If you have ever been graced with the opportunity to set foot in a flourishing garden, let alone having had the opportunity to be a part of the reason that garden thrives, then you would know the peace of mind that it brings you.
Gardens have a way of bringing about a sense of peace that is indescribable. Being surrounded by nature, especially in your backyard, opens a world of serenity not many are afforded.
Unfortunately, many of us have not learnt the art of gardening, or we don’t make the time for it, be it because we never grew up with the privilege of being surrounded by plants, or we simply do not have the time and energy to garden after a long day of work.
However, it is becoming more important than ever not only for the average person to incorporate plants into their lives, but for the practice of gardening and its various avenues to become a practice that people are presented with so that they can gain access to green spaces to indulge in, be it a local park, a planter box hanging upon your apartment balcony, incorporating biophilic design within interior design, or simply applying urban greening practices when building and constructing new living and working spaces, or updating current buildings for the every-day person.
With environmental degradation progressing at a phenomenal rate at the hands of humanity, it is time that we as a population band together and learn the skills of old. It is time we got back in touch with our ancestral knowledge of what was once commonly practiced. Gardening is the gift bestowed upon us all to work alongside nature but still allowing room for self-expression and being able to provide for our personal needs.
For example, would you like to grow medicinal herbs that you can turn into remedies, or perhaps grow vegetables and fruits to help feed your family, or maybe you would like to grow a safe haven for endangered local wildlife, or maybe you just love attracting local birds and pollinating insects to your garden?
So many of us have become detached from the realities of what helps Mother Nature thrive. We have taken up so much space to satisfy our own needs and selfishly have disadvantaged the rest of the species that share this planet with us. Now is the time to act as stewards for the voiceless because, in essence, gardening is one of many solutions to our complex environmental issues that we face in the 21st century.
There are various benefits that come from gardening, and it doesn’t just revolve around restoring the environment on our own terms.
1. It is a form of meditation.
Gardening eases stress, slows down your heart rate, and brings about a sense of peace. You can even say it strengthens your mental and physical vitality.
2. It restores and brings beauty to repetitive and dull architectural design that has become outdated.
Have you ever driven through your home town or city and taken the time to become aware of your surroundings and the complete and utter lack of nature encompassing the surrounding environment?
It is the unfortunate reality of how we have come to lack respect for the benefits of having nature around us. Every day nature is destroyed in the name of so-called “progress,” but what I see is a repetition of outdated behaviours in construction and architectural design that favours working against nature rather than alongside it. For example, how many trees have been cut down rather than spared when new homes and sections of cities have been built?
But alas, not all is lost because gardening is one of many solutions we can take as a reactive measure to help restore and rebuild what was lost in the process of what I like to call regressed and outdated design.
3. It’s pretty to look at and the smell can be enticing.
Have you ever walked through a thriving garden that is filled with a variety of different species of plants and have just been in utter awe of what you are seeing? Or perhaps the smell of the plants’ volatile oils has made you take in a second deeper breath as you feel the release of your stress leaving your body?
Have you noticed a feeling of utter joy and amazement well up inside of you as you take it all in? This is your soul letting out a sigh of not only relief but pure enjoyment because we were built to be surrounded by nature in all its glory.
Gardening is one of our many tools in our toolshed that we can utilize to restore balance to our degrading urban landscapes. It’s the power we hold to not only take back our right to be wholly encompassed by nature, but to work alongside it through our battle of slowing down in a fast-paced world that puts a spotlight on profit before anything else.
To many gardening can seem like an overwhelming feat to accomplish. How many of us have let our plants down by our lack of attention and care, or just simply a lack of understanding of how plants grow throughout the seasons.
We have become so disconnected that the mere thought of being surrounded by plants can be too stressful for some so we choose to buy fake plants that can act as placeholders because many of us simply do not feel the need to put in the energy to care of our plant friends.
However, just like how we start at level one in some areas in life, there are plants designed for those who are at various levels of plant care expertise in the world. It all comes down to doing a little research and preparing a good setup for that plant to begin with and you’re good to go.
You will learn the rest as you go so just watch how the plant ebbs and flows throughout the seasons. Just pay attention to the plant’s needs and as soon as you’ve got one down, you can add another to your collection, and before you know it the gardening bug will have taken hold, and you with be enthralled with the magic of gardening.
If more people embraced the art of gardening, I truly think we would become more empathetic and patient beings. We are drowning in our stress, we have become terribly angry and impatient as a society because so many of us feed off instant gratification, but plants don’t work that way. They take time and a level of patience and understanding that only comes from paying attention, slowing down, and taking the time out of your day to understand what your plant needs from you to thrive.
But when your plant does thrive it can be so rewarding. You become almost obsessed with learning as much as you can about helping your plants to thrive that when you are looking at the nature around you, you almost feel a sense of responsibility to keep it clean and show it more respect than you once did before.
Too many of us pass by nature with a total disregard for what it needs to thrive. We throw down our cigarette butts that take decades to biodegrade, and as they do the BPA in the plastic poisons the soil. The same can be said for how we dump trash in our parks, rivers, beaches, and oceans, but if we felt some sense of responsibility for our own plants at home, we would start to grasp the bigger picture of how all nature needs a caring hand.
We would very likely become more responsible in where we put our trash and become more respectful of how we treat the plants around us, instead of using it as a dumping ground.
Picking up gardening is like unlocking a door or heeding a call to becoming a much-needed steward for planet Earth. It’s time we started listening and we picked up the spade, dug our fingers into the soil, and smelt the flowers waiting to grow in our backyards.
Just like plants we are colourful beings that thrive in different climates and conditions, we are resilient, but most of all we belong to nature, and she belongs to us. We just need to give her a helping hand and show that we do in fact care.
