Answering an employment ad for a master gardener at Shepherd Center in Atlanta led Debi Cziok, RN, BSN, to the best job she's ever had - one that uses her nursing skills as well as her love of gardening. Summing up her job as a horticulture specialist in Shepherd's therapeutic recreation department, Cziok said, "Healing, people and plants - it doesn't get any better than that."

"The secret is that horticulture is therapy that doesn't feel like it," said Cziok, who recently completed the requirements to become a registered horticultural therapist.

When spinal cord and brain-injury patients sit at her workbench, they're enjoying the fresh air or the colorful blooms and scents of the greenhouse. Concentrating on planting, they're briefly distracted from their own conditions.

As a nurse and therapist, Cziok knows that they're working fine and large motor skills; improving their circulation; balance and strength; increasing their selfesteem; and feeling more peaceful. When they're working in groups, they're also
making friends and helping each other.

"For a spinal-cord or brain-injured patient to transplant a plant is a huge accomplishment," she said. "It can get their minds going in a new and different direction, be the start of a new activity and open up new doors," Cziok said.

Through raised and in-ground beds, vertical gardens, planters and adaptive tools, Cziok guides individuals and groups into gardening and horticultural crafts.

"Some people learn to get in and out of their wheelchairs to work in the dirt, while others learn to use pulleys, poles and extender tools that bring the pot to them," she said.

Cziok also teaches patients to use hand-controlled riding lawn mowers with seat belts. Two or three times a month, she and her clients leave the Shepherd Center to visit the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the DeKalb Farmers Market and nurseries.

The goal is not only to learn more about plants but also to become reintegrated into the community.All horticultural activities are attuned to rehabilitative goals.

"When it's quiet and a patient is busy doing her task, I might ask her how she got hurt or about her past life, and she'll just open up," Cziok said. "I love having that one-on-one nurturing with my clients. As a nurse, there wasn't always time for that, but my nursing background is the foundation that allows me to help clients deal with their physical issues of bladder control, feeding, using adaptive equipment and relearning the skills of daily living."

‘Uplifting place’
Cziok is inspired by the people she helps.

"People ask me if working at a catastrophic hospital is depressing," she said. "On the contrary, it's the most uplifting
place I've ever worked, and I learn something from every single patient I meet."

With the motto that "plants need people and people need plants," Cziok is willing to adjust her beds, paths, tools and activities for anyone interested in learning to garden. Because adaptive equipment can be expensive, she shows
people how to make do with what can be bought cheaply. She's even made home visits to help clients with their gardening challenges.

Cziok learned to garden in Alaska, where the growing season is short but intense, and took a master gardening course to learn what would grow in the South when she moved to Atlanta.

"Gardening is nonthreatening therapy. It's healing because you're creating life," she said.

It was what gave her pleasure and peace of mind while battling breast cancer in 1986 and colon cancer five years ago.

"Gardening was my therapy in a dark time," Cziok said. "I know it works, because it did for me."