Community Gardening

Gray, Tracey, and Pigott report findings consistent with those of previous researchers: “Community gardening is a successful social and nature prescription intervention. Community gardening improves health, wellbeing and community connectedness. Community gardening reduces vulnerability by increasing social cohesion and safety. Social housing design needs to include restorative and regenerative green spaces. Policies for social housing should include community gardening projects. . . . Statistically significant improvements were found in participants’ satisfaction with personal wellbeing, health, and community connectedness; as well as increased gardening skills, positive social experiences, and time spent in nature. . . . participant’s engagement with gardening was restorative and regenerative. . . . Community gardening was shown to amplify civic pride and bolster community resilience.”

Tonia Gray, Danielle Tracey, and Fiona Pigott.  2024. “Restorative and Regenerative Green Spaces for Vulnerable Communities in Social Housing: The Impact of a Community Greening Program.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 99, 102448, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102448