Gardening can do what medicine “tries to mimic” for mental heath, Monty Don has said as he spoke about his own struggles with depression.

The presenter and horticulturist has said that gardening is only just being explored as a treatment for mental health issues.

He said in his column for Gardeners’ World magazine:  “That first snowdrop, the flowering of the rose you pruned, a lettuce you grew from seed, the robin singing just for you. These are small things but all positive, all healing in a way that medicine tries to mimic.”

Mr Don has spoken frequently and publicly about his depression, and cited the natural world – and his dog – as great helps.

However, he has now spoken of his excitement for the future of research into gardening as treatment.

He added: “We know that gardening is good for you. It is fantastic, all-round exercise. That is easy to see and evaluate. It inculcates high levels of well-being. That is undeniable and needs little measurement. We know that it is extremely effective in alleviating and preventing mental illness. But, and this is quite a big ‘but’, almost all the evidence of gardening being an effective treatment or preventative of mental illness is empirical.

“We know too little about how it does this, why it does it and how much it does it. However, the exciting news is that serious money and serious people are now taking this empirical evidence very seriously indeed and it’s being researched in the way pharmaceutical or other conventional treatments are researched. This will cost many millions of pounds and take many years.”

“A £100 million boost to university facilities announced in today’s Budget is expected to spur on new research and forge closer links between academia and industry.

The cash injection of “new” money was warmly welcomed by Professor Eric Thomas, president of Universities UK and vice-chancellor of the University of Bristol. He described the investment as “extremely good news for students, universities and business”.

Details of how the money will be allocated will be decided at a later date. The fund is designed to encourage universities to attract more collaboration and spending from private sector industries and research charities.”

Still further evidence of the attractiveness of rural England from an R&D point of view emerging from the budget, is the decision linked to more positive tax approaches for multi-national companies, of Glaxo Smith Kline to bring forward over £300 million of new investment creating jobs, amongst other places, at world class factories in County Durham and to build a completely new plant in Cumbria.