RHS YOUR WELLBEING GARDEN : HOW TO MAKE YOUR GARDEN GOOD FOR YOU by Alistair Griffiths and Matt Keightley
DK, £16.99 ISBN 978-0241386729
An informative and timely guide to creating an external retreat for internal stresses, driving home the fact that we all need a little more ‘vitamin G’. Reviewer Katie Dutton is editorial assistant at Gardens Illustrated.
There are few activities as beneficial to our mental and physical wellbeing as gardening. The responsibility of caring for something, getting outdoors and keeping active has been proven to boost self-esteem, stave off isolation and even increase one’s lifespan.
Professor Alistair Griffiths, director of science at the
RHS Centre for Horticultural Science and Learning, highlights these benefits through a discussion of four types of wellbeing garden: The Protective Garden,
The Healing Garden, The Nourishing Garden and The Sustainable Garden. Each chapter is dedicated to the benefits of that particular type of garden, how one can achieve it, and the scientific studies that prove the importance of doing so.
One study, for example, found that people living without easy access to a green space were 33 per cent more likely to suffer from depression and 44 per cent more likely to have anxiety compared with those living within walking distance of a green, natural environment.
Humans are biophiles; we have an instinctive attachment to the earth, and the absence of such a connection can have detrimental effects on both ourselves and the planet, as we are now witnessing to an alarming extent. There is no better time, then, to reap the calming benefits of natural spaces, whether by lining your urban balcony with pollutionprotecting plants, adding a soothing water feature to your garden, or just finding a greener route to work.
Practical design advice from award-winning garden designer Matt Keightley is included at the end of each chapter, showing the reader how to put Griffiths’ ideas into practice. Bright, colourful photographs, illustrations and diagrams break up the factual text and make this an accessible book that both new and established gardeners will want to turn to time and again.