We Can Always Grow! How Gardening Can Help
When someone we love dies, or when we’re caring day and night, our nervous systems work overtime. The days can blur, sleep can thin, and concentration shrinks to what’s right in front of us. In times like these, huge changes aren’t realistic. What helps are small, repeatable moments that steady us. Gardening and time outdoors give exactly that: a few minutes of calm, a little movement, and a breath of tranquillity.
Let’s start with something encouraging: you don’t need hours free or a perfect garden. One large study found that people who spent about two hours a week in nature – gathered in any combination of short or long visits – reported better health and wellbeing than those who didn’t (White et al., 2019). That could be ten minutes with a cup of tea under a tree, a brief loop around the garden, or watering a couple of pots by the back door. It all counts.
Why gardens help when life is heavy
Science has given names for the relief many of us feel when we step into a green space. One theory says nature gently holds our attention – rustling leaves, shifting light, birdsong – so our overworked minds can rest (Kaplan, 1995). Another shows how our bodies settle quickly in natural settings: heart rate eases, muscle tension drops, mood lifts (Ulrich et al., 1991). This isn’t just a nice idea; brain imaging studies have found that time in nature can turn down the mental loops of worry and self?criticism that so often accompany grief and caregiver stress (Bratman et al., 2015).
But perhaps the most important evidence comes from people’s lived experience. In interviews with gardeners who’d come through stressful times, many described their patch – however small – as a place to cope and to make meaning. Planting became a quiet ritual and watching something grow offered a different kind of timeline. For bereaved people, this “therapeutic landscape” can be a way to remember and reconnect without words (Milligan, Gatrell and Bingley, 2004).
If you’re caring for someone, outdoors time can also be practical. A garden designed for ease – clear paths, a nearby chair, plants that largely take care of themselves – offers micro?breaks that fit a changing schedule. Reviews of therapeutic garden design for older adults highlight simple features: places to sit in sun and shade, level surfaces, and familiar plants that invite touch and smell (Detweiler et al., 2012). You don’t need a showpiece. You need a spot that feels safe and kind.
This year, we’re extremely grateful and proud to have extended the Primrose Hospice garden with a new section donated to us by F.B & Sons, Lawns and Landscapes, originally created at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival. Check out more information about our new garden here.
At Primrose Hospice, our groups love spending time outside in the great outdoors. One of our groups called ‘Explorations’ supports children when a family member has a life-limiting illness or when someone special has died.
The group forms part of the wider network of support provided for children and young people by our Family Support Team. The explorations group is a safe space that offers the children the opportunity to immerse themselves in nature.
We did our first ‘Explorations’ session on the 29th July 2021 so we’ve been doing it for over 4 years now.
This week we spoke to Louise, who has been volunteering with our children’s and young people team for over five years.
Hi Louise, what are the benefits of children attending the Explorations group?
We believe the Explorations group is a safe space that offers the children the opportunity to immerse themselves in nature. The sessions have a familiar routine that the children can depend upon, but within that they have total freedom to interact with the site. When they attend, the children’s needs vary depending on what is happening in their lives at the time and the garden offers them the flexibility to seek out exactly what they need. Sometimes they may quietly lie down and cloud watch, others may share stories with other children about their worries whilst they build a den, or some may want to distract themselves by engaging on a bug hunt. Whatever they feel the need to do, there is a space for them.
Why do you think it’s important for children and adults to spend time outside when they are going through a bereavement journey?
For any child or adult going through a bereavement journey, the outside world is a wonderful resource. From weather that may match your mood or lift you out of it, to the wonder of the changing seasons, there is always something to notice that can bring us, even just temporarily, away from the challenges faced.
Do you see changes in any of the children from when they first start attending Primrose, compared to after they’ve received support from Primrose?
When we first meet them here at the hospice, understandably, many of the children are a little nervous and unsure about what this new place will be like. However, they soon seem to relax and see clearly that the laughter nearly always outweighs the tears here. We enjoy seeing them grow in confidence as they realise that they aren’t on their own during challenging times and that they will be welcomed on their worst and best days. We are very much a team here and it is lovely to see the children get to know us all and you can see that as the weeks pass, they do very much feel like part of a supportive extra family. Seeing this change; from children burdened by life to confident and more open people, is a real privilege.
The explorations group has been running for a long time now, have you adapted the group over the years in any way?
The shape of our Explorations sessions has stayed largely the same over the years, which has enabled the children to feel safe and secure in a familiar routine. However, the content of the sessions evolves constantly. Ideas for new things that we could try come all the time from the children themselves, and also from the adults. In Explorations we are free of some of the normal boundaries of life, like keeping clean, so we embrace the slimy, messy and weird! We have noticed that we worry less about engaging children across wide age ranges as the garden seems to unify children regardless of age. Naturally occurring groups of children come together, which you would have never have put together deliberately for a task. We also worry less about the weather forecast before a session as some of our best days have occurred in the worst weather!
Thanks Louise.
If you’d like to explore more about how Primrose Hospice could help you or someone you care for, head over to our referrals page to get in touch.
Written by Josh Davies
References
Bratman, G.N., Hamilton, J.P., Hahn, K.S., Daily, G.C. and Gross, J.J. (2015) ‘Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(28).
Detweiler, M.B., Sharma, T., Detweiler, J.G., et al. (2012) ‘What is the evidence to support the use of therapeutic gardens for the elderly?’, Psychiatry Investigation, 9(2).
Kaplan, S. (1995) ‘The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3).
Milligan, C., Gatrell, A. and Bingley, A. (2004) ‘“Cultivating health”: Therapeutic landscapes and older people in northern England’, Social Science & Medicine, 58(9).
Ulrich, R.S., Simons, R.F., Losito, B.D., et al. (1991) ‘Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 11(3).
White, M.P., Alcock, I., Grellier, J., et al. (2019) ‘Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing’, Scientific Reports, 9, 7730.
