Only in Bucks County: St. Marys Rehabilitation Hospital

As much as my blog started as a way to highlight the new scenery I experienced when I moved to Bucks County, it's evolved into more as I meet more people, continue exploring, and learn even more about the area.

I've highlighted small businesses unique to Bucks County; but today I want to share with you a much larger organization that's doing great things to improve the quality of life locally.

 

Over the past month I was invited to tour the new St. Mary Rehabilitation Hospital in Langhorne to photograph patients as they planted an inaugural therapy garden.

The garden will be cared for and harvested by patients.

The newly constructed garden beds are raised so that they're wheelchair and walker accessible. Patients can practice balance, standing endurance, and other mobility tasks while gardening.

Digging in the dirt and planting have long been therapeutic.

 

Gardening is also a great social interaction. Pictured here are hip and knee replacement

patients Elda and her new friend Sandi Fine. The best news is that they've both been

released to go home days after we met.

Way to go Sandi and Elda!

 

 

Fresh tomato and basil salad could be a choice on the menu as the gardens start to yield produce!

Other herbs and veggies planted were spearmint, chocolate mint,

 cucumbers, peppers, and eggplant. 

 

Nora, who is almost completely recovered from her surgery, volunteered to water the beds

over the long hot weekend. Nora told me that she's been snipping a few mint leaves

 to add into her ice water each morning.

 

 

 

 

In the month since the beds were constructed, filled with soil and planted, the tomato and cucumber plants have really taken over. The gardening upkeep and activities are not only a form of therapy, but they now providing fresh organic produce on a daily basis.

 

 St. Mary Rehab Hospital provides inpatient rehabilitation to people with acute neurologic, medical or orthopedic conditions. Their main number is 267-560-1100 and the address is:

1208 Newtown-Langhorne Rd, Langhorne, PA 19047

 

"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."

~Mohandas K. Gandhi