My advice before spending a lot of money is to consider some of the cheaper ways to make your garden more accessible.
Tips on this page and linked from it with a bit more detail, include: Digging, Growing and Sowing, Low maintenance plants, Help with gardening, Weeding, Watering, Steep slopes and Garden layout. Also, a bit about garden design for physically handicapped, elderly gardeners with limited mobility and wheelchair gardeners.
Doctors tell us and we know anyway that gardening is good for us. Not just for our bodies but also our minds, and spirit. So what happens as we get older or become ill and become unable to do the stuff in our garden we used to do.
We can sit and look at our gardens through the window, switch the television on, think about what might have been. OR Get on with it, get going and make a few simple changes (or some big ones) to enable us to get back out there.
It's the simple changes I'm interested in and going to write about here. The big changes have been covered in my other articles. Age related and other physical and mental disabilities need not stop us doing stuff we enjoy. Change your garden not yourself!
To keep this page as short as possible I have included links to my other articles providing a bit more detail about the things you might be interested in. So you can skip the stuff you are not interested in and click through to the stuff you are interested in.
Making garden beds and borders so they are reachable from both sides to avoid stretching is probably one of the most important (and simplest) things you can do. Digging, planting, weeding and harvesting the fruits of your labour is easier, if you make your beds narrow or accessible from both sides. For large areas of garden, laying paths or even laying slabs or stepping stones to divide the area into reachable size plots can help a lot. Try to lay the slabs level with the surface to avoid creating trip hazards. To work out the correct width for each section kneel or sit on the first slab and reach across without stretching and that's the position for the next slab or stepping stone.
Laying a weed suppressing membrane and planting through slits cut in the material can help keep weeds at bay.
If you have retaining walls, cultivate the area that runs along behind the wall.
Growing from seed saves the hassle of lugging pots and trays of plants around the garden and
It's easier on your body if you can sow direct into the garden
beds where the plants will grow. Especially if your beds are designed as narrow reachable borders or raised beds.
Mixing fine seed with sand makes it easier to sow if your hands are a bit stiff.
When and what to sow tips can be found on other pages of my website.
Low maintenance plants.
Garden on a steep slope.
Most of the gardening tips on this page, together with the use of some specially adapted tools, will help if you are gardening from a wheelchair. The most important design factor will be easy access to your garden and to be able to get around the garden with ease.
A garden designed or adapted for wheelchair access and mobility can look good and a be a blessing.