Engaging in gardening is associated with better well-being in older adulthood

An analysis of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 data found that older adults who engage in gardening more often tend to experience better psychological well-being, stronger physical function, and a 22% lower risk of death. Longitudinally, more frequent gardening was associated with slower declines in gait speed and a slower progression of cellular indicators of aging between ages 79 and 90. Comparing median values, frequent gardeners lived over a year longer than their peers not engaged in gardening. The paper was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

In modern times, people live longer than ever before, and as a result, the global population of older adults is increasing rapidly. Some estimates state that by 2030, one in six people worldwide will be aged 60 or over, and this number is expected to increase to over 2.1 billion people by 2050. Because of this, supporting healthy aging has become an urgent public priority.

Healthy aging means growing older while maintaining as much physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being as possible. The goal is not simply to live longer, but to live better. It does not mean avoiding all illness, because health problems naturally become more common with age. Instead, it means preserving function, independence, dignity, and quality of life for as long as possible.

Study author Janie Corley and her colleagues investigated whether gardening frequency is associated with baseline levels and long-term trajectories of a broad set of aging markers—psychological wellbeing, physical function, biological aging, and mortality risk.

They analyzed data from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921, a Scottish research cohort made up of people who were born in 1921 and who mostly lived in the Lothian region of Scotland, around Edinburgh. It is one of the longest-running longitudinal studies in the world, following individuals from early old age into their 90s with repeated health assessments. When the participants of this study were 11 years old, they took a national intelligence assessment (the Scottish Mental Survey of 1932). Since then, they have been re-tested several times, primarily throughout their old age.

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This particular analysis established a baseline using data collected from 1999 to 2001, when the study participants were approximately 79 years old. The researchers then tracked these individuals over the following 11 years (with follow-ups at ages 83, 87, and 90) to measure physical and biological decline, and tracked their mortality data for 25 years.

After excluding participants for whom gardening data was not available, the baseline sample consisted of 475 individuals. At the start of the study, participants were asked how often they engaged in gardening as part of a broader lifestyle questionnaire. Study participants also completed assessments of their quality of life (the WHOQOL-BREF) and psychological wellbeing (the 14-item Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale).

Trained nurses assessed the participants’ lung function, gait speed, grip strength, and functional ability (i.e., difficulties with basic and instrumental activities of daily living, using the 9-item Townsend scale) at ages 79, 87, and 90. Indicators of biological aging used in the study were assessments of telomere length (from the participants’ peripheral blood DNA) and DNA Methylation-based PhenoAge (a biomarker of biological aging based on age-related changes to DNA molecules extracted from blood samples). The study authors also tracked the mortality of the study participants up to 2025. By 2025, 469 of the 473 tracked participants had died; only 4 were still alive (and aged 103 years).

The baseline results at age 79 showed that more frequent gardening was associated with a higher overall quality of life and better psychological wellbeing. Individuals who reported gardening more often also tended to have better indicators of physical aging at 79 years of age—better lung function, faster gait speed, stronger grip strength, and higher functional ability.

Longitudinally, more frequent gardening was associated with a slower decline in gait speed over time. However, there were no associations with changes in lung function or grip strength over the years. Furthermore, participants who engaged in gardening more often tended to have longer telomeres at the start of the observation period and slower telomere attrition over time.

Telomeres are protective DNA-protein caps at the ends of chromosomes. They generally shorten as cells divide, which is why they are used as biomarkers of biological aging—older individuals tend to have shorter telomeres. Slower attrition means that the frequent gardeners were biologically aging at a slower rate than the non-gardeners.

Finally, a statistical model revealed that participants who engaged in frequent gardening had a 22% lower risk of death over the 25-year tracking period. Importantly, this survival advantage remained robust even after accounting for a vast array of confounding variables, including age, sex, education, social class, living alone, perceived neighborhood quality, existing diseases, and general physical activity. The fact that the benefit held up after controlling for general physical activity suggests that gardening offers unique, protective health benefits beyond simply burning calories.

Overall, the median age of death for participants who never gardened was 88.4 years, while it was 89.7 years for people who reported frequently engaging in gardening—an extension of over a year.

“Our results suggest that gardening may support wellbeing and longevity, with potential implications for aging in place for older adults,” the study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about the associations between gardening activities and well-being in old age. However, it should be noted that the observational study design does not allow definitive causal inferences to be derived from the results. It is possible that people who engaged in gardening more frequently were simply individuals who had better health to begin with, allowing them to engage in such physical activities. While the researchers attempted to control for baseline health and activity levels, the longitudinal changes observed could still be a reflection of the underlying factors responsible for their better health status, rather than a direct consequence of gardening.

The paper, “Gardening, healthy aging, and longevity: Longitudinal evidence from 25 years of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921,” was authored by Janie Corley, Alison Pattie, Sarah E. Harris, Ian J. Deary, and Simon R. Cox.