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Under the Glass: News From the Greenhouse

A common goal in therapeutic horticulture programs is to help clients find meaning and purpose. Your life purpose consists of the primary motivating aims of your life—the reasons you get up in the morning. Purpose is unique to each person and can guide your decisions and behaviors, provide direction, influence…

From the Director’s Desk: Thoughts of a Weed Puller

Fig. 1 As 2024 draws to a close it is a good time to look back at several happenings that took place in the garden this year. Once again, our fall plant sale was a great success. Both our gross and net income exceeded the results of the 2023 fall…

From the Director’s Desk: Thoughts of a Weed Puller

I suspect that most of the readers of this fall newsletter are as tired of the hot and humid weather as those of us who maintain the Wilmot Botanical Gardens. The excessive rainfall in August and now continuing into September has presented a major challenge to accomplish even the most…

Under the Glass: News from the Greenhouse

By the time you read this we will have just started our therapeutic horticulture programming for the fall. This semester we will be working with three groups of UF students with stress, anxiety, loneliness, and/or depression, individuals with Parkinson’s and their care partners, young adults with developmental disabilities, patients from…

2024 Fall Plant Sale PRE-ORDER KICKOFF!!! LAST CALL!!!

Wilmot Botanical Gardens is pleased to announce the release of the 2024 Fall Plant Sale pre-order! We are offering a nice variety of azaleas, native rhododendrons, grasses, shrubs, trees and camellias for pre-order. We look forward to receiving your order soon! We will accept pre-orders NOW, August 30th, through October…

From the Director’s Desk: Thoughts of a Weed Puller

Mrs. Wilmot & Roy James Jr. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Wilmot Botanical Gardens (1954-2024) and it is also the 10th anniversary of the opening of our greenhouse. Figure 1 was taken of Mrs. Wilmot and her son, Roy James, Jr., both of whom are standing beside…

Human Health & Plants Research: Contact with the Soil Microbiome during Gardening Alters the Skin Microbiota and Influences IL-10 Cytokine Levels

Forest bathing and gardening are suspected of facilitating exposure to environmental volatile organic compounds of biogenic origin and/or the soil microbiome, which may potentially contribute to the therapeutic health benefits of such activities.  However, available empirical evidence relating to the underlying putative therapeutic agents’ identity and mode of action is…

Under the Glass: News from the Greenhouse

Thanks to a grant we received from the LoveIVLawrence Foundation in 2020 and again in 2021, we were able to launch a therapeutic horticulture program specifically for students at the University of Florida who struggle with stress, anxiety, depression, and loneliness. I described this program in a previous…