Front garden research

Green space makes us feel better, fact. As a society, we're increasingly becoming aware of the impact that nature and green spaces have on our physical and mental well-being - you only have to look at the popularity of nature play groups or the success of the RHS Campaign for School Gardening to see that there is a huge appetite for all kinds of interaction with plants and the natural world, and we see it as an important part of our children's education. We're still very much a nation of gardeners - RHS membership has increased by 100,000 over the past five years.

Despite this, all is not rosy in the nation's front gardens. They're disappearing at an alarming rate - more than 4.5 million of them contain no plants at all, and a quarter of front gardens are now totally paved over. But does this really matter? Despite multiple studies that show the positive effects of green spaces, very little work as been done on front gardens.

The survey forms part of our Greening Grey Britain campaign and Lauriane’s wider research project, which includes greening front gardens that are currently paved over, and monitoring the health and well-being changes of residents 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.

See also

• Read Lauriane's blog
• Lauriane is a student at the University of Sheffield, supervised by Dr Ross Cameron, speaker at the 2016 John MacLeod Lecture
• If you have any questions please contact Lauriane Chalmin-Pui at lschalmin-pui1@sheffield.ac.uk
• Find out more on this topic from the Health, Happiness and Horticulture Conference at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2016

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