Gardening: the best natural antidepressant
On the verge of a mental breakdown, Tabi Gee discovered the calming effects of the great outdoors
If you’d told me four years ago that I’d start my 30th year working as a part-time gardener, I would have laughed in your face. In 2015 I was juggling a combination of freelance jobs in advertising and journalism, and enjoying all the parties that came along with it. It was fun, but I was permanently stressed and the only outlet I had for my anxiety was the pub or the gym.
This high-speed lifestyle came to a sudden halt two years ago, when my journey from central London offices into the glamorous world of gardening was catalysed by a misogynistic, micromanaging horror of a boss who pushed me into something not far from a mental breakdown.
Soon I couldn’t sleep and was having daily panic attacks. My doctor prescribed medication and CBT. I prescribed a lifestyle change: it was time for me to spend more time outdoors. It was an effective combination of treatments, but it was the gardening that really made the difference.
Now, halfway through my first solo garden design in south London and with a few years of odd gardening jobs under my belt, I’ve never felt better.
Turns out, my childhood growing up in rural Northamptonshire had instilled in me a love for nature that needed to be part of my everyday life – it was the only thing that would stop me going completely mad. I don’t think I’m alone in needing to spend a
great deal of time outdoors, and I optimistically harbour a belief that we all have an innate love for gardening in us somewhere. Maybe that’s why so many people take it up in retirement.
It’s just a shame we don’t start sooner. More Britons than ever are on antidepressants, with statistics showing that the NHS issued almost 71million prescriptions last year, up from 36million just 10 years ago.
Gardening is the perfect antidote to many mental health problems; it gets you outdoors, you’re around people, you’re getting fresh air and vitamin D, and you can see progress in the life of something else. In short, it connects you to something bigger.
Sadly, the amazing effect that gardening has on the mind is rarely discussed outside a green and “retirement activities” echo chamber. Sure, the horticultural world is full of brilliant people championing the physical and mental bonuses of gardening – take the wonderful Monty Don, for example – but the conversation simply hasn’t made it into the mainstream.
Hopefully, the Duchess of Cambridge’s contribution to this year’s Chelsea Flower Show will go some way towards changing that. Kate will make her design debut with a “Back to Nature” garden highlighting the benefits of the natural world on our mental and physical well-being. The show will be streamed live in the US for the first time, while the “Kate Effect” is expected to see tickets sell out two weeks ahead of last year.
And elsewhere, in more tangible ways, progress is being made. Thanks to a new pilot scheme funded by the Royal Horticultural Society, GPS are being encouraged to refer patients with mental health issues and dementia to work on allotments and herb gardens.
Reading-based Thrive does similar work running outreach programmes in schools, hostels, hospitals and care homes across the UK. Mental health charity Mind also runs a number of initiatives, and even Brixton medical centre is getting in on the act; it recently sent out a surgery-wide text offering free gardening to all of its patients.
Another initiative from the Community Volunteering charity is London’s Green Gyms. With 11 groups across London’s boroughs, the idea is simple: get people outside, helping in their local green spaces and feeling the physical benefits.
And we like exercise. According to a 2018 study, 9.9million of us are members of a gym. While it’s great that so many of us are putting our money and time towards our health, just think what we could achieve if 9.9million people put a bit of that
energy into our local communities.
I’m not suggesting that we all cast aside our prescription pills and take up weeding, but as doctors start to offer a more diverse range of treatments for people who slip from “OK” to “needing help”, we will all benefit.
Countless studies have proven the health benefits of gardening. A pioneering study on chemotherapy patients discovered that soil contains a natural antidepressant that helped improve their quality of life. And just earlier this month the University of Sheffield found that rates of depression were lower in areas with clean green spaces, while just spending time in the great outdoors can improve your mental well-being.
So no, I won’t apologise if you think I sound like a broken record on mental health and gardening. People who live in cities need this more than anyone, because they’re four times more likely to experience mental health problems.
And there is space in our cities – and country – for everyone to garden (for now at least, but that’s another topic). As Alice Vincent, the Telegraph’s esteemed gardening writer, regularly proves on her small but bountiful London balcony, anyone with a windowsill can grow stuff.
In London, I’ve also been lucky enough to see inside the houses of people who can afford gardens, doing maintenance or in my new role as a garden designer. When I work in this prime real estate, I feel incredibly privileged – and sorry for the people who own them, who are too wealthy, successful and busy to get to enjoy their own homes. At least they haven’t paved them over.
And let’s not forget the environmental benefits of gardening, something that is often attributed to my generation’s obsession with houseplants. Cleaning the air in our small, pollution-filled flats, while feeling like we can do something (anything!) to help the planet? It’s a no-brainer. Particularly with the rise of “climate change anxiety”.
It’s also a pretty decent hobby. Free (unlike that gym membership), good for your fitness, and a nice, low-key way to meet people. From volunteering in community gardens to local parks and even cemeteries (yep, they need gardeners, too).
Plus, you can talk to people as much or as little as you’d like. This is something I personally find delightful; some days I want to be the centre of attention. Other days I’d rather garden in a remote corner as far away from everyone as possible.
You could say this back to nature stuff is in my blood. My grandfather John Jackson is the original Mr Good Life – his family had a smallholding in Kent in the Seventies, growing all their own vegetables and keeping livestock. Then, much like now, the world was a scary and uncertain place, and providing for yourself was a popular way to keep your feet on the ground.
This pace of life – and the peace that comes with it – are hard to find when you live in one of our metropolitan hubs. Often the only time we get to switch off is on a treadmill, plugged into an ipad watching Netflix. I know what I’d rather be doing.
Coincidentally, another theme at RHS Chelsea this year is reconnecting with nature in an urban world. Last year I made it my mission to visit a garden a week (another self-prescribed initiative to make sure I was spending enough time outside). Whether I was on a press trip in China or ensconced in a trendy east London office, I visited a green space, sat down, walked around, enjoyed it (and got the Instagram to prove it #agardenaweek; I’m not that much of a Luddite). There are green spaces hidden all over London, and the UK, for us to enjoy – you just have to tear yourself away from your desk for long enough to find them.
It’s often said that gardening is good for your mental health because it gets you outdoors and moving around. But I think it’s about more than that.
Running your hands through soil, growing things, watching things fade: in a garden you experience life and death in all its glory. Every day, on the front row. If that doesn’t give you perspective, nothing will.
A love for nature was the only thing that stopped me going completely mad