Meet the GP taking her surgery to the garden

"When I'm in the garden, I'm not Dr Taheri. I'm just Susan."

The NHS GP created the garden at the Bow Medical Practice, in Devon, in 2022 after she "recognised the benefits of gardening" and wanted to share them with her patients.

"Consulting rooms, clinical settings present so many barriers," Dr Taheri said.

"The joy of being in a garden is that I'm usually dressed somewhat less formally, often covered in mud or rain-soaked, and so we are automatically on a different footing."

Dr Taheri prescribes the garden to patients as a "therapeutic activity in a friendly and supportive setting" and said since 2022 about 100 patients had benefited.

"I see lots of conditions that the garden lends itself perfectly to... the issues around mental health, mental wellbeing, anxiety, low mood, particularly where individuals have become a little bit isolated or cut off," she said.

"I think of all the people who come to the garden I'm probably the biggest advocate because I just feel that I have benefited the most.

"At the time that I set up the garden or thought about setting up the garden, I was really at a turning point in my career."

She admitted feeling "probably a little bit burnt out" before she started using the garden.

"I felt very frustrated at being so far downstream from the kind of conditions that brought people in to see me and I just didn't feel I was helping as a doctor," she said.

"The garden has restored my love of medicine, my love of general practice and I feel that I'm practising what I preach, because gardening, and time in nature has always given me great solace and comfort."

Chris, a patient who was prescribed the garden, said: "I think I will always feel a bit anxious for different reasons, but it [the garden] has made me feel a lot better.

"It gets you out of the house and gives you a sense of belonging.

"When you talk to your doctor in the surgery, she's a doctor, and you don't let yourself go, [tell her] what you're feeling, whereas outside you can have a natter, you're mates."

Emma Fuell, the project's green social prescriber, said she had referrals from GPs, food banks, churches and people who self-referred so they could "spend time in the garden... if they are struggling".

Michael Robins, another patient, said: "It's a nice place to come to, because it gets you out of your mind, the outside world didn't exist.

"All your worries of life doesn't exist here.

"When I go home, my wife says I talk a lot more, I'm more confident and back to my old self when we first met.

"Nature has a great way of healing and showing you how to be."

He said the team behind the project were "lifesavers".

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