I first came across the Sydenham Garden through a feature on the BBC’s weekly gardening programme Gardener’s World. My link will take you to the page on their website that explains how they began. From there you can navigate to the rest of the site where you will see news of some of their achievements.
Whilst researching Sydenham Gardens I also came across another website that presents evidence about the efficacy of gardening as therapy, in the treatment of mental health and developing self esteem. Again, you can navigate from that page to see a huge range of information about the health and other benefits of sustainable farming and food production.
Your cohosts for this month are: Eric Lahti, Inderpreet Uppal, Shilpa Garg, Mary Giese and Roshan Radhakrishna.
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Frank Parker's author site 
Thank you for this link, Frank. Gardening is therapeutic and so is baking. When my mom was having chemotherapy, the doctor recommended both.
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Wonderful share Frank 🙂
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Thanks Frank! Nature is so therapeutic! May Sydenham Gardens continue to bring relief to all.
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Thank you, all three, for your kind comments. I guess if I did not have my garden I would spend more time walking in the woods near here – or out on my bike. All things that involve exercise, fresh air, appreciation of our natural surroundings and an opportunity to ponder on life and history before putting words on the hard disk and out into the interweb!
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A good reminder. Yes, I can vouch for the fact that time spent in nature is therapeutic, both physically and mentally. I enjoy my time in my kayak and on the sun-drenched sandy beaches and gravel bars of the Fraser river and have often pondered the fact that mental illness seemed to have been much less prevalent among nature people than civilized folks. Of course it could be said that mentally deficient people were probably left to their own devices or “to the care of the god” in tribal societies, yet I’m convinced that in the pre-city life mental illness was a rare anomaly. Nature has her way of balancing things out.
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