The sun was shining when a green-fingered friend came to me looking a bit blue. One of my articles from a couple of weeks ago about the dangers of poisonous plants had left her feeling a bit deflated over her love of gardening. Perhaps I had been overly gloomy – gardening isn’t all bad, I told her; and she certainly shouldn’t stop tending to her tulips or deadheading her dahlias. In fact, getting grubby in the garden has so many potential health benefits that many of us would all do well to take a leaf out of her book.

Just ask any gardener and they will tell you how an hour or two of planting and weeding does wonders for easing stress and improving sleep. Research now confirms this, demonstrating that gardening lowers stress hormones, reduces blood pressure and helps alleviate depression. Remarkably, a few years ago it was discovered that merely inhaling vapours from soil bacteria could boost levels of the ‘happy hormone’ serotonin – meaning that the psychological benefits of sniffing the roses really shouldn’t be sniffed at (so to speak).

And if your days are spent inside and the fruits of your labours are on a computer screen, the benefits of the garden can be most profound. Being in outside, especially when the sun is setting, helps to reset the body clock. Furthermore, psychologists agree that doing something tactile and with your hands offers a satisfaction that tapping no keyboard can offer.

Gardening has been a part of rehabilitation programmes and addiction recovery schemes for decades but ‘therapeutic horticulture’ goes further than that. People with asthma, allergies, cancer, dementia and pain syndromes all stand to directly benefit from gardening – especially when done as part of a community project or on shared allotment. Gardening and growing is an activity all of us can get involved in, regardless of age or ability. The one proviso being that careless people like me need strict instructions on which plants are weeds and which are not.

An hour’s gardening can burn up to 400 calories. Although pottering with the pansies sadly doesn’t count toward the 150 minutes of ‘moderate intensity’ exercise adults need every week, the lifting, bending and digging done while on the allotment can be excellent for strength building. Guidelines state that adults should ‘undertake physical activity to improve muscle strength on at least two days a week’.

Of course, not everyone has easy access to a garden and finding a vacant allotment can sometimes be harder than rooting out truffles. There are a handful of community gardens are scattered across the country, however, and many towns have countryside volunteering opportunities (the Wiltshire Council website has listings).

Ultimately, the sun really does shine on green-fingered types: people who garden are generally healthier, feel stronger and are more positive than their neighbours who don’t. There is now even some evidence to say that gardening can help you live longer. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be tamping down the rose beds than pushing up the daisies any day.