This week's editing project is a book on novel therapies to help couples who aren't getting along. One of them is horticultural therapy, in which couples are assigned to plan, plant, and tend a garden. This is supposed to improve their communication and decision-making skills and make the partners feel like they're on the same team.
As an avid gardener with strong feelings about garden planning and maintenance, I was highly skeptical that this would improve a troubled relationship in any way, shape or form. Maybe the therapy might work if both partners are novice gardeners, but after you have a year or two under your belt, you have definite preferences every step of the way, starting with what seed catalogues to order from and ending with how to lift dahlia bulbs come autumn.
I shared this idea with my gardening friends, and hilarity and disbelief ensued -- even among those with some therapy training.
"Oh, someone would die," stated one, with absolute certainty. "There are sharp implements involved!"
Another assured me that if she and her husband (of 30 years) had to share garden planning, they'd be divorced before ground was broken.
A professional gardener said she relies on her husband to start the rototiller, and then she takes over.
I was left wondering if the author of this book is actually a gardener herself. One wonders what the next "experiential therapy" will be: wallpapering together? Or perhaps setting up a new computer?
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