Nature based therapy for the Armed Forces community

See our gardens
Two women digging and planting a tree in a garden or field with tall plants and a small shed in the background.

Welcome

DGS creates spaces where people can heal, learn, and grow together.

Rooted in nature and guided by evidence-based practice, our gardens provide resilience and recovery courses for the Armed Forces community, training for therapists, and a model of social value that connects People, Place and Purpose.

Whether you're seeking support, partnership, or a way to give back, you'll find a place with purpose here.

Work With Us

Our Mission

The Defence Gardens Scheme harnesses the restorative power of nature to support the recovery and resilience of the Armed Forces community.

Through structured horticultural therapy, specialist training, and partnerships across health, environment, and heritage sectors, DGS helps the Armed Forces community find wellbeing, connection, and renewed purpose.

Illustration of an orange flower with a dark center and a green stem.
An elderly man wearing glasses, a blue cap, and a dark blue jacket, smiling while sitting in a garden surrounded by plants, flowers, and gardening tools.

What we do

Bringing people, place, and purpose together through three core strands of work

Programmes

Partnerships

Research

Two elderly men gardening outdoors in a sunny backyard, planting or tending to garden beds with leafy green plants.

Programmes

DGS delivers nature-based recovery programmes and wellbeing workshops that support the mental health and wellbeing of the Armed Forces community, led by trained horticultural therapists in restorative garden settings in the community and inside prisons.

Evaluation of the impact of DGS service delivery, illustrates that participants develop the skills and resilience to help themselves and others and to better manage their long-term mental and physical wellbeing. Participants are given the skills and coping mechanisms that enable them to more successfully manage their lives and the 'attachment skills’ they need to healthily engage with themself, family and community and to share their journey and this crucial learning in very practical ways. In short it has a significant development effect.

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A group of people sits in a circle in a wooded area by a creek, participating in an outdoor meeting or gathering. They are seated on benches and tree stumps, with some looking toward a woman sitting cross-legged in the center.

Partnerships

DGS collaborates with the MOD, NHS, defence organisations, and environmental partners to deliver social value, build community resilience, and demonstrate the wider benefits of green care.

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A person using a shovel to turn soil in a garden bed.

Research

DGS works with universities and clinical partners to measure impact, share best practice and strengthen the evidence-base for social and therapeutic horticulture.

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Grow Resilience

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Cultivate Connection

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Aid Recovery

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Grow Resilience → Cultivate Connection → Aid Recovery →

A bright green, irregular scalloped shape with multiple curves.
A person planting a lettuce seedling in the soil of a garden while wearing gloves and kneeling on the ground.

A place for everyone

Whether you are a member of the Armed Forces community seeking support, a partner or potential a partner organisation, or someone who believes in the power of nature to change lives — there is a place for you in the Defence Gardens Scheme.

Together we can grow resilience, recovery and connection across Defence.

  • "DGS-is providing fresh air, friendship and gardening, an invisible medication."

    —Veteran, Summer 2025

  • "Over the course of the programme, they get stronger in every way - a massive part of this is that Veterans start to become a team and have conversations."

    —Garden Manager, 2024

  • "The best part is the people, I am mixing with people and everyone here is the same. We're all in the same place so we don’t have to explain ourselves to anyone, we can make the same jokes and no one bats an eye. I was very isolated before the programme but have experienced a complete transformation. I’ve made friends here so I can now expand on this socially and feel confident to meet new people."

    —Veteran, Autumn 2023

  • "It’s therapy without labels, and we don’t do labels"

    —Veteran, Summer 2020

  • "My husband going on the programme changed my life. I wanted my husband to get his confidence back and it helped me in the way that I am living through what he is living through, and it was also beneficial to our other family members."

    —Veteran, Autumn 2023