Click below to listen to my 2 min Garden Bite radio show: The Well-gardened Mind
This week I interviewed a woman on her book, The Well Gardened Mind – the Restorative Power of Nature. Here’s the link to the interview
In it, Sue Stuart-Smith, discusses how her grandfather, a WWI British veteran, had nearly died as a POW in Turkey, made it back a shell of a man and how his gardens restored not just his physical health but his mental health.
It’s been well documented how being out in nature, tending gardens, growing flowers and vegetables, getting our hands in the dirt, has healing powers.
Interesting article here: Horticultural Therapy
From those who’ve lost loved ones to those who’ve suffered PTSD to those with physical disabilities to those who are healing from surgeries to those who are just having a hard day………… Get thee into the GARDEN! 😉
I really got into gardening after the death of my father and brother just a year apart. Gladiolas always remind me of my dad, they bloom around the time he died.
It’s not a sad memory for me but an acknowledgement that life goes on and in beautiful ways if we look.
As we are all going through so much collectively and individually during this pandemic, the garden has become a refuge for many more than ever before. The joy of planting a seed and watching it spring forth from the soil, grow and become that tasty vegetable or beautiful flower or towering tree gives us hope.
My father loved homegrown tomatoes and would grow them in buckets on the side of the house. After living in Australia, he became fond of the banana plant and started one in a big tub in Minnesota. Every year, he would lug that thing in and out of the house as the seasons changed. Drove my mom nuts! But there was something about it that brought him joy.
May you find JOY in your garden this weekend!
