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As I write this in January 2021, we are in the grips of the Covid 19 pandemic. During this time there has been an outpouring of interest and enjoyment in gardening by complete novices and forays into local open natural spaces. In my neighbourhood, communities have vociferously protected threatened green spaces and ‘guerrilla gardening’ has increased. Has this enforced withdrawal from the outside natural world made us covet it more?
We are undoubtedly a nation of gardeners. There is an unhealthy side to this: in our gardens the obsession to control, and to change and to use plants and gardens for our own desires and purposes, is much in evidence. Yet the inherent therapeutic value of gardening and nature has also been long recognised by those of us who tend plants. It seems obvious to us: we garden because it is what we have to do; it is an essential part of our lives, a necessity for body and mind.
I am a dance movement psychotherapist and for many years worked with different client groups. Whilst practising as a therapist I studied horticulture and eventually became a tutor for people with learning disabilities. I currently lead a small horticulture project for a charity in north east London. I spend my days on a council run allotment site supporting individuals to sow, water, tend and grow fruit and vegetables. Perhaps the biggest incentive for all of them is eating the produce they know they have nurtured. The project means different things to the individuals that attend and can have a significant role to play in their mental and physical health.
I have always been interested in the interplay between the somatic and emotional experiences of gardening, and have intuitively believed that working with plants and nature is life-affirming, and can be a cathartic and healing activity. It can be hard, however, for me to convince others of the sensual delight of warm compost, the importance of the worm that coils between the fingers and the surge of joy when seeing the firs