People accessing homeless services have benefited from a gardening and mental health project set up and evaluated by nurse practitioner and Queen’s Nurse Kendra Schneller.
The Garden 2 Plate project, a small-scale, nature-based initiative in south east London (pictured), has transformed the mental health of the participants who took part.
Running since March 2024, the project has highlighted how green social prescribing can provide accessible, cost-effective interventions to support improvement in mental health, reduce loneliness and isolation, particularly for those who are either excluded from mainstream services or considered vulnerable.
It was an honour to receive £5,000 innovation funding from the Queen’s Institute for Community Nursing (QICN) and the National Garden Scheme (NGS), Elsie Wagg Innovation Scholarship last year to help bring to life my vision of gardens at existing homeless accommodations being a therapeutic space to improve the mental health and wellbeing of people experiencing homelessness.
Mental health challenges are a significant issue among people experiencing homelessness. Feelings of isolation, low mood, and lack of purpose are common, often exacerbated by unstable living conditions and social exclusion.1
I wanted to create a project that addressed these challenges holistically, offering participants not just a pastime but an opportunity to nurture, grow, and belong.
The evidence supporting gardening as a mental health intervention is increasing. A 2024 umbrella review found gardening and horticultural therapy interventions led to a 55% improvement in wellbeing measures across a variety of populations, including those experiencing mental health concerns.2 Community gardening proved particularly valuable, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, where therapeutic garden projects helped reduce loneliness and increased life satisfaction by around 9%, even as nationally and most likely globally, wellbeing declined.3
This evidence underpinned my strive and belief that gardening could make a worthwhile difference for patients accessing homeless services.
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Over the course of the yearlong Garden 2 Plate project, 11 men and 1 woman living in or accessing homeless services, intermittently participated. Together, we transformed the gardens attached to two hostels, into a thriving outdoor space filled with vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers.
Participants had the opportunity to be involved at every stage, (health and safety allowing) from designing the layout, creating the ground rules and planting seeds, to maintaining beds and harvesting produce.
The funding allowed me to provide each site with essential resources such as plant pots, tools, seeds, compost, and even garden furniture such as table and chairs and a shed to store everything. More importantly, it enabled us to create a space that felt safe, purposeful, relaxing and welcoming.
Some sessions combined practical gardening, with moments of reflection and engaging in conversations about physical health. Tasks such as sowing seeds or weeding became opportunities to practice mindfulness, and on one occasion check one of the participant’s blood pressure and do a medication review.
Shared activities fostered new social connections and harvested produce resulted in either being used for social cooking and eating or was delivered to other hostels and a day centre in the local area.
To evaluate the project’s impact, I used the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Health and Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) to assess participants’ wellbeing at the start and end of the programme. This evidence-based tool measures aspects such as optimism, relaxation, clear thinking, and social connectedness.
Using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS), the project tracked changes in mental health among participants. All of the participants completed both pre and post project assessments. All (100%) showed improvement in their wellbeing scores and 1 participant’s score rose from 32 to 51. Overall, participants reported reduced boredom, improved mood, and an increased sense of purpose.
Beyond the numbers, the qualitative feedback was equally powerful. Participant quotes include:
“I feel human again”
“Gardening takes me out of my misery”
“They made me feel someone cared, so I started to care”
These outcomes align with findings from recent research into social and therapeutic horticulture (STH), which showed significant reductions in depression (SMD = –1.01) and anxiety (SMD = –0.62) among participants.4
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The Garden 2 Plate project was able to achieve its overall aim and objectives.
It reduced boredom and improved mood, through regular, structured sessions, which gave participants a reason to engage and to feel a sense of accomplishment.
It encouraged mindfulness and focus, through the provision of gardening tasks which provided calming, grounding activities, that helped participants to stay present and reduce their stress levels, thinking about concerns and worries they had in relation to their physical and mental health and those engaging with illicit substance use.
The project fostered social connections and a sense of belonging, by participants working together, which nurtured friendships and a shared sense of pride, especially when celebrating milestones like the first harvest and the first cooking and eating together session.
By the end of the projects, the gardens were well established and providing regular harvests of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Ultimately, the most valuable harvest was the improvement seen in the participants mental health and wellbeing and the ownership taken of the space and the contributions they made. During the barbeques, visitors often commented on how lovely and vibrant the garden feels.
The success of Garden 2 Plate was unexpected, and I am currently exploring partnerships with local food banks to donate surplus produce, as well as collaborations with other homeless services to replicate the model.
The project also has potential to develop a peer-mentor element, enabling participants to take on leadership roles and support others to engage in outdoor activities to improve mental health.
I am wholeheartedly grateful to the QICN for their support throughout the project and beyond and the NGS for allowing me to present my project at their annual conference. Their belief in myself and this project has helped to show that, with funding, hard work and a lot of commitment, gardens can help to grow resilience, belonging, and hope.
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My advice to myself (if I had to do it again) or nurses wanting to start a community garden project would be:
Ask yourself what is the unmet need and how will it benefit patients, this will help with identifying the aim(s)/objectives of the project
Involve stakeholders at all stages to help with buy in
Use the PDSA cycle to mitigate any challenges along the way and avoid panic when things aren’t going to plan
Seek support/advice from the QICN staff – they are there to help
Think early about the sustainability of the project and exit plans if needed.
We can all get involved in cultivating, harvesting and sustaining mental health.
Kendra Schneller, MBE, is a Queen’s Nurse, and nurse practitioner at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
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