What is Social and Therapeutic Horticulture

Social Therapeutic Horticulture is a process where trained practitioners work with plants and people to improve an individual’s physical and psychological health, communication, and thinking skills.

The health and wellbeing benefits of gardening are well-documented and include:

• Better physical health (through exercise and strengthening muscles to improve mobility);
• Improved mental health (through a sense of purpose, hope, and achievement)
• Opportunity to connect with others (reducing feelings of isolation or exclusion)
• Opportunity to learn new skills (increasing confidence and self-fulfillment)
• Increased connection to nature (which itself is documented to improve mental health).

Whilst some people can access these benefits for themselves, others may need encouragement, support, or supervision to do so. We therefore see gardening activities used, with varying levels of support, across a range of health conditions and in a wide range of settings.

What differentiates STH from other forms of gardening is how the approach has been tailored to meet the specific needs of each individual through the active role of the practitioner.

Social and therapeutic horticulture uses the garden as a safe and secure place to develop someone's ability to mix socially, make friends and learn practical skills that will help them to be more independent.

Using gardening tasks and the garden itself, social and therapeutic horticulture practitioners build a set of activities for each gardener to improve their particular health needs and to work on certain goals they want to achieve.

As a holistic, person-centred intervention, STH can be used to benefit people experiencing many different situations. For example: ​

• Part of the rehabilitation process is to help people recover and 'find their feet again' after an illness or a difficult time in their lives​
• Help people to recover from a wide range of health conditions​
• Help to slow down the deterioration of a degenerative illness​
• Learn new skills, which could lead to employment or becoming more active in their community​
• Improve the quality of life and support healthier lifestyles

STH is a unique intervention but has connections to many other concepts and approaches. How STH relates to other concepts, is explored in the following pages:

There are many STH providers across the country, ranging from sole practitioners who will work in a variety of settings, such as schools or care homes, to community-based organisations working in public parks, allotments and community venues, and larger organisations with specifically designed and managed therapeutic gardens.

As there is not yet a register of STH providers, the true scale of the sector cannot be accurately quantified. However, the 2018 National Survey of Gardening and Horticultural Activities for Health & Wellbeing by the Green Care Coalition, estimated that there were around 780 STH providers in England and Wales and many thousands of community gardens offering less formal therapeutic gardening activities; Trellis have 425 providers in their network in Scotland.

Dr Richard Claxton established Garden4Health during the Covid pandemic to provide a voluntary directory of social & therapeutic horticulture in the UK.

Thrive and Trellis are collaborating to establish the Association for Social & Therapeutic Horticulture (UKASTH) which will provide registration for STH practitioners, accredited by the Professional Standards Authority. There are around 200 practitioners on their consultative forum.