Weekly tips and advice to help people enjoy gardening have resulted in improved physical and mental health during Covid-19, a new survey reveals.
The gardening-for-health charity Thrive runs therapeutic horticulture programmes at its Beech Hill centre that attract people from across Berkshire.
At the beginning of lockdown it started a free gardening club so subscribers could maximise the wellbeing benefits of spending time in their own gardens.
Each week 1,500 club members are sent an e-newsletter with tips, hacks and practical guides to make gardening easier, as well as insights into how activities can directly aid physical and mental health.
Six months on and a reader survey revealed that 94% felt it helped improve mental health, 89% felt it improved physical health and 76% felt Gardening Club had helped with providing a sense of community.
One subscriber said: “Gardening has become my ‘Happy Hobby’ and I’m okay with that. Thank you Thrive for holding my hand on days when I have a bit of a wobble.”
The survey results show the power of horticulture to improve lives, says Thrive CEO Kathryn Rossiter.
“We’ve always known that gardening has tremendous potential to help healing and recovery, but it’s heartening to see that so many people have discovered how it can help them keep healthy during this time of heightened stress and anxiety,” she added.
The Thrive team says it can draw on more than 40 years of knowledge and experience of helping people to use gardening to improve their lives.
For more details, log on to: www.thrive.org.uk/gardeningclub
