Growing well: Green Social Prescribing

Dr Susan Taheri, an NHS GP for over twenty years, recognised the value of gardening for her own health and was keen to find a way of sharing this. Curious to know how things might be different if she had the opportunity to meet her patients in a garden, rather than in a consulting room, she embarked on an exciting new project with Green Social Prescribing at its heart. We spoke to Susan to find out more…

Growing Well Garden is a Green Social Prescribing project based at Bow Medical Practice in Devon. Green Social Prescribing helps people to engage in nature based interventions and activities to improve their mental wellbeing as well as their physical health and to overcome social isolation. The garden was the idea of Dr Susan Taheri who recognised the value of gardening for her own health and was keen to find a way of sharing this. She was also curious to know how things might be different if she had the opportunity to meet her patients in a garden, rather than in a consulting room.

“Growing Well Garden came about because as a GP I was frustrated and increasingly overwhelmed by a feeling that I was too far “downstream” from many of the problems facing the patients I encountered,” she explains. “One such example is that of social isolation and loneliness. While we know that this carries more than a 25% increased risk for significant health issues – and not just mental health problems like depression and anxiety but also chronic long-term physical conditions such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and dementia – it is something that sitting in my consulting room I just didn’t have a practical solution for.”

Chris with his prize-winning pumpkin, the garden in summer and Dr Susan Taheri

With all of this in mind, Susan had been eyeing up the corner of the field next to her practice building for a long time.

“This was part of the site which was acquired when the new surgery had been built about ten years previously and it had remained empty and unused. In 2022, feeling burnt out and in need of a change, I finally took the plunge and resigned from my partnership to take a sabbatical in order to put some time and energy into turning a daydream into reality!”

Thanks to a modest amount of set-up funding from the local Primary Care Network, the support of her former partners who owned the land and the incredible help and support of a few other volunteers who shared her enthusiasm, Susan set about creating an allotment style plot with raised ‘no dig’ beds making use of recycled and donated materials where they could.

“We have since added two sheds and a central covered structure with a sedum roof, planted apple espaliers and created a cutting patch for annuals to encourage pollinators. We continue to consider ourselves very much a work in progress!

“We were hugely fortunate early on to receive a National Garden Scheme Community Garden Award which funded our polytunnel. As well as being a valuable growing space, almost more importantly this provides us with a hub, offering warmth and shelter in which to gather, chat and connect over a mug of tea or coffee. It has also continued to be variably used as a meeting room, craft studio and a location for garden Tai Chi when it has been too wet outside.”

Volunteers Stuart and Lynda and the polytunnel funded by the Community Garden Grants programme

Growing Well Garden started opening for regular volunteer-led “drop in” sessions early in 2023 but in September that year, through funding from the NHS Social Prescribing scheme, we were able to take on our own Social and Therapeutic Gardener.

“In addition to the drop in sessions, Emma, an experienced former NHS midwife-turned-horticulturist, now works one-to-one with individuals referred to her by local GPs like me as well as through referrals from other members of the wider health care team and local organisations such as churches, debt charities and the Food Bank. Emma also works alongside other members of the social prescribing team to help facilitate other garden and nature-based activities for different groups and her role is continuing to evolve as we grow.
“I truly believe that plants, gardens and green space all have the power to transform our health and I’m so excited that this is now something I am able to prescribe to those who might benefit. I continue to work as a GP at the practice, but these days my patients are just as likely to find me in the garden as a consulting room, a happier doctor all round and very much enjoying a taste of my own medicine.”

Discover more about the project: instagram @the_gardening_gp website www.growingwellgarden.co.uk

To find out more about the National Garden Scheme’s Community Garden Grants click here

This story was originally published in the 2025 Little Yellow Book of Gardens and Health – to read it click here