Community gardens as sites of solace and end-of-life support: a literature review

In a pilot project, members of a community garden explored how they might provide better end-of-life support for their regional community. As part of the project, a literature review was undertaken to investigate the nexus between community gardens and end-of-life experiences (including grief and bereavement) in academic research. This article documents the findings of that review. The authors discovered there is little academic material that focuses specifically on community gardens and end-of-life experiences, but nonetheless the two subjects were seen to intersect. The authors found three points of commonality: both share a need and capacity for a) social/informal support, b) therapeutic space, and c) opportunities for solace.