Horticultural therapy and its effect on people health

The many-faceted relationships that exist between plants and humans play an integral role on the development of our civilisation that goes merely beyond some productive aspects, involving other scientific sectors like anthropology, ethnobotany, geography, art and environmental sciences and, above all, the group of social sciences like psychology and sociology. Comprehension of the psychological, physiological and social responses of people towards plants can be a valid tool for the improvement of physical and psychic conditions, both of single individuals and of whole communities. Though some very ancient references are present in the literature, the study of these aspects of fundamental importance has stimulated the interest of several researchers mainly in the last 10-15 years, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries and the United States, producing, as a consequence, a substantial bibliography. So-called horticultural therapy is not a new therapy. It can be done at home, in either public or private gardens, in green spaces or in structures for the cultivation of plants attached to hospitals, rehabilitation clinics and hospices. It has, therefore, great flexibility and, probably, its great therapeutic value resides in the fact that it can be a preventive medicine and a therapy of support to traditional medical treatments, contributing to the harmonic exploitation of residual potentialities and to a more structurally defined personality of the patient.