The gardens outside the residential homes on Misericordia’s North Side campus are more than just pretty spaces. They are places where residents can grow their own fruits and vegetables, can explore nature through their senses, can do yoga or therapy and more.

Misericordia provides services for children and adults with mild to profound developmental disabilities.

There are 10 gardens throughout the campus, and the majority are outside the residential homes. In addition to flowers, residents grow vegetables such as zucchini, peppers, potatoes and squash.

Sharon Metzger, manager of Greco Gardens at Misericordia, said the gardens are designed to be accessible for the residents and also comfortable for the staff and families to spend time in them.

For example, the gardens have raised beds so the residents don’t have to bend over or get on the ground to weed or water plants.

Doing light activities in the gardens has physical benefits as well. For example, Metzger said, holding a watering bucket can help strengthen their hands.

Shades provide protection for residents who cannot spend a lot of time in the sun and offer respite on hot days.

Each year, Metzger orders more than 600 seeds for vegetables and flowers for the campus. Her staff and residents who work in the Greco Garden greenhouse plant the seeds, and, when they are seedlings, they are distributed around the campus.

The gardens have benefited from donations of trees and perennials from local garden centers over the years. Such donations helped to create a pollinator garden with more than 2,000 plants near the greenhouse.

Creating spaces to attract butterflies and birds is also important. Through the garden program residents raise and release monarch butterflies. 

Families often come on Saturdays and visit or volunteer in the gardens with their loved ones who live at Misericordia.

“That way, they get to see what their loved ones can do,” Metzger said. “A lot of the people who live there have issues with being verbal.”

Metzger also provides activities that the staff can do with the residents.

“We have lesson plans where they come out and they feel things and touch things,” she said. “Especially the elderly. They can’t see as well.”

How residents respond to the gardens varies depending on the resident and their level of comfort. Some residents don’t like being out in the sun or while some like to put their hands in the dirt, for example.

“They like the environment,” Metzger said. “They like to walk around. They like to go to recycling with our staff.”

The recent pandemic boosted the program.

“During COVID, the gardens exploded because people couldn’t go off campus and parents would come in and see their loved ones all over campus in gardens and they didn’t realize that was here,” Metzger said. 

The gardens generated so much interest that Misericordia created a self-guided walking tour for residents and families.

Metzger also holds events in the gardens for residents and their families to build community. 

One of the centers of activity is the Greco Gardens greenhouse, where residents help staff and volunteers to grow house plants and succulents that are sold in the gift shop.

They paint pots for the plants, apply decals to them and then fill them with plants grown in the greenhouse. The decals are copies of artwork created by Misericordia residents in its extensive art program. Residents even make their own paper for plant tags.

The greenhouse is also home to the Amina Grace Program, which has a hydroponics system where nine residents have part-time jobs. They grow lettuce and herbs for residents, the nearby Hearts and Flour Bakery and Cafe and a local food pantry.

The Amina Grace Gardens and Program is supported by the Amina Grace Memorial Fund, created in honor of a local girl who had Down syndrome and who died at age 5.

The fund reached out to Misericordia to create “a program that enriched the residents’ lives and raised awareness of their achievements and successes so that they can be celebrated by all of us.”

“The materialistic and consumerism-based society of present day often puts blinders on most people so they do not see the value and joy that people with differing abilities bring to our lives,” said Maura Cullen, mother of Amina Grace, in an email interview. “We believe the best way to combat that is through a life rooted in nature and its cycles. Gardening is a perfect recipe to remove these biases. That’s why we approached Misericordia with the garden program.”

Residents working in the Amina Grace Garden Program are enjoying the work.

Britton R. said she does a lot in the gardens.

“Actually, the garden is my favorite,” she said. “We do the hydro. We got to water our herbs. What we have been working on is basil and it’s one of my favorites.”

Britton also said another favorite thing is that the workers get paid.

Elena L. looks forward to working in the gardens.

“I like the leaves and stuff and watering in the cans and stuff and plants and stuff,” Laura said. “I like the flowers growing.”

Laura W. enjoys helping people in the greenhouse program.

“I say to Sharon sometimes ‘Do you guys need the plants watered?’ And she goes ‘Yes.’”

Sharon Waltz, Laura’s mother, volunteers at Misericordia, as do many families, and said Laura enjoyed the gardens and greenhouse even before she got a job there.

“She loves working with the plants, but she also loves interacting with the people,” Waltz said. “That’s her big thing. No matter where she is, she invites people into her world.”

Working in the program has given Laura responsibility and purpose, she said.

“I think it’s important because most of her life she has been the one to model up to someone else and now this allows her peers to model up to her,” Waltz said. “Like they say, everyone needs to be needed.”