How Gardening Is Good For Your Mental Health Well-Being

Spring is here! Yay! I love spring. It’s my favorite time of the year. Everything is so lush and green. The flowers are blooming, cool nights, trees are budding, beautiful perfect weather. And the days are getting longer. It’s so beautiful.

Part of my adopting a healthy lifestyle, not only included dietary changes but also looking for ways to stay active physically and activities that are also good for my mentally.

I was never into gardening. I enjoy flowers and plants, I think they’re absolutely beautiful. I had decided my life was too busy for gardening. My idea of gardening was planting flowers in a few pots and putting them on the front porch.

A few years ago my neighbor wanted to thin out her hostas ( I had never even heard the word hostas) so she planted some in my flower beds. I was amazed and pleasantly surprised how much beauty just a few hostas added to my landscaping. That was the beginning of my new hobby, gardening. I absolutely fell in love with it, from that moment on I was hooked.

It’s hard work, which is good physical exercise. Physically, lifting and carrying heavy bags of mulch from my car to the backyard; digging in hard ground, carrying heavy bags of top soil, potting soil, and bags of cobblestones. Whew! What a workout. Talk about burning calories! ….

Not only is gardening a good physical workout, I also discovered gardening was also good for my mental health. My secular job can be very stressful. I found gardening to be a good outlet and relief for my stress. Seeing the results of all my hard work and all the beauty from gardening and working on my landscaping; I find it refreshing and mentally relaxing.

So Yay! Spring is here. I’ve already been bitten by the gardening bug by planting just a few plants that are hardy and can survive a cold snap, until it eventually stays warm. I’m looking forward to mid May when I can plant even more.

I got curious why gardening is so good for our mental health, so I did research and this is what I found. According to “Thrive, using gardening to change lives,”….

Looking after plants gives us a sense of responsibility
Gardening allows us all to be nurturers.
Gardening keeps us connected to other living things.
Gardening helps us relax and let go.

Yes! Gardening can help you feel better

Research shows that gardening for people with mental health problems can improve communication with others, help with learning new practical skills/teamwork and planning. It also improves confidence and helps with concentration.

Gardening has really helped to change the way I feel.

Ask any gardener why they enjoy gardening and many will say that it “makes them feel good”.

Gardening can help your emotional well being and can help you feel happier, healthier and more confident.

I have found gardening to help me when I’m going through a difficult period in my life or experiencing stress and anxiety.
I love gardening because it’s great physical exercise and gets me outside in the fresh air and I feel a sense of achievement for all my hard work.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of my flower gardens.

This is a picture of my shade garden with a different variety of Hostas, Impatient’s and a ground cover called Nettle ( if my memory is correct, lol).

Hosta Shade Garden

This next picture below is another one of my shade garden. I love the color contrast of this variegated

hosta with the Hydrangea

The next picture below is of my original Hostas that started my gardening journey

Hosta garden

This next picture is Delphinium. I love the blue color. I try to add a variety of colors to my garden; pinks, blues, red, orange.

The next picture is of my Gladiolus. They were suppose to be white, what a wonderful and unexpected surprise to see they came up in three different colors, white with pink around the edges with a hint of yellow. Gorgeous!