When hospitalized patients at Duke Behavioral Health North Durham look out from the common area onto the outdoor terrace, their eyes are met with pops of vibrant color: purple pansies, orange snapdragons, yellow daffodils, and a variety of greenery. It’s a landscape they helped create through a therapeutic gardening program led by psychiatry residents and behavioral health staff, in partnership with staff from Sarah P. Duke Gardens.
The raised garden beds in the center’s two outdoor courtyards laid dormant after the building opened in 2021, until Sylvester H., a behavioral health technician and certified master gardener, began cultivating them — first on his own, and then occasionally with patients.
Before long, Sylvester's passion project evolved into a more structured program that’s become widely embraced and cherished by patients, with the help of several additional partners.
Psychiatry resident Molly Fessler, MD, received funding from the Duke Psychiatry Educational Seed Grant Program to expand the gardening initiative. Recreational therapist Belle D., MS, LRT, CTRS, developed facilitated activities to engage patients in planting, watering, and weeding. Psychiatry resident Christian Goodwin, MD, MPH, attended a Duke Gardens event, where he met Annabel Renwick, PhD, the curator of the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants — a chance encounter that sparked a thriving hospital-garden collaboration.
Read the full story and watch the video on the School of Medicine website.
Photo by Eamon Queeney, Duke University School of Medicine.