Did gardens and gardeners bloom and flourish during the covid-19 pandemic ?
Does research support the anecdotal evidence ?
A garden has always been an important space for me, while gardening as an activity has provided joy from plants and enjoyment from the varying degrees of success with vegetable and fruit growing. I think there is a therapeutic bond that exists between a gardener and a garden. Each looks after the other. This seemed to take on additional meaning and poignancy during the intense periods of the covid pandemic and I seem to not be alone in feeling this.
As countries adopted public health measures including social distancing, limited contact and quarantine requirements, media outlets reported anecdotal evidence about people rediscovering the importance of and connection with their local natural environment, including their garden if they had one, alongside more spurious stories of nature thriving - remember the dolphins in Venetian canals ? They weren’t there (Daly, 2020).
For those with access to gardens (private, shared or community) a number of benefits were expressed and a “boom” in gardening reported (Aratani, 2021). Psychological research is finding supportive evidence, with benefits through gardening to individuals levels of nature connection, mental wellbeing and physical health, although with notable differences due to factors such as income and accessibility (e.g. Egerer et al. 2022).
Additional insights from a recent review
A recently published narrative review (Kingsley et al., 2023) pulled together evidence from a number of sources across ten countries to examine these benefits in more detail, with the analysis based around three key themes. Firstly, the use of garden space for growing crops increased, prompted perhaps by fears and concerns of shortages driven by media reporting and restrictions in access to shops. Interestingly the authors also highlight an increase in urban foraging, perhaps due to similar reasons. Secondly the role of gardening to support wellbeing, with benefits to mental and physical health, as well as the garden providing a place of safety during an uncertain time. Thirdly, social connection, which at times was highly restricted, was supported through gardening related behaviours such as increased usage of online gardening forums, more flexible uses of garden spaces such as front gardens, and the sharing of crops within neighbourhoods. The authors highlight however that often research has been focussed on gardening within the home or community and within urban settings, with much less research around what effect the pandemic had upon gardening activities within institutions such as schools, hospitals or prisons. Where there is research, it suggests that gardening activities decreased in institutions, thereby reducing the benefits in those settings. This is not that surprising given the public health measures taken within those institutions. However it illustrates that not all opportunities to gain the publicised benefits from gardening during the pandemic were universal, perhaps leading to missed opportunities to support health recovery, social skills development and nature-based education.
The narrative review includes three different examples to support the analysis themes. During periods of restricted social interactions an US community garden group developed a beginners set for local gardeners, which appeared to help with improvements in healthy eating choices alongside increased time outdoors and improved wellbeing. Similar findings are illustrated by an Australian study, along with increased nature connectedness and pro-environmental behaviours. That study is useful in highlighting another group for whom the benefits of gardening were harder to achieve, as tenants were often restricted with what gardening activities they could do or have access to within rented properties. The third example was an online survey across a number of countries which provided qualitative data around six themes. In addition to reporting similar benefits as the other examples, the analysis included individuals describing the pleasure that gardening provided during the pandemic, along with the natural environment providing a place to grieve and to learn from, such as the patience required while a crop grows. A key message from that study was that gardening was felt to be different in the pandemic, with a perception of it as a beneficial safe activity that people had perhaps more time available to enjoy doing. Again it’s worth noting that this is not a generalisation, for some gardeners there was less time available due to commitments such as homeschooling.
Was this a consistent experience across the pandemic period and what about those without gardens ?
One possible follow-up question to the review is did the benefits change as the pandemic progressed? And what about people without access to gardens, did their wellbeing differ given they could not experience the benefits from gardening ?
A recent study by Lehberger & Sparke (2023) may help. This study considered the wellbeing across 2020 and 2021 of both garden-owners (defined as having access to a private garden or an allotment) and non-garden owners in Germany, partially replicating an earlier study by the authors. The results suggest that garden-owners had significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and improved mental wellbeing than the non-owners. The data also suggests the mental health benefits for garden-owners was consistent over the two years, although life satisfaction reduced in 2021. It showed that garden-owners spent more time outside in their garden than non-garden owners did in public green space, providing the latter with less opportunity to gain the benefits from a green space. Interestingly the overall time spent outdoors over the two years did not change, despite perhaps an expectation this would increase given the perceived growth in awareness of the benefits of doing so. Unfortunately there is not the data to provide a pre-pandemic baseline.
The study finding doesn’t mean however that garden ownership is the only factor to the differences in life satisfaction and wellbeing. The analysis also shows that garden-owners tend to be older, have higher incomes, were less likely to live alone and more likely to live in rural areas, and from the data in 2021 were more likely to be employed. These are all sociodemographic factors which affect wellbeing and life satisfaction. The researchers used a standard wellbeing measure although quality of life was a single question, which may reduce generalisation of the findings and as they note, they did not measure nature connectedness. It is correlational research and reliant on the participants accurately completing self-report data such as estimating time outdoors. The study also doesn’t capture the motivation or behaviours of the garden-owners e.g. whether they used it as a social area, a crop growing area or for decorative planting.
How do these studies help us?
They highlight that having access to a garden or a public green space during a pandemic provides multiple physical and mental benefits, which are as relevant outside of that unique context. However these are not available to everyone and raises public health questions around accessibility to spaces such as parks, community gardens and allotments, especially for those without a garden or who are non-gardeners. That has implications for green space and garden based social prescribing initiatives. It also suggests how gardeners can be encouraged to consider more crop growing, which may be helpful in supporting pro-enviromental behaviours towards food production and reducing individuals carbon footprints through less brought produce. The review findings help to inform future research, for example highlighting that the focus has often been on urban gardening during the pandemic. Lastly these recent publications support existing research which highlights the benefits of nature connection to wellbeing and to pro-environmental behaviours through outdoor activities such as gardening.
Hope you found this a useful summary of these two recent papers and the insights they provide. Please feel free to add your thoughts and comments if you would like to, would be interested to hear what others think about the role of gardening to support wellbeing, especially in the context of the last few years.
References
Aratani, L. (2021, March 31). Gardening trend that bloomed during the pandemic is here to stay. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/mar/31/gardening-trend-pandemic-here-to-stay
Daly, N. (2020, March 20) Fake animal news abounds on social media as coronavirus upends life. National Geographic https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/coronavirus-pandemic-fake-animal-viral-social-media-posts
Egerer, M., Lin, B., Kingsley,J., Marsh, P., Diekmann, L., & Ossola, A. (2022). Gardening can relieve human stress and boost nature connection during the COVID-19 pandemic. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 68, 127483 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2022.127483
Kingsley, J., Donati, K., Litt, J., Shimpo, N., Blythe, C., Vávra, J., Caputo, S, Milbourne, P., Diekmann, L.0., Rose, N., Fox-Kämper, R., van den Berg, A., Metson, G.S., Ossola, A., Feng, X., Astell-Burt, T., Baker, A., Lin,B.B., Egerer, M., Marsh, P….Byrne, J. (2023) Pandemic gardening: A narrative review, vignettes and implications for future research. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 87, 128062. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2023.128062
Lehberger, M. & Sparke, K. (2023) How important are home gardens and spending time outside for well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic? Comparing and combining data from 2020 to 2021. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 91,102089, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102089