Garden Club Online

Gardening offers a wide variety of psychological benefits including positive emotional and cognitive results.  This is why gardening is recommended for mental well-being as well as physical health.  With half of the population in the USA living in urban areas, it is easy to relate to losing touch with nature.  A neuroscience study near Stanford University found that a decrease in nature exposure correlates to an increase in mental health instability including higher levels of anxiety, depression, and stress responses (Bratman 2015).  This study showed that an increase in proximity to greenspace, nature views outside windows, and audible nature sounds were associated with superior memory, attention, impulse inhibition, a greater sense of well-being, and provide evidence that nature provides real psychological benefits.  The most fascinating item in this study was their interest in rumination.  Rumination is a circular track of negative thoughts that interfere with focus, sleep and emotions.  Ruminating can show up as dwelling on past events, reliving the past, or overthinking mistakes.  This study had 38 participants split in 2 groups where group A walked for 90 minutes in an outdoor green space, and group B walked for 90 minutes in a busy urban area.  The results indicated that those that participated in the greenspace walk self-reported a decrease in rumination where the urban participants did not.  They reference documented links between rumination and depression and concluded that urbanization may be linked to mental illness.  While this conclusion recommends finding green space in your city, you can also create your own green space in your living environment by creating a garden in your yard, on your back patio, or in a porch pot.  Another study was published in “Psychogeriatrics” where a study on elderly residents in a nursing home in Turkey was conducted.  Residents’ perspectives were recorded after participating in 60-minute gardening activities each week for 3 months.  The participants reported experiencing happiness, enjoyment, relaxation, and a sense of accomplishment (Ugur & Kabakci, 2025).  The residents had been in the nursing home for an overage of 2.5 years, and in 3 months of gardening they shared positive statements about moving their bodies, improved blood circulation, improved mobility, happiness, pleasure, joy, fun, fresh air, engagement, improved mood, confidence, and the list goes on.  With between 1.1 to 1.4 million people newly entering supportive living or nursing homes in 2026, we could consider the great impact gardening activity had on these residents and incorporate appropriately accommodated gardening activities in our local facilities.  Psychological impacts of gardening activities are not only for elderly populations.  Therapeutic Horticulture (TH) has been shown as an effective tool for those in congregate supportive housing programs for members with chronic mental illness such as depression, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and substance abuse issues (Sabra 2026).  This population had shared experiences in common regarding grief, loss, abandonment, and required therapy to develop skills to live independently, network with others, find a support system, and gain knowledge to support themselves.  Their social worker documented the effects of being in nature and gardening with them.  Gardening was comforting for those going through life transitions, allowing a safe space for reflection, coping, being present, and grieving in a comfortable space with family and friends.  It also benefitted the clinicians by providing a space to practice interpersonal skills of compassion and caring for both the residents and plants.  The clinicians noticed that the way a resident acted in the garden caring for plants translated into how they would react in a social setting with people.  This study thoughtfully stated that “hope is inherent in gardening, and not coincidentally, also necessary in recovery and rehabilitation.”  The residents reported experiencing relief from their suffering and a decrease in stress.  The studies mentioned above illustrate compelling examples of healing in multiple populations with different reasons and types of confinement – elderly, mentally ill, and even college students.  Gardening in two of the cases suggested it was a method used in conjunction with traditional healthcare practices.  While reading the studies, the joy, laughter, smiles, hope, and the shedding of stress (or as one resident stated, “a weight came off their shoulders”) came through the writing vividly.  Suggest gardening to any of your friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances if you notice they are going through a struggle in life.  Gardening may lift their spirits, give them something to focus on, care for, and grow with.  And if you are looking for resources on how to become a gardener, please visit your local university’s 4-H extension office for literature.  If you are in Illinois, please visit the Illinois Master Gardeners website here and join us in supporting our local counties! 

Resources:

Bratman, Gregory N., et al. “Nature Experience Reduces Rumination and Subgenual Prefrontal Cortex Activation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 112, no. 28, 2015, pp. 8567–72. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26466002. Accessed 5 May 2026.

Uğur, Hacer Gök, and Mürselcan Kabakci. “The Perspectives of Elderly Residents in Nursing Home on Gardening Activities: A Qualitative Study.” Psychogeriatrics, vol. 25, no. 2, Mar. 2025, pp. 1–13. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1111/psyg.70020. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=f85948b4-3001-3ce3-b0a2-5ceb789a6dd7

Sabra, Christina. “Connecting to Self and Nature.” Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture, vol. 26, no. 1, 2016, pp. 31–38. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24865276. Accessed 5 May 2026.