Even the most reluctant gardener (or rambler) is more likely to venture out at this time of year. Many plants and flowers emerging, fresh leaves on the trees, roadside verges high with cow parsley. Yes, gardening can be fun, but also back-breaking, frustrating, a losing battle to stop weeds and bugs taking over – or maybe the secret is to think again. I discovered a piece of RHS research which last year found that one way to improve wellbeing might be to garden more naturally and sustainably, allowing wildlife to thrive. Gardeners who let wild flowers and grasses grow, who weeded rather than spraying, and who encouraged wild creatures, were found to have better levels of wellbeing.
Maybe the luxuriance of grasses and wild flowers taking root, like during No Mow May, lifts mood as you see nature’s fulsome exuberance bursting out. Maybe doing something different with your garden in this way is a welcome stimulus – think the serendipity of seeing what grows when you loosen your hold. And maybe it’s that very letting go that’s positive, even liberating. Let nature do its thing, stop fighting. Not giving in, but giving back. Actively choosing to let nature in, not passively feeling you’ve failed to rescue your garden from nature. Seeing it from that different perspective makes cooperating with nature an empowerment.
Or maybe it’s the sheer time spent at nature’s level that helps, as you weed and tend. Another 2024 study found that how we perceive time slows when we’re outdoors interacting with nature. With time anxiety now a common issue, overshadowing more and more lives, it has to be good news that being in nature slows us down. The research was entitled “Time Grows On Trees” and conducted by Canadian researchers, who concluded that walking in a park felt slower than walking in a city street. This helps improve mood, lessen tension, and make people more reflective, thinking ore deeply and longer-term, so that they are more likely to plan and attain goals. It’s surely all about perspective, nature opening up different perspectives, where our everyday tasks and worries fade into the background for a little while. Nature’s time patterns feel very different, with none of the rush and bustle of traffic or phone notifications, and that may gradually rub off on us the more time we spend with nature.
Other research has compared the diverse impacts of particular natural environments or settings or ecosystems. For example, walking along country roads can boost wellbeing as you see wild flowers and grasses in the verges (like in a sustainable garden) but also by encouraging rhythmic, steady walking, which is known to improve memory and learning. Walking by the sea is thought to lessen depression and other inflammatory issues and conditions, by breathing in chemicals that sea air naturally contains.
Maybe variety and diversity in the garden is important too. Any truly sustainable garden will be varied and diverse, simply because that’s the best way to encourage as many species as possible and to foster a balanced and healthy ecosystem. Different plants will all have different impacts on our wellbeing too, creating a rich whole.
Medley 