There's a tendency to treat "gardening is good for you" as a vague wellness claim, somewhere between essential oils and cold-water swimming on the credibility spectrum. The reality is that the science behind garden-based wellbeing is surprisingly robust, and it's been accumulating for decades.
We're not health professionals. We design, build, and maintain gardens across Surrey. But understanding why outdoor spaces affect people the way they do makes us better at our job. It changes what we plant, how we structure spaces, and what we prioritise when a client says they want their garden to "feel right."
What the research actually shows
The landmark study in this field is Roger Ulrich's 1984 research, published in Science. Ulrich compared hospital patients recovering from gallbladder surgery. Those with a window view of trees recovered faster, needed less pain medication, and had fewer post-surgical complications than patients whose windows faced a brick wall. The study has been cited thousands of times and has informed hospital and care home design worldwide. It demonstrated that simply seeing nature has measurable physiological effects.
More recently, a 2019 study published in Scientific Reports (White et al.) analysed data from nearly 20,000 people and found that spending at least 120 minutes per week in natural environments was associated with significantly better health and wellbeing. Importantly, the 120 minutes could be accumulated in short visits. You don't need a two-hour block. Three or four 30-minute sessions in the garden achieve the same threshold.
One of the more striking findings comes from Finland. Roslund et al. (2020) ran an experiment with daycare centres, replacing gravel play areas with forest floor material (soil, turf, moss). Within 28 days, the children's skin and gut microbiome diversity had measurably increased, and their immune markers improved. The soil itself was doing something beneficial, and the children weren't doing anything more exotic than playing in dirt.
This connects to the broader "biodiversity hypothesis," which proposes that contact with diverse environmental microorganisms supports immune function. Gardening, which involves direct contact with soil, is one of the most accessible ways to get that exposure.
Beyond the studies: what gardeners report
The formal research aligns with what we observe in our clients. People who use their gardens regularly are, almost without exception, noticeably more relaxed about the whole process. The clients who treat their garden as a room they actually inhabit (not a display to be admired from inside) tend to be the most satisfied with the end result.
We also hear consistent feedback about the value of the process itself. The physical work of gardening, digging, planting, weeding, is moderate exercise that engages different muscle groups without the monotony of a gym. It's repetitive enough to be meditative and varied enough to stay interesting. Several of our long-term maintenance clients describe their weekend gardening as the most effective stress management they've found.
This isn't unique to Surrey, obviously. But Surrey's climate does create some particular advantages. The growing season across the southeast is among the longest in the UK, meaning gardens are usable for more months of the year. Our clients in sheltered areas around Weybridge and East Horsley can often use their gardens comfortably from late March through to October.
How garden design affects wellbeing
This is where our work directly connects to the research. The design choices we make determine whether a garden encourages time outside or keeps people indoors looking through glass.
Views from inside the house matter. Ulrich's research showed that even seeing nature through a window has physiological benefits. When we design a garden, we consider the primary views from the kitchen, the living room, and any home office. A well-placed tree, a border with seasonal interest, or a water feature visible from a key window extends the garden's impact to the hours spent indoors.
Sensory planting goes beyond colour. Scented plants near seating areas (jasmine, lavender, philadelphus, honeysuckle) engage the olfactory system, which is directly linked to the limbic system and emotional memory. Textural variety (ornamental grasses that move in wind, soft lamb's ear, rough bark) encourages physical contact with the garden. Sound matters too: water features, rustling grasses, and the buzzing of pollinators all contribute to what environmental psychologists call "soft fascination," a state of relaxed attention that's the opposite of the directed concentration required by screens and work.
Enclosed spaces feel safer. Research in environmental psychology consistently shows that people feel more relaxed in spaces that are partially enclosed (hedges, walls, overhead canopy) with views outward, rather than in completely open or completely enclosed areas. This maps to the "prospect and refuge" theory. We use this in our designs, creating seating areas that feel sheltered while still offering a view of the wider garden.
Access to soil matters. Given the microbiome research, designing gardens that encourage direct contact with soil has genuine health value. Raised beds, cutting gardens, herb patches, and areas for children to dig all serve this purpose. A garden that's entirely paved and planted with zero-maintenance evergreens may look tidy, but it removes the health benefits that come from actually gardening in it.
Designing for how people actually live
The most effective wellbeing gardens aren't the ones that look like spa brochures. They're the ones people use every day.
A morning coffee spot that catches the early sun. A herb bed by the kitchen door that gets raided during cooking. A sheltered corner where someone reads for twenty minutes after work. A patch of ground where children build dens and get filthy. These are the features that accumulate the 120 minutes per week that the research points to.
When we sit down with a client at the start of a project, we spend more time talking about how they live than about what plants they like. What time do they get home? Where do they eat in summer? Do they work from home? What do they see from their desk? Do their children play outside or are they mainly inside? The answers shape the design more than any mood board does.
The practical takeaway
You don't need a professionally designed garden to benefit from time outdoors. A chair, a patch of open sky, and twenty minutes is enough to make a measurable difference to your stress levels and your immune function.
But if you're investing in your garden anyway, whether that's a full redesign or an update to specific areas, designing with wellbeing in mind doesn't add cost. It changes the priorities. It means thinking about where the warm spots are, where the afternoon shade falls, what the view looks like from the kitchen, and whether the garden invites you to step outside or stay behind glass.
We've explored the science behind gardens and health in more detail in our piece on garden health science. And if you're thinking about reshaping your garden around how you actually want to use it, talk to us about garden planning and design.
Get a free quote and we'll start with a conversation about your space, your life, and what your garden could do for you.
