Anne-Marie Sterckx  

 "Gardening is a great way to improve physical and mental health"

Therapeutic Gardening is also called  "Horticulture Therapy", "Garden Therapy", "Social Horticulture".

Gardening is always therapeutic because it is a physical and mental activity with health benefits:

- improved blood flow, 

- inhaling fresh air = higher oxygen levels, 

- better  memory and organisation skills, 

- boosted self esteem, 

- the activation of all the senses: touch, smell, sound, visual, and taste. 

It is all there in your vegetable garden with rows of bean, peas, tomatoes, cucumber and maybe a couple of exotic species gardeners are keen to try out this year.

It is all there in your flower garden where bees and hummingbirds gather and where aroma therapy is at its purest form.

It is on your tiny balcony where you grow a single container tomato.

and it is on your window sill, in a little jar filled with water and a fresh cut mint stem: in a week this single stem of mint will have grown the roots so necessary to provide the water and nutrients to grow more leaves and eventually flowers to reproduce - (mint can skip the birds and the bees, mint  just keeps growing and multiplying underground with roots and shoots.

Benefits of Mint

Promotes Digestion: Mint is a calming and soothing herb that has been used for thousands of years to aid with upset stomach or indigestion.  Mint can help lose weight in a healthy natural way. Here is why: Mint is a stimulant and it stimulates the digestive enzymes that absorb nutrients from food. Mint also turns fat into usable energy instead of storing it in the body.

Natural Stimulant:  Mint relieves fatigue and depression

Cleans up congestion of nose, throat and lungs