culture

Horticulture is largely divided into family horticulture, production horticulture, and facility horticulture.

The horticulture in families often includes growing of plants and tending of flowerpots.

The promotion of health through horticultural activities is called horticultural therapy in the professional field.

The therapy is a supplementary treatment method which trains mind and body and improves health by encouraging patients to take part in various horticultural activities like growing plants and enjoying the colours and fragrances of plants in the natural environment. It is said to have very important effects on promoting health and longevity and preventing and treating diseases.

In addition, although the work and exercise therapies, which are often adopted, have relatively rapid effects, they are so mechanical and repetitive that they are burdensome and boring to patients. But the horticultural therapy involves a variety of activities that are helpful to treating different functional disorders all together.

This therapy includes the plant cultivation activities such as fertilization, shaping and insect-killing, flower handicraft activities including flower arrangement in a vase, dry-flower making and flower decoration and visit to botanical gardens.

Researchers in a country discovered that when people conduct horticultural activities for 1 or 1.5 hours a day, they can improve their mental and physical conditions. It has been clearly confirmed that they become healthier three months later.

It was also found out that 30 minutes of horticultural activities per day were more pleasant than doing an exercise in a exercise room.

Proper horticultural activities and walking can reduce the risk of heart diseases and increase lifespan.

In a survey conducted by researchers on large numbers of people, the majority answered that horticultural activities improved physical constitution, and more than a half said that they felt refreshed after horticultural activities. In particular, it has been reported that arm and thigh muscle contractions have been alleviated from a constitutional point of view.

The horticultural therapy has a slower effect than conventional treatment methods, but its combination with medical treatment has a higher therapeutic effect, while requiring lower costs of treatment, having no side effects and having a wider application as garden plants are used.

These days, the horticultural therapy has been applied to urban gardening to ensure the interdependence and amalgamation of man, gardening and city, and new gardening fields such as horticultural therapy gardening, health gardening and patient gardening have been explored through collaborative research among experts in different sectors.