Sue Stuart-Smith on Nature, Childhood and The Garden as Medicine

Summary

Podcast Summary: Homing – Sue Stuart-Smith on Nature, Childhood and The Garden as Medicine (May 7, 2026)
Host: Matt Gibberd | Guest: Sue Stuart-Smith (psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and author)
Location: Sue and Tom Stuart-Smith's greenhouse, autumn

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Overview

In this episode of Homing, host Matt Gibberd sits down with psychiatrist and acclaimed author Sue Stuart-Smith amidst the atmospheric backdrop of her greenhouse. The conversation explores the powerful, restorative effects of nature and gardening on both mind and body, drawing upon Sue’s personal history, professional expertise, and her ongoing community work through the Surge Hill Project. The episode delves into childhood attachments to nature, using the garden as a therapeutic space, green social prescribing, and practical tips for beginners and families seeking connection with natural environments.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Sue’s Professional Work and The Surge Hill Project

• Sue is both a practicing psychotherapist with Doc Health and the co-founder (with her husband Tom Stuart-Smith) of the Surge Hill Project, a community garden and events initiative.
• The project hosts local schools, children, and disadvantaged groups, offers social prescribing for people recovering from illness, and provides art therapy for those living with dementia ([02:42], [16:19]).
  • “We started a social prescribing initiative for people recovering from cancer treatment. We’ve got links with two local charities who regularly bring groups... another community group for people suffering from dementia and their carers. They do art projects with us.” (Sue, [02:42])

2. Nature, Childhood, and Play

• Sue reflects on her childhood in Wimbledon and her long-standing love of being outdoors, making strong connections between child’s play and gardening as forms of immersive, restorative activities ([05:41], [06:05]).
  • “I realized that when I was in the garden, in the veg garden particularly—which is sort of a bit more my patch—I had that same feeling like I had as a child being lost in play. You feel you’re in your own world, you feel safe... and your mind can just wander.” (Sue, [06:05])

3. Personal Story and Resilience

• The death of Sue’s father during her university years significantly shaped her life, eventually leading her from English literature to medical school, blending her interests in arts and science ([07:04]-[08:31]).
  • “I began to feel, particularly with my father dying... I want to be doing something, rather than writing about what other people are doing.” (Sue, [07:16])
  • “For me, I think this divide between arts and sciences, it’s such a sad thing.” (Sue, [08:21])

4. The Therapeutic Power of Gardens

• Gardening provides emotional release and future-oriented hope, particularly useful during periods of stress, grief, or burnout ([12:28], [14:06]).
  • “When we work with our hands, you’re able to sort of metabolize things, turn them over, work them through a bit. Just being in nature is de-stressing and calming.” (Sue, [12:28])
  • “The very act of working with the natural growth force and the cycle of life, intrinsically gives you a sense of something better to come, something good to come. You’re thinking about the future, when perhaps you’ve been very, very preoccupied with the past.” (Sue, [13:19])

5. Physiological Effects and Microbes

• Exposure to nature and gardening rapidly lowers stress markers (blood pressure, heart rate, cortisol). Soil contains Mycobacterium vaccae, potentially linked to serotonin release and mood elevation ([14:19], [15:03]).
  • “Within minutes, your blood pressure drops a bit, your heart rate settles down, your cortisol levels drop within about 30 minutes.” (Sue, [14:19])
  • “There’s one in particular, Mycobacterium vaccae, which has been linked to release of serotonin... It’s been shown in animal models.” (Sue, [15:03])

6. Green Prescribing and Social Wellbeing

• Social (green) prescribing is being actively piloted: GPs and community initiatives refer people to gardening as therapy, both as an alternative or adjunct to medication ([16:18], [18:08]).
  • “There’s a movement for green prescribing or green care... We have a social prescribing group in the plant library.” (Sue, [16:18])
  • “Sometimes I think people are—the prescription pad is reached for too quickly, so it’s always worth exploring what the alternatives might be.” (Sue, [18:08])

7. Neurodiversity and Accessibility

• Involvement of schools and groups for neurodivergent individuals (e.g., Sunnyside Rural Trust) shows the calming and integrating effects of nature for sensory challenges ([18:55]).
  • “Being out in a garden or in a natural setting is immediately much more calming and life becomes more manageable.” (Sue, [19:47])

8. Practical Guidance for Beginners and Non-Gardeners

• Suggestions for getting started: grow what you love (herbs, radishes, sunflowers, nasturtiums), start simple, sow seeds to observe the life cycle, window boxes for those without outdoor space ([27:08], [28:25]).
  • “Start growing things that you love... My way into gardening was through food. Start simple. Grow what you love.” (Sue, [27:08])
  • “There’s always window boxes or windowsills... Herbs are great. Even just getting out and joining a community garden.” (Sue, [28:25])
  • For kids: Give them their own small plot or make gardening playful and age-appropriate ([29:19]).

9. Community Greening, Civic Health, and Social Transformation

• The benefits of urban green initiatives (e.g., Incredible Edible in Todmorden), parks and gardens near social housing, and the historical precedent of Patrick Geddes’ window boxes—increasing community bonding, reducing crime, and promoting health ([30:17]-[32:15]).
  • “The scale of some of the effects that are seen from having a park next to, let’s say, social housing project... The difference that that makes is huge.” (Sue, [31:18])
  • “Just the difference a little bit of beauty makes if your surroundings are very bleak…it’s not to be underestimated.” (Sue, [32:15])

10. Place Attachment, Home, and Continuity

• Sue’s connection to place developed after moving to their barn-converted home, describing it as “the centre of my life” and recalling the water-bound memories of her childhood ([25:31], [26:37], [33:40]).
  • “I think we felt a bit like pioneers, really... I don’t think we felt like we were having to fit into... his family model, because we could make it up.” (Sue, [26:06])
  • “It’s absolutely the centre of my life. It’s kind of like the place I always want to come back to, and I don’t want to leave.” (Sue, [26:37])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “When I was in the garden, I had that same feeling like I had as a child being lost in play. You feel you’re in your own world... a sense of freedom, somehow, inner freedom.” - Sue ([00:03])
• “Just being in nature is de-stressing and calming.... The act of working with the natural growth force and the cycle of life intrinsically gives you a sense of something better to come.” - Sue ([12:28])
• “There’s a movement for green prescribing or green care... We have a social prescribing group in the plant library.” - Sue ([16:18])
• “I think the key thing is start growing things that you love. What got me growing was vegetables and, actually before that, culinary herbs, because I’d always loved cooking.” - Sue ([27:08])
• “The garden is absolutely the centre of my life. It’s a place I always want to come back to, and I don’t want to leave.” - Sue ([26:37])
• On community: “The most inspiring project... is the Incredible Edible Project in Todmorden... It’s transformed the townscape completely... planters everywhere, there are little veg plots which people can help themselves to.” - Sue ([30:21])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:03] – The freeing, immersive mindspace of gardening
• [02:42] – Introduction to Sue’s professional work and the Surge Hill Project
• [05:41] – Childhood play and early nature experiences
• [07:04] – Personal loss and pivotal life changes
• [12:28] – Tendencies of gardening: mind and body
• [14:19] – Physical, biological benefits and soil microbes
• [16:18] – Green prescribing and NHS social initiatives
• [18:55] – Gardening with and for neurodivergent people
• [27:08] – Starting points: how to begin gardening
• [30:17] – Community projects for urban and civic health
• [33:40] – Place attachment and connection to home

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Resources & Recommendations

• Gardening for Health (gardening4health.com): For exploring community gardening resources and green social prescribing ([17:24]).
• Charles Dowding (YouTube & books): On no-dig food gardening ([28:25]).
• Incredible Edible Project, Todmorden: Inspiring community gardens model ([30:17]).

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Tone and Atmosphere

The episode is warm, thoughtful, and conversational, blending personal narrative with practical insight and gentle humor. Background sounds from the greenhouse—buzzing aircraft, playful dogs—lend a subtle authenticity to the theme of reconnecting with the natural world.

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This summary is designed to help listeners glean actionable insights about the therapeutic potential of nature, the role of “home” in wellbeing, and practical ways to get started on a journey towards greener, more connected living—even if they haven’t heard the episode itself.

Transcript

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I realized that when I was in the garden, I had that same feeling like I had as a child being lost in play. You know, when you feel you're in your own world, you feel safe and you've got a sense of freedom somehow, inner freedom, and your mind can just sort of wander as well. I think that's a lot of what gardening does for people. You know, cardiovascular level. We know being out in nature, within minutes your blood pressure drops a bit, your heart rate settles down, your cortisol levels, your stress hormone levels drop within about 30 minutes. I think it's absolutely the centre of my life. It's kind of like a place I always want to come back to and I don't want to leave.

[Matt Gibbard]

Hello and welcome to the Homing Podcast. Hi, I'm Matt Gibbard. Today's guest is Sue Stewart Smith, psychiatrist and author of the best selling book, the well Gardened Mind. Her husband Tom was a guest on the podcast a couple of months ago. And today I'm chatting to sue in their beautiful greenhouse, surrounded by plants, with tendrils dangling around our ears. Sue's work, of course, explores the power of nature to make us feel better. She runs the Surge Hill Project, a garden and event space where local children and disadvantaged groups come to learn about the link between gardening and well being. Sue says that getting your hands in the soil helps you metabolise your thoughts and gets you looking forward rather than dwelling on the past. She talks me through the positive hormonal effects of gardening on the body and about the beneficial bacteria in the soil. This conversation took place in the autumn, just as their garden was about to tip over. She gave me a tour of her beautiful private gardens, including the veg garden and swimming pond. And we'll make that available to our members on Patreon, as always, because we recorded it in the greenhouse. You can hear the occasional light aircraft buzzing around and maybe a barking terrier in the background. But in a way that feels quite fitting, I think, because this is a conversation about stepping outside, tuning into the natural world and maybe finding a gentler rhythm. I really hope you enjoy listening.

Hi, Sue.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Hi, Matt.

[Matt Gibbard]

So just, could you just describe what you do for us? Cause obviously a lot of people will be very familiar with your amazing book, the well Garden Mind. But beyond the book, what else is it that you do professionally?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I still do some psychotherapy practice which is for a not for profit called Doc Health. It looks after doctors suffering from stress and burnout and depression and so on. And then my main role really is running the Project, the Surge Hill Project, which is a community interest company that I founded with Tom. We set it up about two years ago now. And we have a whole program of visiting schools, community groups. We've started a social prescribing initiative for people recovering from cancer treatment. We've got links with two local charities who regularly bring groups. Another community group for people suffering from dementia and their carers. They come on a seasonal basis and do art projects with us. So we've got a whole program, different kinds of connecting with different groups in the community. And I think we've had, in terms of school visits, we've had about six or seven hundred kids through the plant library and to the Athel house since we opened.

[Matt Gibbard]

It's amazing. It's very generous, I think, to open up your home in that way to the community.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Having written my book and having been very inspired by some of the projects I visited. And with Tom moving his studio back here, it kind of. It felt like it made sense. And I don't know about generosity. I think you could see it like that, but that's not how I would see it. I think. I think because you get back so much too.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. What do you get?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

It's very enriching, meeting lots of interesting people. Seeing kids who arrive down there sort of just open up. You know, it's like they arrive in a sort of, oh, nervous state and you can see they're stressed. We have a couple of pastoral care groups that come, and by the end of the visit, they're just. They're in a very different space. And all one can hope is that, you know, they may take away something from that. Something from being in connection with nature. Maybe they've been sowing seeds. Maybe they've been doing artworks inside. We often let kids choose their favorite flower from the plant library. And then they can go and we have some lovely Victorian, like inkwell specimen vases, so they can sit there with their own chosen flower and draw it or paint it, whatever they feel like doing.

[Matt Gibbard]

So I want to talk to you, obviously, about the, well, garden mine. But before we do that, can I just take you back to your own experience of being a child, because you referenced children there. What was your engagement with nature when you were young? Where did you grow up?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I grew up. I went to school in Wimbledon, so I spent quite a lot of time in Richmond park as a child, riding and so on. Did quite a lot of sailing. My father was a keen sailor. We had boats on the Thames various different times. Did a lot of dinghy Sailing as well as motor sailing. Always loved being outdoors. And I think the other thing that I sort of. One connection between childhood and for me and gardening is to do with play. Because I realized, you know, when I was writing the book, I really tried to analyze my. What was going on for me when I was gardening, because I'd never really noticed it particularly. I knew I felt better. But, you know, in the course of writing the book, I thought I've got to actually drill down into this and understand it. And I realized that when I was in the garden, in the veg garden particularly, which is sort of bit more my patch, I had that same feeling like a child, like I had as a child being lost in play. You know, when you feel you're in your own world, you feel safe and you've got a sense of sort of freedom somehow, inner freedom, and your mind can just sort of wander as well. I think that's a lot of what gardening does for people. Other things can do that too. Obviously play does it for kids. Creative crafts can do it too. Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

So when you're at university, you lost your father, is that right?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah, he died in my final year and he was ill on and off throughout my childhood.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay, how formative was that for you in terms of what you do now and did you get into gardening at

[Sue Stewart Smith]

that point or No, I didn't get into gardening immediately and it was very, very formative because actually I was doing an English degree. I was at Cambridge doing an English degree. And I'd always loved literature, but I'd also like the sciences at school and I'd not been able to study both of them at A level because of the timetable clash. So I went for the arts. And towards the end of my English degree, I was thinking I didn't quite know what I wanted to do there. I'd always thought I'd be a journalist and I'd done some journalism. And I began to feel, particularly with my father dying and spending a lot of time in hospital during that last year, I think I just began to feel I want to be doing something rather than writing about what other people are doing. Does that make sense? I want to be actually directly engaged and I want to work in some way with people. And I'd always loved biology and chemistry. So I went back having done my English degree and did A levels and then went to medical school in London.

[Matt Gibbard]

Wow. So that's quite a U turn.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

In some ways it was. In some ways it wasn't. I mean, it's for me, I think this divide between arts and sciences, there's such a. A sad thing. Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

It's a bit of an arbitrary one.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

It is an arbitrary one. Yeah. And. And of course, I always knew. I was always interested in the mind. I'd studied Freud rather strangely, as part of my English degree, and so I'd developed that interest. And I think going into psychiatry was, for me, very much as connected to English as it was to medicine.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Because you're always looking at people, hearing people's stories, you're always helping them explore their own stories.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's so interesting.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

You know, whether. Whether you become. I then became a psychotherapist as well. But even if you don't, as a psychiatrist, your first encounter with a patient is often quite long. It's usually an hour, an hour and a half, and you review their whole life history and sometimes you help people make connections that they've never seen before in their life. They've never sort of connected certain events with certain other events in their life.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's really interesting.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I didn't see it as a separate, very different thing.

[Matt Gibbard]

So what was the actual journey into becoming a psychiatrist then?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Well, it's quite a long training.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I did it part time.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

We had children by then. And, yeah, I was a student for a very, very long time. Somewhere along the way I did a PhD as well. So I really. I am quite a. I like studying, just like I liked researching for my book.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. So let's talk about your book, then, the World Garden Mind, which was a kind of huge bestseller. Were you expecting that?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

No, of course not.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. It's amazing, isn't it?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Why do you think it captured the imagination? And for those who aren't aware of it, could you just. Quick synopsis of it?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Well, it is a book about gardening. It's also a book about the mind. And I worked on it for about five years. I was still working in the NHS for a lot of that time. I did a lot of research I really wanted. I felt if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it really well and really properly. I felt a lot of what existed already about gardening and its benefits. It was saying all the right things many ways, but not really drilling down into the detail or kind of looking at some of the more. The deeper existential meanings that people get from working with nature. And I really wanted to understand that better. I'd grown up from my mother hearing the story of her father, my grandfather, who had been a prisoner of war during the First World War. In Turkey, he'd been captured. He was a very young man and he was really lucky to survive. Like something like 70% of prisoners of war didn't make it home, so. And he didn't talk about it much later, but she knew enough about it to sort of tell a bit of the story. So he recovered afterwards, having been very malnourished, very traumatised. Through gardening, he got the chance to go on a horticultural rehabilitation program. At that point, I didn't know where that was or what it had consisted of. And my mother was still alive when I started writing the book, so I went back and tried to find out as much as she knew. And then through my cousin as well, I found out a bit more. And then the Hampshire Gardens Trust helped me find the garden where he'd had that experience. Experience. And so that whole narrative is woven into the book and that was really important for me. Yeah, actually, yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

How would you describe that connection between physically tending a garden but also tending to your own inner life at the same time?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

So I think there are times in life when we have a lot to sort out internally, whatever the causes of that are. And I think that's when something like gardening can be really helpful. And I suppose I experienced that firsthand following a long period of stress in my work. And I really began to notice if I went into work on a Monday and I hadn't been gardening, it was still as if I was sort of carrying the whole previous week on my shoulders, you know, Whereas if I've been gardening, somehow along. Something happens in parallel. I think when we work with our hands, you're able to sort of, you know, metabolize things, turn them over, work them through a bit. Just being in nature is de stressing and calming. And I think just also, if you're feeling beleaguered and like, oh, everything's closing down, or you're losing something, or you've lost something. The very act of working with the natural growth force and the cycle of life, you know, intrinsically gives you a sense of something. Something better to come, something good to come. You know, it might not give you hope, but. Or you might call it hope, but at some level it's sort of getting you thinking about the future, when perhaps you've been very, very preoccupied with the past. What's been going on in far past or recent past.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. Is there a sort of flow thing to it?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Absolutely. But I think flow is such a broad term. I don't think flow is the only thing that's going on.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. So from a physiological perspective, what's happening in the nervous system and the brain when you're gardening?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Oh, I think lots of different things, but I think cardiovascular level, we know being out in nature, you quite rapidly, actually within minutes, your blood pressure drops a bit, your heart rate settles down, your cortisol levels, your stress hormone levels drop within about 30 minutes. And you can get that from being in a park. It doesn't have to be in a garden. Yeah, but I think the difference is the hands on in. Hands in the soil. We're getting also exposure to all the beneficial bacteria in the soil. And there are various theories about that.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, sort of micro. Is it microbes?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah, microbes. One in particular, Mycobacterium bacchi, which has been linked to release of serotonin. It's quite hard to demonstrate in humans, but it's been shown in animal models. And I do think this thing of actually being part of nature, I think we can recover our own sense of our sort of biological. The fact that we're a biological being too, you know, and we're one of many inhabitants in a garden.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yes, exactly.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

And, you know, and I think that's something people often experience quite intensely during the pandemic. If they were, you know, people who were lucky enough to have a garden and people spent so much long time in it and they suddenly realized how many birds visit and all the insects that are there, the butterflies and so on.

[Matt Gibbard]

So obviously the Japanese famously do forest bathing, don't they? Which is sort of walking in the woods and soaking in that. That very rich air that's in the woodlands. But would you. Would you say that you could even go as far as prescribing, gardening or being outside as something that will help people who are struggling? Is that. Is that a thing that one could do? I mean, do you.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I think it's happening already.

[Matt Gibbard]

Is it?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a movement for green prescribing or green care. We have a social prescribing group in the plant library and we set that up about six months ago. It took quite a while, you know, working with the nhs. A bit slow, but we've got it off the ground. And that particular group is for people recovering from cancer, cancer treatments. And, yeah, they come and they engage one afternoon a week in gardening and other activities. And, you know, part of that is the group effect. You know, they're often quite isolated and lonely and struggling, but a lot of it is also, you know, working with nature.

[Matt Gibbard]

So if somebody listening to this is Struggling in some way. Depression, anxiety, all these things that we do struggle with. What would you recommend to them, like where should they start if they're listening to this? How should they address nature in that way, in the right way?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Well, I think if you want to join a community group, find out what's in your local area. There's now a fantastic online resource called Gardening for Health with the digit 4.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Which was set up by Richard Claxton, who's the GP and is now the director of the National Garden Scheme. And. Yeah, find out what's out there and be brave and go and sign up. You know, if you've got your own garden, just. And you've been, you know, not very engaged in it, try and re. Engage.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. Do you think it's even. Would you go as far to say it could be an alternative to medication?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Sometimes I think that's one of the aims behind green prescribing and social prescribing. But it can equally be in addition to medication. It doesn't have to be either or. But sometimes I think people are. The prescription pad is reached for too quickly, so it's always worth exploring what the alternatives might be. Yeah. And there's some great examples of, you know, there's the Lambeth GP Food Cooperative in London, where a group of GPs have set up gardens within their own practices.

[Matt Gibbard]

Oh, wow. That's very cool.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

There's a lot of very interesting stuff going on.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, yeah. Have you seen any change in neurodiverse people and neurodivergence in terms of helping them, specifically through gardens?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

One of our most frequent school visitors is our local learning disability school. And we also work very closely with the charity Sunnyside Rural Trust, who help adults with various neurodivergent issues. And they have a little nursery behind, which you probably saw. So they're there five days a week, so. Absolutely. I think one thing is very well documented is that particularly for people who suffer from sensory overload very easily, so, you know, being in busy streets or noisy rooms is really hard for them. Being out in a garden or in a natural setting is immediately much more calming and life becomes more manageable.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

And they can sort of process their thoughts and feelings better. I think that's sort of quite well established now, but it's a pity it's not more. More available.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. In terms of you and your own well being, how often are you out in the garden?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

It varies enormously on the time of year, how busy I am, how much I'm traveling. I travel quite a Bit with the book still, because it's come out in something amazing, like 18 languages.

[Matt Gibbard]

So. Okay, so it's still coming out in different places.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

It's still coming out in different places, yes. The latest one was Croatia.

[Matt Gibbard]

Wow.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

It's out in Ukraine. I haven't visited Ukraine, but I've done quite a lot of online talks and events for Ukraine. So it does depend how much I'm here. But, yeah, I like to dip in. I don't like to lose contact altogether. And I'm still obsessed by sowing seeds. I always start in the early spring, sowing seeds inside the house because I like to watch them germinate.

[Matt Gibbard]

And is there anything else that you do in a sort of ritualistic way just for your own mind?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I'm not a very routine person. Yeah. I have to confess, I sort of. I like to, if I can, my best kind of day, often unfold in a slightly unpredictable way.

[Matt Gibbard]

How do they.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Because I can feel, I can respond to, you know, what the weather's like.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

So I'm not someone who will go for a walk at a set time every day. Yeah. But I might go out for a walk in the garden when the sun's out.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

And I'll wait for the sun to come out. Hope it coincides with a gap in my schedule.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's quite good. I mean, it means you're malleable, right?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yes. I mean, if I've got something to do, I do it. You know, as I writing my book, I was very disciplined about putting in good chunks of work, but I wasn't somebody who had to sit at my desk at sort of seven in the morning and do three hours. I like to wait for the inspiration as well.

[Matt Gibbard]

Is it the case that when you practice professionally, you also have to have done your own therapy? Is that true?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Absolutely. To be a psychotherapist? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think going back to the routine thing as well, the life of a psychotherapist is very timetabled.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

You know, you have your patients at set times. So I think there's always been something me when I'm not got that I still have that to some extent. You know, I have certain appointments that I have to. Then I really relish the freedom to think what, you know, I'll do whatever I feel like doing in the other time, whatever's calling to me to do.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of your own life, then, I mean, what's been the most difficult period for you? I mean, you know, it seems to me that if you help people Professionally in this area. It's also because you understand it at quite a visceral level yourself. So, you know, what have been your own experiences around it yourself.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I think recovering from losing my father was a big one and in some ways you never fully recover, but sort of learning how to live with it and make sense of it. He was only 47 when he died.

[Matt Gibbard]

Was he?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

And I was very close to him. So it was a big. It was a very big loss. And I think, you know, at different times in my life I felt it. But certainly when I had my own therapy, you know, that was a large focus of it.

[Matt Gibbard]

Was it quite out of the blue for you that then, I mean, him being so young.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

It wasn't out of the blue. He had a bone marrow disorder and he was ill on and off from when I was about seven.

[Matt Gibbard]

Oh, wow.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

So we knew he had this condition, but he was also a very fit, strong man. So you know, he had various health crises and then he always recovered. So you sort of think somehow he'll go on recovering.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

And then eventually it became clear that he wasn't going to.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. And what about your mum then? Tell us a bit about her.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

So my mum lived to the age of 92.

[Matt Gibbard]

Oh, wow.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

And after about 15 years on her own, she remarried. So she had another 20 year long marriage. My stepfather was wonderful. And so, yeah, I think, and she loved gardening and one of the things I really noticed in her after my father died, we moved to the Cotswolds and she took on a cottage which had a rather neglected garden, about an acre of garden. And I could see how much benefit she was getting in dealing with her mourning through all the sort of digging and clearing and replanting that she was doing. And I wasn't even really thinking about gardening then, but I noticed it.

[Matt Gibbard]

So thinking about this place, your home, you've been here since your 20s?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yep, I think I was 27. 27 when we moved here, yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

So this is Tom's family estate. His grandfather bought it originally in the 1920s, so he's obviously got a generational sense of belonging to this part of the world, this area, this plot of land. But for you, you've had to acquire that. So what was it like for you when you first moved here? Did you feel like you were moving to Tom's family house or.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Strangely not, actually, because we used to go and stay with his parents before we moved here and that did feel like obviously being. We were in his family home, in his parents home, you know, we were so fortunate to have this chance to convert a barn with a lot of help from his parents, physical help as well as financial help. You know, it was starting from scratch, both the house and the garden. So I think we felt a bit like pioneers, really.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I don't think we felt like we were having to fit into, or I was having to fit into, you know, his family model, if you like, because we could make it up.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. Well, you basically created everything from scratch, actually, haven't you? The garden and then the house?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Pretty much, yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's amazing.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah. Which is an incredible opportunity, actually.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah, it's amazing.

[Matt Gibbard]

So after many years here, now, how would you summarize what this place means to you and its place in your life generally?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I think it's absolutely the centre of my life. It's kind of like the place I always want to come back to, and I don't want to leave.

[Matt Gibbard]

So we've heard a bit about your story and I'd love to actually take from that. Something practical.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

That people can take away with them. So if you were to. I suppose if someone's listening and, you know, they've never done gardening before and they understand from this that it's a beneficial thing for them to do, where do you think they should start?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I think the key thing is start growing things that you love. So what got me growing was vegetables and actually before that, culinary herbs, because I'd always loved cooking, so that was my way into gardening, was through food. So, you know, people sometimes say, oh, if I grow sort of almost like, if I grow pink flowers, will that be better for me than if I grow white flowers? I think you just grow. You know, we all love different colors. I love blue, you know, so I'll often grow blue flowers. But it doesn't really. It's just grow what you love.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

And I think if you really are beginning, start with things that are fairly simple.

[Matt Gibbard]

Like.

Like what kind of thing?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Well, if it's food, I think start with radishes or. And grow some sunflowers or nasturtiums. I mean, nasturtiums. You can't go wrong. Yeah. So I think just start simple, you know, don't go to the garden center and buy loads of things. That meant, you know, they may not have been looked after particularly well. And then you. You think because they don't flourish, it's your fault. You know, Start growing things from seed. Start growing things from seed and then you see the whole life cycle.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. And what about if they don't have any outside space. What are the options then?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I think, you know, there's always window boxes or windowsills.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, herbs are good.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Herbs are great. Yeah, I grow lots of herbs and, you know, I think just, even just getting out and, you know, joining a community garden or, you know, get on the waiting list for an allotment. Although some parts of the country that you could almost be in, you know, a pensioner by the time you come up, it's on the waiting list about 40 years long, I think. Yeah, yeah. But in some parts of the country, actually they're quite good, so don't assume that. So I think, and I think there's so much available online now in terms of, you know, look at Charles Dowding, if you're interested in growing food, his no dig methods and he's got loads of really good videos. There's just the great thing about gardening is there's always stuff to learn.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. So what about kids, then? How do we get kids into it?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Kids, yeah. Well, that's what we're doing a lot of, actually. I think you have to make it fun and give them their own little plot, if you can.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. I read a very depressing thing recently, which is that on average, children in the UK spend less time outside than people in prison, which is 45 minutes.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I quote that in my book, actually.

[Matt Gibbard]

Do you quote it in your book? Yeah. I mean, it's ridiculous, isn't it? 45 minutes. So less than 45 minutes a day. Children are outside. I mean, I guess the step one is just take them to the parks on top.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I think so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And playing outdoors, exploring. I'm passionate about children's need to play.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. And what about overall sort of community initiatives to green the streets and to. Yeah. Just generally help people on an everyday level, just engage with nature. I mean, is there anything on that front that you can think of?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I think the most inspiring project which I write about in the book is the Incredible Edible Project in Todmonden outside Manchester, which started in 2008 and sort of has transformed the townscape completely. And, you know, there's just planters everywhere, there are little veg plots which people can help themselves to. So I think. And it's really made a big difference to the community, the sense of community there. And schools, it's got the schools gardening. So I think, you know, I think you start little bit, little by little. So I think greening in cities is a public health issue. If you look at impact of green space and the impact of not having green space. It's really quite, quite significant. When I researched the chapter called Nature in the Cities for my book, I was actually absolutely staggered by the scale of some of the effects that are seen from having a park next to, let's say, social housing project. If there's a park or if there are gardens, the difference that that makes is huge. And there's some very, very compelling research done in places like Chicago, Philadelphia, on reducing crime, increasing, well, being, even reducing diabetes and obesity. I mean, it's across the spectrum, people are just healthier and actually behave better.

[Matt Gibbard]

Well, there's that thing called broken windows theory, isn't there? Do you know that one?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Which is that obviously, you know, if the built environment is a bit shambolic, it perpetuates that kind of behavior.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think if the built environment is in a slightly deteriorated state, you can actually do an awful lot by, you know, by planting flowers.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

You know, one of the people I think was a real pioneer of all this was Patrick Geddes, who before the First World War was working in the old town in the tenements in Edinburgh. And one of the first things he did was to get people to make window boxes and sew annual flowers in them. Yeah. And, you know, just the difference a little bit of beauty makes if your surroundings are very bleak.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

It's not to be underestimated.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. So interesting. I want to ask you quickly about attachment theory. So some people might know attachment theory, but it's the idea that your relationship with your primary caregiver, usually your mother, in some way dictates your attachment style, which is how you react in relationships, moving forward and so on. But there's also something which I'm really fascinated by, which is place attachment.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Which is the idea that alongside attaching to our mother, we also attach to the place that we're brought up in. Yes, yes.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

In the context of you and your own life, can you describe your own place attachment? Because I'm really interested in that whole field. You know what? Like, where do you feel that you belong? If you see what I mean?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Well, I think I've lived here so long now, I do feel I belong here. But I think we used to, as kids, we used to sleep on our boat on weekends on the river. We'd go up and down the River Thames. And so I do love that. I like being on boats, too. I like being on the water. I like being near the water. So I love our pond.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay. Was that your idea, then, the pond?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

No, it wasn't, actually. It was Tom's idea.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah. I didn't really anticipate how much the pond would come to mean in that way.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's interesting.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

So you said when we were walking around that you're not a massive fan

of the cold water.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Of cold water, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Of getting in in winter, yes.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how does the pond play into your life? I mean, do you. Do you.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Well, it's just so beautiful to gaze at the water.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, yeah. What kind of wildlife has it attracted, then, the pond?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

In summer, it's thriving with dragonflies and all sorts of things and lots of birds. There's a wonderful heron that comes and visits. We've got various ducks that come. We've had ducklings, which is very exciting. I think the fox has got them each time, but it's just a really calming place to go and be. So if I do a walk, when I do a walk, it's always part of that, is to go and sit by the pond.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, it's lovely. So, moving forward, then, what are your plans for this place and how do you see it evolving over the next few years? Indeed, if at all. I mean, do you feel like you're in a good place now, or what do you think it will look like in five or 10 years?

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I think we are in a good place. I said to Becky Finchen, who is our head of programmes at the surgical project, that I felt, you know, we'd done a lot in the last 15 months. In a way, I think the next year is about consolidating that and coming to feel, you know, we know we can deliver all of this. I'm always wary of sort of trying to grow something too fast, but we do want to do more and we are doing this outreach work, which I think is really important. I love the idea of kids coming and sowing seeds or potting things on, and then we can look after them for a bit and then they can go back to the school and there can be this sense of continuity, literally a sort of thread that goes between the garden here and the school out there.

[Matt Gibbard]

I really admire what you've done here. I think it's really amazing. I've had such an inspiring day.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

I'm really glad.

[Matt Gibbard]

And it's really, really nice to talk to someone in a greenhouse, which is a first for me as well.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Matt Gibbard]

So thank you very much, Sue.

[Sue Stewart Smith]

Not at all. Thank you. Thank you.

[Matt Gibbard]

Thanks very much for listening, folks. If you're interested in gardens in particular we've got some great garden tours to watch on Patreon including Sue.

So sue showed me around her private

garden which is not usually available including the vegetable garden and an amazing prairie that Tom's planted and also the private gardens that run around the edge of their house. Tom Stuart Smith previously took me around their community garden and plant library which sue talked about today and that's well worth a look as well. And of course we've also got Dan Pearson's incredible private garden in Somerset as we move into spring and summer here in the uk. There are also lots more high profile guests from the gardening world coming up very soon which we're filming right now

so you'll find all of those videos

and lots more and more at patreon. Com homingwithmat this episode was produced by Podshop with music by Simeon Walker. Thank you very, very much for being here.

I really do appreciate it and I

will talk to you on the next one. Bye for.