Does gardening make you happier?

Cher_Alumni

The team at Thrive have produced an abundance of resources based around the topic of gardening and benefits to mental health.  In today’s thread we share some of these with you and ask: does gardening make you happier?

 

Gardening as the route to zen?

Thrive are passionate about using gardening to bring positive changes to the lives of disabled people and just recently we shared a thread asking if our members wanted to do more gardening to which many said they did!

The reasons given included its positive effect on mental wellbeing, enjoyment from seeing plants and flowers grow, and relaxation from pottering about.   

How can gardening be good for mental health?

Thrive have done lots of research and work around increasing emotional wellbeing through gardening.  You can read more about this by visiting the following Thrive webpages:

• Why gardening is good for your mental wellbeing

• How your garden can be an antidote to stress

• 5 ways to wellbeing through gardening

• 3 ways gardening can help you flourish

Over to you:

• Have you spent much time gardening lately?

• What does gardening do for your state of mind?

• What bits of gardening do you most enjoy?

Let us know in the comments below and feel free to send us pics of your garden! (We love to see it  )

callumchilled

I’d say gardening is great way to relax, enjoy the outdoors, feel proud when your little planted babies bloom and blossom. I only have a back yard, but I’ve made the most of it, and it is burgeoning with plantlife. I love to tend the plants, and see how they’re doing, and in the evening, sit out among them with a G&T.

leeCal

I planted an apple pip this year and it’s grown over ten inches into a pert little tree. It’s given me a great deal of joy nurturing it and watching it thrive. Wonderful ?

Duninn

started started with three planters and a Rhubarb - made apple rumble, the creation of crumble helped exercise fingers and it tasted great so did it again and again and again. Don’t like gooseberries - mistake but they’ll feed the Squirrels!   

Tori_Scope

I don't have a garden sadly, but I do have some cacti in my room that I tend to. I also have a grow your own cactus kit, which I've been meaning to start for ages!

I expect to be sent some delicious crumble @Duninn  

Ayoung1979

I've started getting seeds and plan to plant them in our yard next year

PlainSailing

As well as making you happier it’s so good for your mental health and wellbeing. Even if you don’t have your own garden going outside and spending time in nature, observing how things have grown and developed is so so good for us. As is saying hello to people you see while out, whether it is from your garden, while walking or on your way to the shop. CC just getting outside is crucial 

rudolf

I like growing vegetables and find it very therapeutic. I’m not in the position to grow much at the moment but I’m hoping to have use of an allotment.

mossycow

(picture is of me, a brown haired, 40 year old person who is usually sat down either on a wheelchair or a stool. My garden is green with all sorts of random plants and flowers.there is a bench with a pink cushion on. I am smiling but sweaty as I've been working hard)



So good to see Thrive and Scope talking about outside space. After living in 3rd floor flats as students we were so happy to buy a little house that had a postage stamp of lawn at the front and a concrete parking space of a yard at the back. The hard work began to make usable outside space. I became a wheelchair user about 8 years ago and it's taken us a long loooong time to feel like we can call the spaces 'Our Gardens'. 

? ? ? 

And wow, so lucky that by the time Covid called we had outside space I could access. 

Yeah, darn right it makes me happier. 

I guess my view on gardening is a conversation I had with my botany loving but self confessed 'non gardener' husband...

He was watering the front garden and sighed with contentment... 

I said... " are you enjoying looking at the plants close up? Are you enjoying caring for a living thing? Are you enjoying making a beautiful space for your loved ones and for insects and birds?" 


"yes!" he said. 

'then Andy, you now love gardening! "

mossycow

However.

Gardening is something I feel can be very very hard for disabled people like us to get access to.

In our front garden I had to wait till we saved up, got help etc to make a better fence, level the ground, have it paved and buy containers I could reach into. We put all our resources into this and my late Grandad left a small amount which helped too.

But for 6 years it was a wasteland ?. I could even get put into it.

(our back was easier to get into and is a blotch potch of what I could manage... Still so hard)


So what I'd like to know is baring in mind that it's obvious getting into outside space is beneficial... How can we help each other to get it? 

Tori_Scope

That's lovely @mossycow I'm glad that you have an outside space you can tend for and call your own! I'm loving the picture too. 

PlainSailing

@mossycow

What a lovely way to remember your late Grandfather. 

It’s always good to have goals for what we want to achieve. I’ve been saving to make improvements to my garden. I know it’s often difficult to save but I’ve found I really appreciate the things I’ve done or bought when I have saved for them. 

Local gardening club members often swap cuttings and seedlings as well as great advice and it’s a great way to build local friendships too

caton189

I’m well aware I’m extremely lucky to have a) a garden at all, and b) one that’s a good size…. That said my physical (but mostly mental) health issues are my biggest hurdle when it comes to gardening. I have lived in the same (council) house for nearly 20 years now - staying in one place being a big part of my stability- and I think in that time that three times my garden has made it to finished. Then three times it has slid back into a mess! I have amazing soul that means everything grows enormously (especially the weeds!!) and when I’m not in a good way it’s all overwhelming. 

That said; when it’s going good it’s going great & it’s a lovely space to sit and just be… or bee? ?

caton189

Lol that should say “soil” not soul but hey! Who knows! 

mossycow

@PlainSailing ooooh yes! 5hats a great idea about local clubs and cuttings etc..

Luckily I had started in the back garden about 12 years ago so I had a few cuttings and bits to start me off. Hard over pandemic though isn't it!

@caton189 that's really cool that your soul makes things massive heehee.


I recognize that overwhelmed feeling very much. Yet at thr other end just planting a few bulbs of putting pita bird feeder is so satisfying isn't it. 

gaz1960

Unfortunately, having to give up my allotment/s, been on there about 15 years, but,due to(private),owner looking like wanting to build houses on land? Having to vacate the 2 joined plots i have. 

Luna51

The garden has been our saviour during the pandemic too, unfortunately it looks like a building site at present as we are re-turfing and laying a new patio area, but in between the chaos, we have pots of flowers thriving, mainly Dahlias, Lillies and Roses.
We have some Honeysuckle draping from the trellis above the patio doors and the little yellow and white blooms smell particularly lovely at night. 
We also have a newly planted (well, planted a year ago!) cherry tree which bore us exactly 4 cherries, unfortunately a female blackbird got to them  before I did, but that's just fine.. ?

I do admit to religiously watching 'Gardeners World' every Friday night, and I always feel pleased to see disabled gardeners creating and enjoying their beautiful outdoor spaces.
Listening to and watching Monty Don potter around his garden (Longmeadow) with his dogs Patti and Nell is my one and only weekly TV must.

Being in nature, gardening and growing things has become so important for a lot of us during the past 18 months, people have come to realise the power nature holds and its ability to help us heal and restore our well-being. 
I truly hope the trend of enjoying nature continues to 'grow' 
??????????

Dragonslayer

I'm not a gardener as such. I have my Bonsai tree and a strange green grass like thing I grew from seed. I have no idea what it is, but I like it. My wife on the other hand is a great gardener and has transformed both of our little front and back gardens. I just wish the weather here was better so I could sit out in them and enjoy them. ?