For a lot of people, the search for wellness is an every day activity. Many people struggle with poor mental health, and it's not as easy as just 'seeing a therapist' and then moving on. Granted, that might be one step that is helpful for some people -- not everyone.
So what's this got to do with horticulture? Well, there are numerous studies linking plants (period) with mental health, more importantly, improving mental health. In fact, a study in 2013 (1) showed that just being around plants can improve your mental health, not even gardening! Often times, exercise is prescribed as a form of treatment, since serotonin and dopamine are released while you're exercising. However, gardening can be used as a substitute for a trip to the gym, since those same chemicals are released!
Similarly to happiness, a chemical called cortisol is lowered. This chemical is also associated with stress, leading to the conclusion that gardening can also help with anxiety or stress. And all that work in the garden may be tiring, but it also helps you to get better sleep at night!
Overall, this information (and plenty of studies) shows that gardening, or being around plants in general, lower the symptoms of depression, and promote good mental healing... which is a great first step to good self care and mental health.
There are also lots of studies that talk about the effects of gardening on people who have eating disorders as well as people with ADD. While gardening helps with anxiety and depression -- which consequentially helps those with eating disorders -- the act of growing your own food also helps those with eating disorders. It's the feeling of doing the work for the food that helps, creating a beneficial relationship with food instead of an unhealthy one. It's healing. As for ADD, there are studies done showing that (even though medication is still needed in some cases) children with ADD that spend time in the garden see a reduction in symptoms of ADD. It's seen as a great first step.
Actually, there are tons of health benefits that come along with gardening/horticulture, spanning outside the realm of just mental health. In fact, in a study done with elderly people, it was found that those who gardened had higher bone density than those who merely exercised. Higher bone density means stronger bones and less bone breaks, which tends to be a huge problem with older people, especially older women.
Beyond the scope of just one person, gardening impacts entire communities -- or like, the world. Planting gardens helps the environment -- duh. It helps with the climate, which is sort of whacky right now, and just makes the world look a little bit nicer, and who doesn't want to live in a prettier world?
There's also this huge thing right now about something called the heat island effect. The heat island effect revolves around the fact that cities are hotter than more rural areas, kind of creating this 'island of heat' within the cities. Why? Well, look at the cities. There are these huge, glass and metal buildings. They're reflecting sunlight onto the ground, which is black asphalt and absorbs the sunlight and then just radiates heats... it's all just making a big, hot mess. With the addition of all the city traffic and pollution, the temperature just... rises. Also, how often do you see greenery in cities? Maybe a few sidewalk trees, maybe a few little baskets of flowers... but not much, right? The lack of plant life in cities also contributes to the heat island effect, since plants do this thing called 'evaporative cooling', where they take up water and then release it through respiration as water vapor, thus cooling down the environment.
If we planted 'green roofs', and a lot of cities do, we would be able to greatly reduce the heat island effect! Now, it's not a literal green roof, that'd be silly. Instead, a 'green roof' is just a rooftop garden of sorts -- a bunch of plants planted on top of a building. This raises the amount of water vapor and in turn cools the temperate of the city back down. This also saves those building tons of money, since it lowers the need for AC and cools down the building itself. It's almost a self maintaining city... as long as you remember to water the plants.
At the end of the day, there are a dumb-stupid amount of benefits to gardening, spanning from mental health to the whole world. It's kind of crazy, and genuinely, I don't see any reason not to garden. Or at least go on a walk through a park once and a while. Personally, I've had my battles, and keeping up with my indoor houseplant garden has really helped. Even it's just a placebo effect, it's nice to feel like I'm taking a breath of fresh air -- literally. And... it's kinda just cool to live in a little urban jungle, ya know?
Some more in depth (and smarter) research on this topic:
(1) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612464659
(2) https://www.epicgardening.com/mental-health-benefits-of-gardening/
(3) https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/urban-heat-island.htm
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