Barrier-Free Blooms

By Sibylle Preuschat

Gardens should be places where one can set aside the day’s worries and relax. But the average public or private garden is frequently not a relaxing place at all for a person with a disability. A visual disability can make it difficult to ascertain where the gardener doesn’t want people walking. And in all the greenery, it’s easy to get disoriented. People who are totally blind may have difficulty orienting themselves when no pathways or familiar landmarks are present. People who use wheelchairs, on the other hand, may find it difficult to navigate grass or uneven surfaces. Neither can they easily get close to flowers that bloom only a foot or so above the ground.

It is thanks to the Garden Club of Toronto that this city is home to an almost 40-year-old project that has set a world-wide standard for the creation of gardens that address such accessibility issues.

That project is the Fragrant Garden, established under the direction of the Garden Club on the grounds of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) in 1956, and extensively renovated in 1985, always in consultation with consumers with visual disabilities.

The garden was first planted with the benefit of CNIB residents in mind. The CNIB’s residential buildings have since been torn down; now the garden is enjoyed by the many people who come to the CNIB to work, use the facilities or receive skills training. In addition, the CNIB sends hundreds of invitations to the garden to retirement homes and nursing homes every spring. The garden is open to the public as well.

I took a tour of the one-acre garden with Anne Hurlbut, Chairman of the Fragrant Garden Committee of the Garden Club of Toronto, and Peter Hoogeveen, the Fragrant Garden’s gardener, in June. As they showed me around, I found myself increasingly impressed by the way each element of the garden addresses the needs of persons with disabilities. Even my untrained eye could see that the yellow-edged asphalt walkway, encompassing the whole garden in the shape of a rounded square, would be easy to use if one had a visual or mobility disability. But I didn’t notice the walkway’s raised curb -- a feature that makes it easy for people who use white canes to find their way. Accessibility is built into the walkway’s distance as well. Seven times around makes a mile -- a fact that helps garden users who are serious about exercise keep tabs on their achievements.

We stepped off the asphalt several times: first onto a gravel side-path leading through a bushy area of the garden, then onto another gravel path leading to a glorious rose garden, and finally onto a flagstone side-path winding through some evergreens. Each time, I thought, "How picturesque." Accustomed as I am to using my vision, I wouldn’t have realized, without Hoogeveen’s stopping to explain, that the change in texture underfoot signals people who are blind that they have left the main asphalt path, and helps to keep them oriented.

Another feature that enhances the garden’s accessibility is its raised flower beds, planted in giant, hip-high flower boxes. These beds put plants, flowers and bushes within easy reach of the noses and hands of people using wheelchairs, and people who are less flexible due to age or disability. The Fragrant Garden committee has included many plants in these beds that release delightful fragrances when their leaves are gently rubbed. The recessed toe space at the base of these beds, similar to those built into conventional kitchen counters, further increases ease of access to the plants for people who walk.

In the northwest corner of the garden, surrounded by trees, are several groupings of benches on both sides of the asphalt pathway. Again, explained Hoogeveen and Hurlbut, gravel around the benches alerts users that they have stepped off the main path. The benches themselves are arranged in semi-circles that face the path, with each end of the semi-circle at the path. People with visual disabilities who choose to sit here know that when they want to leave, the benches will guide them back to the main walkway.

Nearer the southeast side of the garden, hedges planted in a similar scalloped pattern a little way off the walkway aid orientation on the lawn and provide private nooks for visitors who want to pull up a couple of the garden chairs and have a chat.

Taken together, all these design features ensure that no visitors to the Fragrant Garden will be prevented from full enjoyment of the garden’s flowers, bushes and trees. And these, too, explained my guides, have been especially chosen for their accessibility to people with visual disabilities. Said Hurlbut, "When you have limited vision, bright yellow is the colour you can see better than all others." That’s why the Fragrant Garden Committee tried Bellona tulips this spring -- a variety with very showy, bright yellow, fragrant blossoms.

Bidens, another lovely yellow five-petalled flower, was in bloom during my visit. Brightly coloured impatiens are also planted because they can be seen by people with low vision. In addition to the care taken to choose brightly coloured flowers, explained Hurlbut, all plants in the garden are carefully researched by the Fragrant Garden Committee and chosen for "fragrance, sound or touch" -- that is, these plants offer more than beautiful colours and forms. They have qualities that can be deeply enjoyed by people who cannot see them.

The Fragrant Garden Committee has also taken pains to ensure that the garden is a delight throughout the entire growing season. Asserted Hoogeveen, "There’s always something happening. If you’re going to come here only once a year, you should vary the time by three weeks."

All this care and attention to detail results in a garden that offers constantly shifting panoramas of interesting textures to feel, lovely fragrances to smell and sensuous sounds to listen to. During my mid-afternoon June visit, I could smell roses throughout much of the garden; to really smell the nicotine flowers, on the other hand, I would have had to wait until evening. In early spring, fragrant hyacinths fill the beds; the first touch of autumn frost brings sweet alyssum’s fragrance to its highest level of intensity.

Hoogeveen explained that "Austrian pines and white pines were picked for the soft whirring sound they make when the wind blows through them." During my visit, just knowing that the garden is meant to be heard, as well as seen and smelled, heightened my awareness of the different sounds made by many of the bushes and trees as the breeze blew through their leaves.

Since being conceived by Elsinore Burns of the Toronto Gardening Club in the 1950s, the CNIB Fragrant Garden has become something of a model for such gardens worldwide. In the garden’s early years, detailed plans and plant lists were sent by request to groups in Australia, South Africa, Chile, Brazil and many cities in the United States and Canada. Information continues to be distributed in North America, and an information request recently came in from New Zealand. Hurlbut pointed out that as North America’s population ages, many of the accessibility features built into the Fragrant Garden will become more important to garden designers in general.

My experience in the Fragrant Garden gave me a new appreciation for the subtleties involved in designing an accessible space, showed me how seamlessly accessibility can be integrated into a garden design if careful planning is undertaken, and encouraged me to use all my senses to explore and enjoy the world.

The Fragrant Garden, 1929 Bayview Ave. (north of Eglinton), is open May to October, Monday to Friday, 10 a.m.to 3 p.m. Admission and parking are free. The garden is wheelchair accessible and rest rooms are nearby. The adjacent cafeteria is open from 10 a.m.to 3 p.m. The CNIB requests that groups of 20 or more call in advance to arrange a visit.

(Sibylle Preuschat is a Toronto freelance writer and editor.)