The Mental Health Benefits of Gardening

“A man who plants a garden is a very happy man”
The Fantasticks
This is the season when many of us wonder why we maintain two houses. We buy van loads of cold drinks for descending visitors, try to resuscitate electric outlets fried by the winter’s cruelty, and mumble under our breath about traffic between our winter homes and the beach.
Although I enjoy the quiet of my weekly ride between the Philadelphia and Stone Harbor practices, friends often wonder aloud why we maintain a city residence and beach cottage. “You know you could just live in one place,” a large male friend counseled without invitation to give advice.
Simplify!” he decreed, then proceeded to zoom in on standard time management advice against the many hours I spend tending the brimming containers of flowers that summer on our back deck. “Buy flowers,” he insisted summarily. “Too much mess for too little gain.”
His position is not unfamiliar, yet our garden centers thrive. Efficiency experts do not good gardeners make. But you better believe that my passionate gardener cohorts applaud my obsession to plan the layout of the row of white PVC window boxes that John made for me for Mothers Day one year.
I drive to the beach, plotting that I will start my container garden with the perfect voluptuous raspberry Mandeville. Then I decide to snuggle it beside creamy white wave petunias. I resolve to complete the design with dots of lacey green tarragon shoots. And in the tall box John made for the cottage door, I will stuff a gallon of the French lavender that means summer to me. My heart fills with the happiness created by my own plans for filling what are, at present, worn white boxes.
Mr. Efficiency Expert, I have brain-bending news for you: The gardens of our lives provide us with the tools to nourish our mental health. They create joy. My modest cottage garden satisfies my legitimate need for visual delight while it entices my nose to pure pleasure.
It provides me with puzzle solving when August sun and wind turns the annuals brown. And the wisps of tarragon and parsley that live between their raucously colored neighbors grace our salads. This is sensual nourishment, plain and simple.
I began to love gardens when I lived in Europe in my 20s.
The charming window boxes and spectacular English gardens grabbed my heart. I vowed that every house I owned would sport a window box so, when I returned home to live in the states around 1970, I bought a window box for our apartment. And, I got lucky. I worked on the grounds of Friends Hospital, then a leading Horticulture Therapy center.
Horticulture therapy legitimately enabled patients with severe depression, addictions, and schizophrenia to receive treatment by tending to the Friends Hospital gardens.
They watered, weeded and fertilized wildly colored azalea hillsides exploding behind carefully tended walkways of yellow daffodils. The directors of the hospital were mental health pioneers who knew to prescribe growing plants as part of mental health treatment.
The good news is that you can provide horticulture therapy for your own life by tending your own modest garden. What are the benefits to your mental health? Many:
• Obesity has reached epidemic proportions. Bending, kneeling, reaching are good physical activities.
• Studies show that gardening creates stress reduction.
• Depression abounds in our world, making Antidepressants among most frequently prescribed medications. Concentrating on lilacs avoids anxiety filled thoughts. Planting your garden is a clever form of cognitive therapy.
• Research tells us that those who feel a strong connection to the earth describe a positive mental outlook, lowered stress and improved social interaction.
• Folks love to share stories of defiant snapdragons. Socialization heals.
• Your own personal form of horticulture creates double good: It helps you feel good and impacts the environment in a way that benefits others. Your flowers delight others.
Whether we call this therapy or fun, hope springs eternal in a garden. When I plant a tulip bulb I can see that plump red tulip in my mind’s eye, whether or not it ever actually blooms. This hope is based on my own personal competence in planting the bulb, and my coping ability in caring for it.
Diane Ackerman, the prize winning documentary journalist, tells us that we can make our paradise and achieve tranquility through contemplating the petals of a rose. A wise woman, she.
To consider: How can I design my life to be both ecologically astute and wildly pleasurable? If I do that, how much money am I saving on medical care by preventing disaster?
To Read: Diane Ackerman. Cultivating Delight: A sensual Tour of My Garden. Harper Collins. 2002. NY
(Coche of Stone Harbor educates the public in mental health issues. She can be reached at jmcoche@gmail.com or 215-859-1050.)