and competition, plants influence on the productivity, stress and discomfort symptoms, mood and emotion, job satisfaction and attitudes toward the workplace (Jane Dyrhauge Thomsen, Hans K.H. Sønderstrup-Andersen and Renate Müller, 2011). For productivity, the density of plants impacts the productivity although plants are out of sight for workers. Apart from this, the types of task are important. Plants have good impact on creative task performance but negative effect on routine task performance. Besides, there is a positive correlation between plants and mood and emotion, job satisfaction and attitudes toward the workplace (Jan Hassink and Majken van Dijk, 2006).

3. Maximize the benefits of plants

For different clients' needs, there will be corresponding horticultural activities to meet their needs and to maximize the benefits of plants (Seiji  Shibata and  Naoto Suzuki, 2004). Apart from the intangible functions, some plants like Sesquiterpenoids (Martin Chadwick, Harriet Trewin, Frances Gawthrop and Carol Wagstaff, 2013) are medical ingredients and they are used in medical treatment for humans.

3.1 Horticultural therapy

Horticultural therapy is used in type of health-care and human service fields (Raymond Odeh and Charles L. Guy, 2017). It is the non-pharmacological treatment and organized programs by therapist to clients with professional knowledge about how to use plants, gardening design and so on to cure people psychologically, physically and emotionally (Sharon P. Simson & Martha C. Straus, 1998).

3.1 Divide groups and determine leadership style

At first, it is necessary to form various groups according to different characteristics of individuals and it is beneficial to manage for therapists. There are two types of group, activity groups and support groups. Actually group members have two major functions like task functions and social-emotive functions. And then, it is also essential to select an appropriate leadership style from three main styles of leadership, authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire (Haller Rebecca L. and Kramer Christine L. , Horticultural Therapy Methods, 2006). The key is to plan effective program including the most appropriate plants, tasks and activities vary by the needs of the particularly participants and therapists should understand the attitudes, feelings and preferences of participants.

3.2 Challenges and solutions

In the progress of program, therapists will face some challenges, participation level and disruptive behaviors (Haller Rebecca L. and Kramer Christine L. , Horticultural Therapy Methods, 2006). For participants level, if the activities are not interesting for clients and they are more likely to absent activities. It is tough to meet each one’s preference and therapists can know about those before planning via questionnaire. For disruptive behaviors like interruption and display of anger, the leaders of group should control the situation with patience and effective methods. Therapist should allocate the clients to perform other physically active gardening tsk to distract the failed feelings of clients from the last activity.

Apart from professional knowledge, therapist can also use their own experiences to share with clients and help them to establish self-confidence (Haller Rebecca L. and Kramer Christine L. , Horticultural Therapy Methods, 2006). The major task of therapist is to establish the bridge connected the clients and plants and the goal is not that therapists heal the clients but the clients know how to use horticulture to heal themselves. In this process, efficient communication is very important and therapists had better to know how to use plants as a metaphor for life to encourage participants. The participants can get satisfaction from physical rewards like new blossoms or fruits of the plants and they can get satisfaction and a sense of control over the environment to make up for their physical defects. In fact, safety precautions are also important, especially for those who are relatively young or have serious physical disabilities and they need assistance during the activity.

Finally, according to the feedback from the clients to make adaptation and modification during the activities or after the activities. After the therapist completes the above steps, they should identify problems in practice, then work on improving the program.

References:

1. Sharon P. Simson & Martha C. Straus(1998), HORTICULTURE AS THERAPY, “People-Plant Relationship”, Chapter 2, Pages 21-38

2. Ruth Kjærsti Raanaas, Grete Grindal Patil and Terry Hartig(Aug 19, 2011), Health benefits of a view of nature through the window: a quasi- experimental study of patients in a residential rehabilitation center, SAGE journals, 26 issue: 1, page(s): 21-32

3. Seiji  Shibata and  Naoto Suzuki(Nov 04, 2004), Effects of an indoor plant on creative task performance and mood, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 45, page(s): 373-381

4. Jan Hassink and Majken van Dijk(2006), Farming for Health, “PEOPLE–PLANT INTERACTION”, Chapter 4, Pages 43-55

5. Jane Dyrhauge Thomsen, Hans K.H. Sønderstrup-Andersen and Renate Müller(2011), HORT SCIENCE, People–plant Relationships in an Office Workplace: Perceived Benefits for the Workplace and Employees, 46(5):744–752

6. Raymond Odeh and Charles L. Guy(Feb 11, 2017), Open Agriculture, Gardening for Therapeutic People-Plant Interactions during Long-Duration Space Missions, issue1, volume2: 1-13

7. Haller Rebecca L. and Kramer Christine L. , Horticultural Therapy Methods(Nov 10, 2006), Working with program participants,Techniques for therapists, trainers, and program facilitators, chapter 4, page 59-85.

8. Martin Chadwick, Harriet Trewin, Frances Gawthrop and Carol Wagstaff(Jun 19, 2013), International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Sesquiterpenoids Lactones: Benefits to Plants and People, Basel Vol. 14, Iss. 6,  (2013): 12780-12805.

9. L. L. Wolfenbarger and P. R. Phifer(Dec 15, 2000), The Ecological Risks and Benefits of Genetically Engineered Plants, Science; Washington Vol. 290, Iss. 5499, 2088-93.

10. Ruth K.Raanaas, Katinka Horgen Evensen, DebraRich, Gunn Sjøstrøm, GretePatil(Mar 2011), Benefits of indoor plants on attention capacity in an office setting, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 31, Issue 1, Pages 99-105