Thie week’s Guest Blogger is Richard Baines

Plants offer the feel good factor in so many ways!!
It is often stated that plants are the lungs of our planet.
Plants are so important to us all providing endless benefits many of which we do not appreciate at the time.
Gardening whether as a professional or as an amateur, is such a healthy activity. The physical activity that we carry out as we develop and maintain our gardens helps to keep us physically fit and in good shape.
Mental health is very much in the news currently as a growing concern. A stroll through a garden can provide relaxation, relieve stress, increase our air quality, improve our physical well – being and put simply, just makes us feel good!
Gardens come in so many forms either in nature such as a carpet of blue bells or as a manicured creation of exoticness such as that at Logan Botanic Garden. Although very different in their forms both make us feel positive and help to create enjoyment and pleasure.
Even indoors plants improve our lives by producing life enabling gases that are vital to our long term survival.
Many of us have happy memories from an early age of our first encounters with growing our first plant. From a personal perspective I will never forget the sense of achievement of producing enough new potatoes for our evening meal at the age of 8! Even today when we share our hard work with friends and neighbours there is a shared sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. There is no doubt that people enjoy beautiful things!!
As the Gardening for Disabled Trust reaches the mantle of a half century it can look back and reflect on the positive effects and changes that it has made to so many people’s lives.
Gardening and plants come in so many forms but they all have one thing in common in that they can create enjoyment, health, social well-being and happiness.