Front garden research needs your help - Kitchen Garden Magazine

How does the trend from green to grey affect our health and well-being?

We’re increasingly aware of the effect that green spaces have on our physical and mental well-being, and there’s also been much recent publicity about the alarming rate at which front gardens are disappearing. More than 4.5 million of them contain no plants at all, and a quarter are now totally paved over. But despite multiple studies that show the positive effects of green spaces, very little work has been done on front gardens. So how does the trend from green to grey affect our health and well-being? New research from the RHS and the University of Sheffield aims to find out.

The research, by PhD student Lauriane Suyin Chalmin-Pui, involves a 15-minute questionnaire, which aims to reach both gardeners and non-gardeners. At the end of the questionnaire, you will be asked to pass a link on to a non-gardener who is otherwise similar to you – a friend, colleague, family member or neighbour.

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Lauriane will also be greening front gardens that are currently paved over, and monitoring any health and well-being changes over the course of a year. “I aim to give value to the health and socio-cultural benefits of front gardens to residents and the wider community. This is a crucial part of curbing the trend of disappearing front gardens,” she says.

Go to https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/gardening-in-a-changing-world/greening-grey-britain/front-garden-research to take part in the survey.

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Steve Ott

Steve Ott is editor of Kitchen Garden magazine and started his career as a professional grower, producing everything from cut flowers to vegetables. He has been growing fruit and veg all his life and spends most of his spare time in his garden in the East Midlands. He loves to experiment with crops and varieties he has never grown before and when he isn’t gardening is to be found out in the countryside bird watching and walking his dog Ted.