A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Landscape trials and triumphs Gardening With Disabilities Multiple Sclerosis and Gardening

Hello there!

Long story short, my mom has MS, which is an incurable disease that effects a person's mobility, speech ability, and cognitive thinking. Too much heat and exercise will put her in a walker for a few days, make her extremely forgetful, slurred speech, and be in a continued state of discombobulation. This makes gardening very difficult for her, but she really wants to have a garden. I really don't want her to be held back by her disability. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Hmm, the first thing that gomes to mind is creating some raises beds for her, less up and down that way. also maybe look into container gardening then she can tackle just one container at a time ad it might be easier to not accidently over work herself.

If you check out page two of this exact forum...you will find a lot of links that Merme(another member) has links for you to read from old posts.

One year I grew container tomatoes and cucumbers. I ordered seeds and planted them in flower pots. They did great.

OH ouch, Trost, I have known a few people with MS, it can be so hard. But from what I understand, staying active is ohhh, so much better than being inactive. I agree with the posts so far! Container gardening and raised beds. In my greenhouse I have one bed that is 32" high. My DH thought I was crazy, but I figured if I could never get down on my knees again at least I could grow something! Care and LOVE is all we need in life,

Oh awesome! Thank you for all the suggestions! I think a raised bed is perfect along with some potted plants. I thought some hanging plants-like the upside-down tomato plants-would help a lot, too. I haven't done much research on it yet, though. Since I'm a beginner, I have a huge list of research I'm still working through. Haha.

Good luck with helping your mom garden and keep us posted!

We're going to make a raised bed at the end of the season. Right now, we're only doing vegetable and fruit garden and that's my own project. Haha. She likes working on the house plants for now. Though she does like to trim our bushes so we got a little stool on wheels. She can sit and scoot about without exerting herself.

Thank you again for all the help. =) I can already see my mom's confidence rebuilding.