Maude’s Garden wins a national award!

September 02, 2025

Community Stories, Nature, Programs

By Genevieve Wanucha

Maude’s Garden at the Memory Hub has been awarded the 2025 Therapeutic Garden Design Award from the American Horticultural Therapy Association, three and a half years since opening. A project of the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center, this welcoming green space promotes sensory exploration, social connection, and emotional well-being for people living with memory loss or dementia.

“We’re so proud of the growing recognition Maude’s Garden is receiving, as a vital resource for people with dementia and their caregivers here at the Memory Hub and the broader community,” said Marigrace Becker, director of the Memory Hub.

Enclosed by lush greenery of arborvitae trees, Maude’s Garden features a circular ADA-accessible path, seating, a raised garden bed, a water feature, and a sheltered gathering area with an activity table. A distinctive stone hardscape supports seasonal plantings and artworks. Birdsong, herbal fragrances, botanical textures, and signage encourage gentle sensory engagement and reminiscence.

The windows of one large activity room inside the Memory Hub look out into the garden, allowing program participants to view and take inspiration from nature while engaged in creative or social activity. "It's really something special," said a participant in the Elderwise Adult Day program, which runs Monday through Thursday at the Memory Hub. "It inspires us."

Maude's Garden is a type of therapeutic garden called a “memory garden” because it offers gardening opportunities and programming for people living with dementia and their caregivers, often led by trained professionals known as horticultural therapists. Maude’s Garden now hosts therapeutic horticulture programs, garden care work parties, and workshops. The garden has also become a way to infuse nature into much of what the Memory Hub offers, such as arts and music programs and social events, held in collaboration with our community partners. It offers a safe and engaging outdoor space where visitors and program participants can spend time together.

Maude's Garden. Courtesy: UW Medicine

Research on horticultural therapy programs show that horticultural activities can provide benefits to people living with dementia, such as decreases in agitation and increases in positive emotions, social interaction with peers, self esteem, and interest in the future. Working with plant materials can encourage conversation, recall of past life events, and creativity, and taps into intact motor skills.

"Maude’s Garden is one among many gardens that demonstrate excellence in therapeutic design and programming, but what makes it stand out is its stunning model of collaboration in a small and challenging environment in the middle of a busy city," said Laura Rumpf, HTR, who consults on the development, design, and use of Maude’s Garden. Maude’s Garden, intentionally designed for those with memory loss, welcomes partnerships to build a supportive community."

The concept of a memory garden took root in July 2019 when UW’s Genevieve Wanucha brought the idea to her colleagues, horticultural therapists Laura Rumpf and Margaret ‘Peach’ Jack. At the time, they were collaborating on the Garden Discovery Walks, a dementia-friendly program co-offered by the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center (MBWC) and Seattle Parks and Recreation since 2017.

Maude's Garden. Courtesy: UW Medicine

This envisioned garden would be built in the green space at the Memory Hub community center, run by the MBWC. It would serve as a home base for MBWC garden programs for people living with memory loss or dementia. When Memory Hub Director Marigrace Becker joined the plan, the team started the design. They conducted two focus groups and visited the Portland Memory Garden, for background research. After securing funding and hiring Stone Soup Gardens as our contractor, the ambitious project became a reality. Maude’s Garden opened in March 2022.

"It is an honor to be recognized by our peers at the AHTA, whose mission is to promote the field and practice of the therapeutic and rehabilitative therapy, through the engagement of horticultural practices," said Margaret 'Peach' Jack, HTR, who helped design Maude's Garden and develop programming. 

Courtesy: MBWC

Maude's Garden design team. (From left: Genevieve Wanucha, Margaret Peach Jack, Marigrace Becker, Laura Rumpf, Jake Harris of Stone Soup Gardens)

Maude's Garden is part of a history of dementia-friendly gardening in Seattle, which began in the early years of Seattle's grassroots dementia-friendly community movement, called Momentia Seattle. The idea behind Momentia is to empower persons with memory loss and their loved ones to remain connected and active in the community.  In 2013, a small group of community members met at the Southeast Seattle Senior Center to generate ideas for new Momentia events and activities in southeast Seattle. There, individuals living with memory loss offered their ideas about what brought them joy. One suggestion related to “getting one’s hands dirty” in nature.

In 2014, Seattle Parks and Recreation and Elderwise organized a volunteering gardening program at Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands, called Fridays at the Farm. Seattle Parks and Recreation then supported a similar program at Bradner Gardens Park in the Mt. Baker neighborhood, alongside P-Patch gardener Joyce Moty who had helped start the garden in the 1990s. In 2017, the UW MBWC partnered with Seattle Parks and Recreation to offer the Garden Discovery Walk Program, which  took inspiration from the popular Momentia Out & About walking program and ideas of horticultural therapy. Those programs laid down a foundation of community engagement and partnerships that continues to support the programming within Maude's Garden at the Memory Hub.

Maude's Garden. Courtesy: UW Medicine

Maude’s Garden is made possible by community donors and the UW Medicine Advancement team supporting the Department of Neurology. The garden is named after our late community advocate, Maude M. Ferry.

Maude’s Garden is open to the public Monday through Thursday during Memory Hub open hours: 9 am – 4 pm. 

Read more about Maude’s Garden: thememoryhub.org/garden

 

Pictured (from left): Jake Harris (Stone Soup Gardens), Genevieve Wanucha (Maude's Garden Lead, Memory and Brain Wellness Center) Richard Ferry (Richard M. and Maude Ferry Charitable Foundation), Joyce Moty (Bradner Gardens), Margaret Peach Jack, HTR (Maude's Garden Landcape Designer), Debbie Wheeler (Maude's Garden programs volunteer), Marigrace Becker (Director of the Memory Hub), Laura Rumpf, HTR (Maude's Garden Healing Gardens Consultant), Tamara Keefe (Dementia-Friendly Recreation Specialist, Seattle Parks and Recreation), Thomas Grabowski, MD (Director of the Memory and Brain Wellness Center). Not pictured: Dawn Robinson, Horticultural Therapy Practitioner)

Maude's Garden holds a volunteer garden work party every 2nd Monday of the month.

Join us to volunteer in Maude’s Garden at the Memory Hub! No gardening experience necessary; Gardening expertise is always valued. All are welcome, with a special invitation to persons with memory loss and their families. If you need physical or cognitive support in order to participate, please bring a care partner with you. Space is limited to 6 participants. Please register 2 days in advance. You will receive a reminder email and phone call. 

A program of the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center.

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Connect with nature and engage in horticultural therapy activities at Maude's Garden with others living with memory loss and friends and family.

A phone conversation with the Dementia-Friendly Recreation Specialist is required for 1st time participants. Please contact tamara.keefe@seattle.gov to schedule.

A partnership between Seattle Parks and Recreation and UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center. The Garden Discovery Program is made possible by support from Aegis Living Assisted Living and Memory Care communities.

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