Gardening for health: a regular dose of gardening

Emergency Gardening

About a year ago one of the neuro-psychiatric Emergency Hospitals ? added gardening to its other branches of occupational therapy. It has been suggested that my experiences during that year might be of interest to those engaged in, or about to undertake, similar work. As I consider that a number of rather vague general statements without chapter and verse are almost valueless, I have?in this ar...

On Gardening

for most things to develop their full capacity and prove their suitability or lack of it. A lot can go wrong. Trees that cast a large area of shade for smaller subjects or come into conflict with others through overcrowding ought to have been given more room or perhaps put to the east side when they should have been put to the west to protect others from the prevailing wind. But if one assumes ...

Gardening—The Great Test of Health

Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis

There is increasing evidence that gardening provides substantial human health benefits. However, no formal statistical assessment has been conducted to test this assertion. Here, we present the results of a meta-analysis of research examining the effects of gardening, including horticultural therapy, on health. We performed a literature search to collect studies that compared health outcomes in...

Gardening for Insects - or not!

The most obvious feature of a butterfly garden are nectar-bearing flowering plants. Plants commonly visited by butterflies are those which provide sugary nectar used by many species as an energy source. Types of flowers vary greatly in this regard and many commonly used bedding plants such as geraniums and petunias are rarely visited by butterflies, although the latter may be visited at dusk by...