Can Gardening Help Troubled Minds?

With the weather warming up across the country, many people and communities are starting to prepare their gardens for the spring and summer planting season.  For many gardening is seen as a hobby which allows them to reconnect with nature (or as much as possible if they are tending to a 8x10 raised plot).  Today, however, some gardens are starting to pop up in the most unlikely places like schools, abandoned inner city blocks and even in prisons. 



My garden in DC

 Apparently many of these unlikely gardens are not only a source of fresh and local food, they also serve as locations for horticultural therapy to take place.  Although the use of gardening as an extension of therapy started back in the time of Aristotle, the idea did not really take off until the 18th century; today, some doctors, psychologists and occupational therapists are using gardening as a way to help treat PTSD, depression and anxiety.

So bottom line, does it work?  The jury is still out on this one.  Studies have shown that gardening does reduce stress and can calm a person's nerves.  Scientists have been able to witness decreases in cortisol, a hormone which plays a role in the stress response, in patients.  But some of the early research has been complicated because of variables that researchers cannot control for. 

There has been some positive influence among children, especially those with troubled backgrounds. 

An eggplant from the garden

"They can see the parallel of the garden and relate it to their own lives," he says. "It provides ways to engage in conversation and life lessons." The kids, who meet with counselors and therapists regularly throughout the process, are learning to prepare for the moment but also to plan for the future, he says. Doing both at the same time requires maturity, and wisdom and that's something the garden brings out, he says.

The kids take the extra passion fruit, kale, onions, carrots, beets, bananas, and pineapples to the local farmer's market to sell. The profit is donated to a local charity. "The garden allows them to recognize that it's not something that's just going to benefit themselves," he says. "It teaches that in an experiential way."

Click here to check out the full NPR article.