Gardens and greenhouses are great stress-busters

19:05:20 4th May 2010

Getting your hands dirty and growing something in the garden or greenhouse is a great way to relieve stress, it has been claimed.

According to the Times, indulging your green thumb is a useful tonic to a number of woes.

The author explained how gardening allowed her to get through her mother's tough battle with Alzheimer's disease.

She revealed how, although she often has bumps, scrapes and bruises in the garden that require a little medicine, "if it weren't for gardening, I might well have been down at the doctor's surgery not for antibiotics but for antidepressants".

The use of horticulture to lift the spirits is not a new concept - the newspaper explained that a philanthropic movement in the late 1800s saw plants distributed to the poor to help them avoid depression.

The article also noted that there is a shifting trend in gardening in that it is no longer a male dominated domain.

Women, children and entire families are increasingly taking up the hobby due to its many benefits.

In other news, the Daily Mail has revealed how an exotic flower believed to have been extinct for 50 years has been found growing in an English country garden.