At a time when people are struggling with their health and wellbeing against the UK’s long health and social care waiting lists and the rising cost of living, let’s publicise the benefits of therapeutic gardening. Hundreds of free articles are available from Thrive, a leading gardening for health charity.
With approximately 27 million active gardeners in the UK, gardening is one of the most popular nature-based activities.
Home gardens, patios, windowsills and balconies, local community gardens, allotments and therapeutic gardening sessions are supporting people through green care.
Affordable, communal and healthy for us, gardening supports people physically, mentally and socially. In a Thrive website survey, one respondent said: “I'm currently suffering from severe mental health and off sick … after reading an article I took up gardening to help my condition. Gardening has changed my life.”
As a result of attending therapeutic gardening programmes at Thrive, a leading gardening for health charity, 100% client gardeners were happier, 99% socialised more with others and 98% improved their physical health.
More generally, 77% of gardeners report positive impacts on their mental health, 76% on their physical health and 44% on their social wellbeing.
Providing preventative, holistic, person-centred care, the benefits of gardening include reductions in depression, anxiety, stress and loneliness, and improvements in quality of life, wellbeing, life satisfaction, cognition, social cohesion and physical activity.
Therapeutic gardening is especially beneficial to people with ill-health, disabilities and disadvantage, but there are additional barriers for these groups of people which make gardening more challenging, especially without tailored support and guidance.
Get Gardening articles are available from Thrive. There are hundreds to choose from sharing activities, advice and inspiration to help people make the most of the health opportunities gardening offers.
The free online information condenses 45+ years of therapeutic gardening experience and research into practical information. Full of useful advice to make gardening accessible and enjoyable to everyone, the topics include:
To help share the life-changing benefits of gardening, the media are invited to tap into this incredible resource so that more people can use gardening and nature to support their health and wellbeing.
Here’s some angles that you could write about:
The information in Thrive’s Get Gardening articles can be published, at request, for free. Thrive’s experienced specialists are also available for comment.
Explore Get Gardening at www.thrive.org.uk/getgardening
