HORTICULTURAL THERAPY EXERCISES IN DEXTERITY AND A CALMING AFTERNOON IN A GREENHOUSE.(LIFE & LEISURE)

Byline: MICHAEL LOPEZ Staff writer

Among these unfettered emotions the glee, expressed in a sweet smile, the petulance, flung with a shovelful of dirt, and the excitement, snatched in a handful of hair is one constant: the calm of Mary Girard and Arlene Weiss, planting geraniums.

Girard, 36, and Weiss, 61, are a two-person assembly line in the warmth of a greenhouse at Maple Ridge Center, part of the Schenectady Association for Retarded Citizens.

Once a week, people with a wide range of mental retardation and developmental disabilities have the chance to work in the greenhouse, where the seedlings of carnations and bachelor's buttons grow as …