A Wheelchair Accessible Garden.....For my Mum

I have two gardens.....One at the cottage which is full of indigeous plants, rocky boulders and an abundance of weeds, and my more formal city (surburban) cottage where I like more order and less upkeep.  This garden at home, I planned just after my mother had a stroke. It was an awful time with 4 months in hospital and months of therapy and eventually having to move her into a nursing home.....Planning the garden was therapeutic for me at that time.  My mum comes for Sunday dinner and we wanted her to be able to enjoy the garden and touch and feel and smell......at her level in her wheelchair........

We were planning for raised beds anyway, so we just adjusted the plans a little....We had all the paving installed on one level......

And had the pathways made wide enough for her wheelchair to pass through.....One of the stone installers  took the time to make sure she could get around the corners......

Picking herbs with Gracie Girl.

The deck and the patio are on level, so she doesn't fall over the edge and we don't have to hoist the chair up to the dining level......

We used tactile plant materials that created layers of interest........

These Giant Flowering Onions are lovely to see and touch.......they are firm and springy....

Soft and Lacey Japanese Maple....

A canopy of Wisteria to draw bumble bees and birds.....

We hide things to suprise her......

Columbine is one of my favourites......and hers.....

A gazing ball to mirror the house.....

My herb garden is used by my neighbors too...I sometimes hear the back gate open and see a neighbor picking herbs for their dinner.....

I give my mum the scissors and she cuts herbs for our dinner......Last sunday I could see her out of my kitchen window moving back and forth on the paths and pinching bits of herbs and smelling them.......When the lettuce is bigger she can pick them herself for our salad.  I love watching her out here truly enjoying every moment of freedom from the nursing home, and the outdoors and being able to forget her limitations.  She appreciates so much being able to potter the garden freely.......something we take for granted..........

This is her favourite spot.  A little semi circle cobblestone patio.  She catches the afternoon sun here and I make her a big frothy Cappuccino.........

Although this garden is perfect for her....it is so pracical too.  The raised beds are eay to maintain......no grass, no pesticides, no fertilizer....noisy mowers.....best of all it when we had Mooch, it kept him from peeing on my chives..........

I am going to hang a bell on this hook so she can ring it if she needs me and I am inside......Last year we heard a muffled sound from outside and ran out to find her on the path with a SNAKE (no nasty ones around here) right beside her ....poor thing.....I would have been screaming.....

She can easily smell and touch the flowers in these pots....