If you dig being healthy, then you will dig gardening. It offers numerous wellness-oriented benefits that help you thrive.
• Exercise: By squatting and lifting things like big bags of soil or mulch, gardening engages major muscles like your lower back, quadriceps, and hamstrings. Raking is a great core and upper-body workout. Using a trowel or spade strengthens your wrists, forearms, and biceps, while pruning shears are good for engaging fine motor skills. Overall, gardening provides functional movement that aids in everyday life.
• Moving Meditation: Repetitive actions such as weeding can serve as a form of moving meditation, stimulating your parasympathetic nervous system. This part of the nervous system is responsible for the “rest and digest” response, reducing cortisol production (a leading cause of stubborn belly fat), lowering blood pressure, and potentially helping to regulate blood sugar levels. Additionally, moving meditation connects you with your breath, producing a profound calming effect.
• Communing with Nature: Being in nature also helps you breathe deeper and more fully, which clears out your lungs, improves your digestion, boosts your immune response, and increases oxygen levels in your blood. Practices like earthing, or grounding, might sound hippy-dippy but are backed by scientific research, suggesting that making direct contact with the earth can reduce pain and inflammation and enhance sleep quality. Also, being outdoors gives you a healthy dose of Vitamin D, which supports healthy aging, promotes healthier hair and nails, and improves mood and sleep.
• Stress Reduction: Beyond the relaxing effects of moving meditation and communing with nature, gardening helps you de-stress by providing a peaceful distraction. Scientific data also suggests gardening relieves both depression and anxiety.
• Better Eating Habits: Studies show people who garden tend to make healthier food choices because a positive cycle occurs when you cultivate your own produce. You make choices about which fruits, herbs, and vegetables you like most and therefore would prefer to grow, feel a sense of agency over your food supply, experience accomplishment from growing your food, and subsequently grow and eat more whole foods.
• Social Connection: There are a few ways we flourish socially from gardening. From joining a farming or gardening co-op like the Sea Pines Heritage Farm Association, to trading bulbs with fellow gardeners, to joining garden associations like the Plantation Garden Club, and even scrolling through online gardening chat groups, you can cultivate camaraderie and friendships by becoming a gardener.
Though there is no rule of thumb when it comes to having a green one, there are some simple and easy ways to get your gardening game on. So, roll up your sleeves and try these six tips.
1. Start Simple: If the plant – such as an orchid – requires special care, opt for the “unkillables,” like air plants or cactus plants. For those of you who truly prefer to practice hands-free gardening, try making a terrarium. You just need a glass container, a little bit of soil, a few succulents, and maybe a decorative, Lowcountry-inspired object like a pretty shell found on the beach or a natural element like pinecones from your yard. The lid on the container creates a greenhouse effect, meaning minimal watering is required as long as your terrarium is near natural light.
2. Be Intentional About Placement: Be curious and explore various locations for your plants, such as a sunny spot in your backyard, indoor spaces with natural light, window boxes, potted plants on the patio, or hanging baskets, to name a few. If you decide to garden indoors, consider modular hydroponic systems like Lettuce Grow, which truly make gardening effortless and allow you to gradually increase the number of plants you grow. (Note: With pots, be mindful of your plants’ root systems.)
3. Make It Worth Your While: Grow items you can eat or use medicinally. To start simple, this could mean beginning with bean sprouts or broccoli sprouts. Sprouting seeds requires minimal investment and yields considerable results. You don’t need to buy any fancy gardening tools or soil. You just need a shallow container that can drain, and some water. An intermediate step is to try planting herbs. Herbs are essentially weeds, but they come with flavor and health benefits. Parsley, mint, basil, and cilantro are examples of herbs you can grow indoors or outdoors with very little effort. As you start to get your green groove on, experiment with root vegetables like parsnips and potatoes, which are fairly hardy, as well as leafy greens like kale and cabbage.
4. Learn As You Go: Visit nurseries like The Greenery or local shops like Branches that offer educational classes, or attend weekly plant clinics hosted by the Lowcountry Master Gardener program. I also highly recommend obtaining your master gardener certification. The process and certification provide an engaging and manageable way to learn everything you need to know about gardening. (The contact number for the Lowcountry Master Gardener Association is 843-255-6060.) You can also follow knowledgeable gardeners on social media; apps like PlantIn are free, fun, and helpful. Lastly, believe it or not, there are several magazines out there about horticulture and floriculture.
5. Invest in Good Essentials: Every good gardener needs essentials like high-quality soil (your local nursery can advise you on which one is best for your gardening project), gardening gloves, and gardening tools. A good garden hose is another must-have – and do not skimp on the spray nozzle. You can find just about anything you need at helpful places like Grayco, and start with just the basics before going all in.
6. Set a Schedule: Make a master plan outlining how you want to go about things. Break it down into growing seasons and think about how you want to rotate your plants. This will keep things fresh and keep you learning. Also, set a watering schedule that fits your already busy schedule. You might want to eventually invest in an irrigation system, self-watering pots, or window boxes.
