Planting something special

BEING THERE:For the men who tend to a Wicklow allotment, gardening is not just about life and growth - it is also an enterprising way for each of them to deal with cancer

COME September, the pumpkins will be fully grown; their orange curves peeping cheekily above ground in time for Halloween. Already, plump courgettes can be seen nestling under edible yellow flowers. More lettuce has been planted. The potatoes are pushing up nicely and the men who tend the allotment at this tranquil garden in Bray, Co Wicklow, will soon be saying a unanimous "Yes" to a fully ripened row of white Lisbon scallions.

Since April, this group of around 10 men have toiled over and tended to the allotment at Festina Lente, home to a variety of community services. Starting as strangers, they have since bonded over hanging baskets, beetroot and, most of all, their shared circumstances - they are all living with various forms of cancer.

The Allotment Project offered them an alternative to the traditional group therapy of sitting in a room and talking about their problems. "It seems to work for women," says one of the men. "But as a man I knew I needed something else."

OVER BREAD AND JAM in the Swiss-style wooden chalet where the men begin their weekly visit to the garden, Brendan O'Leary, of Bray Cancer Support, explains why the project was needed. "We have always found that getting men to access services is difficult. Women are good at coming forward and getting what they need, for men it seems to be harder," he says.

"We were looking for something that wouldn't just be sitting in a room talking. We wanted it to have a physical element and to be something that would also provide a sense of achievement."

Finding such an innovative approach to men's group therapy was to prove as organic as the green beans and early potatoes bursting out of the allotment.

Paul D'Alton, clinical psychologist at the oncology department of St Vincent's hospital in Dublin, had just begun a fortnightly session with clients of Bray Cancer Support and brought the "gardening as therapy" idea to them.

In his last job he had worked with recovering drug addicts and found that getting them to help out in the garden was a useful therapeutic tool.

"It was just a case of bringing the same model to a different population and when we found Festina Lente - the staff here have been wonderful - it all fell into place," he says.

"It's about recognising the psychological and emotional impact of a diagnosis of cancer and tending to both body and mind. Unfortunately, the emotional aspect of cancer is often left outside the hospital door."

Each Thursday morning garden session at the Allotment Project begins with a mindfulness session led by D'Alton. "I work this way with patients in the hospital. It's about grounding the men before we go out to the garden," he says. "Alongside all the work in the allotment, other work happens too at a very natural pace. That's what draws people here."

Over tea, the men catch up with talk about holidays and family events and, of course, about gardening. Tony Poutch, a sailor all his life, has surprised himself with his enthusiasm for the garden and for learning about "propagation - I never knew the meaning of the word before." He always listens to the shipping forecast. "Being a sailor, I always will," he says. "Last week the forecast was for a gale and when I felt the wind freshen. I gathered all my hanging baskets and plants from the back and brought them in the kitchen. I didn't want them to get ruined." It was only when he looked around the kitchen that he realised how his hobby had escalated. "There were so many," he marvels.

IT HAS BEEN A time of growth, inch by inch, row by row, for everyone involved. "I know it sounds corny," says Tony, "but you watch the garden grow and you see the men grow, too. I see chaps here battling with depression and the others would catch on to that and yes, everything in the garden is blossoming, but one or two of the lads are blossoming too."

In his case, he has been learning that the macho exterior developed over years at sea could do with some softening. "When I came here first, I thought 'this isn't for me, it's for people with real cancer'," he says, explaining how he minimised his own condition. "I mean you have to understand, I once had malaria at sea and I was given a couple of painkillers and put on light duties, so that's the way it was. You just got on with it," he remembers.

"The other day, I told my wife I felt tired, which wouldn't be like me to say. But over the weeks working on the garden, I seem to have got rid of that idea that I need to stay strong all the time. I realise that's a load of baloney."

For others, the garden offers a replacement for those activities they had to give up because of their illness. Jim Coen first became aware he was sick while hill-walking last September. It took until March of this year for doctors to diagnose his pancreatic cancer and tell him he only had a few months to live.

He stays positive by reading books about people who were given a similar diagnosis and yet managed to confound the experts. The garden is part of this positive approach. He says that people with cancer still have needs, that their lives don't go into "suspended animation" just because they are ill.

"I enjoy social interaction and I have a love of nature. I got those two things from hill-walking which I obviously can't do anymore," he says. "But the garden gives me both of those things."

RATHER THAN AVAIILING of mainstream medicine, he has chosen to go down the alternative route and is on a full-time regime of self-care, which includes a strict diet, herbal remedies and "energy work". The garden is part of this regime and he says he is grateful to be pain-free at the moment.

"I read that people who are part of a support group have a much better chance of recovery, so I felt this would be really positive for me, and it has been," he says. "Some days I would barely have the energy to lift a trowel, but I still get a lot out of it." Depending on their energy levels, some members of the group will just sit on a bench and watch.

One of Jim's fellow gardeners, Patrick Boylan, says that even before he got sick he'd always fancied working on an allotment, but that his time here is not primarily about gardening. "It's therapy," he says. "Just being out in the fresh air and chatting to the other men, just having a bit of banter."

Patrick has a rare form of cancer that originated in his appendix. He is told it is incurable - medical experts say he might only have five years left to live - but he doesn't tend to look at life in terms of years or months ebbing away. Anyway, he has met people who have been given six months and that, he says, was 18 years ago.

"It's hard to describe what happens when you have cancer," he says. "It stops you in your tracks. You think more about what you are doing and why you are doing it. You focus in on each day. You make the most of everything, all those times when you are feeling well, you make the most of those moments." Patrick enjoys the physicality of it, of all that weeding, digging and planting pots. "I like getting my hands dirty," he smiles.

For archaeologist Simon Dick too, the gardening is secondary to the camaraderie and sense of solidarity he enjoys with the men. He was diagnosed with lung cancer last December. "It was very dramatic. I stopped working. My life changed completely overnight and going to Bray Cancer Support did a lot to alleviate the trauma of that," he says. "That's where I first heard about the allotment. It's just good to get out of the house and get involved in something. I am not wildly interested in the gardening, to be honest."

For Dick, just going into a different space, with people who know what he is going through, is the most worthwhile aspect. "I have experienced depression from the continual mundanity of living with cancer," he says. "It's the same thing every day and it helps that there is a place I can go that is different and has a bit of peace about it. I would see it as an important part of my life. It's all I have, really, at the moment. I have just come out of chemotherapy. I am more tired than I have ever been in my life and to have that thing where you can talk about all of these issues to people who understand takes a lot of the pain away."

Talking to the men, it seems as though working on common tasks, whether digging or weeding, potting or planting, has a unifying effect on the group. This allows thoughts and feelings about their individual situations to emerge more naturally than if they were just sitting in a room together.

PAUL D'ALTON says that while the project is at the pilot stage, he hopes to see it expanded. The HSE has already allocated funding for a researcher who attends all the gardening sessions and has interviewed the men to ascertain their levels of "anxiety, depression and hopelessness". These levels will be recorded at three separate points to assess the impact of the project. But just talking to the men over a sunny Thursday morning, the positive impact is profoundly apparent.

Festina Lente means "hasten slowly". And this is exactly how the men work in the garden. Slowly but with purpose. Inch by inch. Row by row.

This morning, lines of "fly away" carrots are thinned, but the elegantly narrow, sweet-tasting, not-quite-ready-yet vegetables are not wasted. They are taken home for a soup. The nearly ready spring onions, reedy and thin and tasting the way scallions used to taste, can be chopped up for a salad.

The strawberry plants are struggling with the weather but still bear sweet fruit. And then there's the spinach. Just pull off bunches of leaves and take them home for your dinner. The plants will keep on growing, says the Festina Lente horticulturist who is always on hand to help the men with any gardening queries.

Break it off and the stuff will keep growing. That's why they call it perpetual spinach. It is, say the men, a heartening thought.