Our idea was to test the hypothesis that gardens are good for you. This idea fits in with our other research that shows that green spaces in general improve mental heath and well being. At the Hampton Court Flower show we measured self esteem and mood both before and after spending 3 minutes in the garden.

We measured this with industry standard assessment tools. What we found was that once they had been in the garden mood and self esteem all improved for most people. More specifically self esteem improved, tension, depression, anger, fatigue and confusion were all reduced but vigour remained unchanged.

Of course this wasn’t true for every one but most people showed this effect and our statistical analysis showed these changes to be statistically significant. Also we didn’t compare this to another group that (for example) sat in the shade for the same time. However we feel that given the high level of statistical significance this is a valid effect and one that warrants further investigation.

If you were a subject in this experiment then you can find out your scores by entering your id number in the box on the left.

If you would like to see the general results please click here.

Once again may we thank you all for taking part