This study strives to better understand the healing associated with people-plant interactions. This research focuses on a garden project in California specifically designed to aid homeless populations. This garden project begins to address the serious need to provide people with the opportunity to end their cycles of homelessness. In this way, the garden projects become community greening tools which empower individuals and build stronger communities. The main research question investigates the extent to which individuals may experience empowerment as a result of working in a garden environment.
Empowerment is defined as the means to enable and the ability to make possible a change.
Analysis of the interviews reveals a pattern indicating a relationship between the garden environment and the improvement among workers physically, emotionally, socially, and economically. Additionally, the garden projects provide the opportunity for community greening. This term refers to garden projects as community development tools not only providing, but also receiving information, services, and resources to build viable organizations and stronger communities. Phytotherapy is a therapeutic modality largely forgotten in the U.S., but one that plays an important part in primary health care and preventative medicine in Europe. The World Health Organization actively promotes Phytotherapy and WHO declarations concerning Tradition Medicine are relevant to U.S. health care reform.