Regular readers of the blog will know that I’m a keen gardener as well as having a deep interest in the natural world, and I know from personal experience how being amongst plants, flowers, birds and insects can lift a person’s mood and improve their health.

It was interesting, therefore, to get a message via my Contact page from a tutor on the Students For Research programme. They had been looking at my blog and the tutor had challenged her students to find a web resource that they thought might interest me. And indeed they succeeded! They found this web page about Clinical Trials on the Positive Effects of Gardening and Experiencing Nature and it makes for very interesting reading. There’s a lot of good research happening in this area.

It’s a topic that my wife Karin and I have discussed a lot and which, as a therapist and author, she’s written about several times – see for example this piece about How Pollinators Benefit Our Wellbeing and the BBC Gardeners’ World podcast interview she did about how gardens help to build relationships.

So many thanks to the students on the programme for finding that resource and to the tutor for sending it to me.