Dr Sue Stuart-Smith is a psychiatrist, psychologist, gardener and literature lover who, in her much hailed UK bestseller The Well Gardened Mind brings all her passions together to look at the relationship between gardening and mental health. Stuart-Smith's book ranges widely, from bringing green spaces into housing developments, to gardens in prisons, and their use in people's recovery from trauma. Stuart-Smith studied English Literature at the University of Cambridge before qualifying as a doctor and working in the UK National Health Service for many years. She is married to celebrated garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith, and over the last 30 years the couple have created the world-renowned Barn Garden in Hertfordshire.
Indeed, Stuart-Smith’s stirring summaries of the garden’s history, value in therapeutic settings, and place in literature and culture feel like the best kind of circumstantial evidence for the primacy of the act. But when she digs into the emerging neuroscience, the evidence is breathtaking. Take, for example, what actually lives in the soil. Bacterial actinomycetes, when activated by water, emit an aroma called geosmin that has a pleasing and soothing effect on most people, Stuart-Smith points out. Heart rate and blood pressure drop within minutes of exposure to natural surroundings like parks and gardens. Cortisol the fight-or-flight hormone that assaults our well-being when we endure sustained stress drops within 20 to 30 minutes. The scents of blooms from lavender, rosemary, and citrus summon mood-elevating chemicals. The scent of roses actually allows our body to hang onto endorphin highs longer, extending that blissful inhalation.