What is gardening therapy?

it’s more than gardening

Gar­den­ing ther­apy makes use of plants, gar­den­ing and our innate con­nec­tion with nature as the media to improve health and well-being.  It can bring about change in a gardener’s social, emo­tional, cog­ni­tive, phys­i­cal and — in the widest sense — spir­i­tual life.

Gar­den­ing ther­apy is more than sim­ply doing gar­den­ing.  Spe­cific ther­a­peu­tic goals are iden­ti­fied with a gar­dener, such as improv­ing grip fol­low­ing a stroke or decreas­ing anx­i­ety, for exam­ple.  Those goals are then addressed through a range of tar­geted hor­ti­cul­tural tasks that may be adapted and graded in com­plex­ity to suit the gardener’s progress.