From houseplants to raised beds, to plant a seed, tend the soil, and watch a plant grow is one of the most inspiringly hopeful of activities. In hopefulness is found a kind of healing. According to the American Horticultural Therapy Association, horticulture therapy is defined as "a process utilizing plants and horticultural activities to improve social, educational, psychological and physical adjustment of persons thus improving their body, mind, and spirit." The American Cancer Society offers a list of some of horticulture therapy benefits one can expect from gardening that include:

• Feelings of hope.
• Stress reduction.
• Social interaction.
• Pain relief.
• Improved muscle tone, flexibility, and cardiopulmonary capability.
• Creativity and self-expression.
• Enhanced self-esteem and improved mood.
• Motor skill development.
  

As the New Year arrives, so do the gardening catalogs in the mail. Interested in receiving gardening catalogs but not certain where to start? Cyndi's Catalog of Garden Catalogs lists over 2,000 mail-order gardening catalogs for the home gardener.

Two of my favorite gardening websites and online catalogs are found at Seeds of Change and Seed Savers Exchange.

At Seeds of Change, you can find garden seeds, seed collections, cover crops, seedlings, fruit trees, garden tools, kitchen items, and a bookstore. All organic. In addition, Seeds of Change publishes a newsletter.

Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit organization that saves and shares heirloom seeds. According to Seed Savers Exchange, "Our organization is saving the world's diverse, but endangered, garden heritage for future generations by building a network of people committed to collecting, conserving and sharing heirloom seeds and plants, while educating people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity."

But, wherever you start, once you catch the gardening bug, you will understand why horticulture therapy is becoming an integrated part in healing programs adopted at some of the medical centers across the country.

I love trees. They are mighty and mysterious. It's no wonder that we humans have found out that they contain a cancer-killing agent in their bark extract. The pacific yew tree, found in the Pacific Northwest coastal region of the United States, was found to have bark extract that tested positive for cytotoxicity (substance poisonous to cells). This discovery in the early sixties has led us to what we know today as Taxol and Taxotere.

Taxol comes from the pacific yew tree (Taxus brevifolia) and Taxotere comes from the European pacific yew tree (Taxus baccata). These drugs treat a variety of different cancers including breast, ovarian and lung cancers.

The pacific yew tree was considered worthless as lumber. Botanist Arthur S. Barclay, PHD, sent a specimen of bark to chemist Monroe Elliot Wall, PHD. The testing of the bark extract led to a drug that interferes with the development of cell duplication. This was a different way to attack a cancer cell. Some other chemotherapy treatments work to interfere with a cancer cell's DNA.

The Taxenes gave us a new angle to combat the fast growing cancer cells. Of course, most chemotherapy agents do that at a price. These drugs do have side effects since they can't tell the difference between fast growing cancer cells and other fast growing cells in our body.

What other untapped resources are out there in our forest and in nature that could help save lives? We already know of organisms in China, Japan, New Zealand, Africa, Madagascar and the Caribbean Sea that have yielded drugs to treat cancer.

This isn't exactly natural therapy but it feels much more natural when the treatment derives from tree bark.

While Hebrew University of Jerusalem scientists were doing research to increase the size of peaches and nectarines grown on a tree, they discovered a protein with the ability to stop cancer. For example, if you reduce the number of peaches that grow on a peach tree, the fruit that do grow will be bigger in size. Same with the nectarines.

The scientists were researching a protein that inhibits the growth of pollen cells to accomplish the reduction in the number of fruit per tree. When the experiments succeeded, it came to them that the same protein, and the same process, might work in stopping the growth and spread of cancer because the fruit pollen cell works very similar to how a cancer cell works.

According to the university, the scientists used genetic engineering to produce a variant of the protein that shows impressive anti-cancer potential. Not surprisingly, this discovery is said to have caught the attention of the international scientific community and the business community.