What Makes a Garden a Healing Garden?

The interest in healing gardens has increased around the world. Several research disciplines and
professions deal today in different ways with healing gardens. However, do we define the healing garden
and its effects on the visitor’s well-being in the same way, or are we talking about different things? This
article consists of two parts. The first part discusses healing influences of healing gardens based on theories
and findings from the different research disciplines of environmental psychology, landscape architecture,
medicine, and horticultural therapy. The second part of the article focuses on the people the healing garden
is intended for. When dealing with healing gardens, it is fundamental to try to find answers to how and why
the human being benefits from being in a healing garden.