Elizabeth Miri | The Monarch Ranger
AUSTIN – In today’s busy world, life seems to fly by in an instant. We are always rushing from one task to another and hardly ever stop to smell the roses. Who has time for a garden?
Even in the midst of our fast-paced lives, finding the time to tend to a garden can teach us valuable lessons about perseverance and patience. Gardening can even improve cognitive function and memory.
A 2019 research study showed that gardening can improve cognitive function. Researchers at Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea, sampled the blood of individuals before and after completing gardening tasks such as watering, planting, fertilizing and weeding to compare the levels of certain compounds that are known to support cognitive function.
They found that levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), which support brain nerve growth and memory, were significantly elevated in people after they had completed the simple garden tasks. The researchers concluded that planting and tending to a garden could improve our cognitive function and memory, especially as we age.
Horticulture therapy is also used to help those suffering from depression and post traumatic stress disorder. This is because gardening can help people feel more relaxed and connected to nature. According to the American Horticulture Therapy Association, horticulture therapy helps improve memory, cognitive abilities, task initiation, language skills, and socialization.
In a sense, you grow yourself along with the garden you tend, which can help your mental wellbeing in dramatic ways.
Gardening also teaches us how to persevere. In my first season as a gardener, despite working very hard and watering regularly, I only got one tomato in my harvest. The rest were either eaten by birds or stolen by squirrels. Even with setbacks such as these, gardening teaches us how to overcome the challenges that life throws at you. Through the years, I have learned how to protect my tomatoes and how to provide the correct elements to my plants for their success. That first lonely tomato that I grew was a ton of work, but I’m not sure any tomato before or since has tasted as sweet.
Starting a garden also forces you to slow down and wonder about the natural world. Gardening can help us to see the beauty that is all around us and to appreciate things more.
I used to scour the garden for every little development I could find: a little bloom here, or an inch of growth there. The problem with this was that I was spending so much time worrying about every little thing that I would get burned out. Just like a watched pot never boils, learning to let go sometimes is a great thing to realize. Perhaps gardening is nature’s way of showing us how to be patient.
Gardening helped me realize that I will be happier if I let life surprise me.
I love to just walk around and look at all the different plants. It is such a joyful feeling to stumble across something cool in the garden when I least expect it. In a simple way, gardening helped me to realize that we don’t know what will happen in the future.
Sure, we can anticipate and make plans for the future just like planning out a garden, but ultimately we should enjoy the journey instead of just focusing on the destination. If we get lost in the madness of rushing to the next place in our lives, we will never see all the little joy and surprises that are all around us.
If you are ready to start your own gardening journey, then I have one last piece of advice for you: it is ok to fail sometimes.
My first year gardening was less than great. It went worse than I care to admit, but it taught me a valuable lesson to keep on trying. Gardening is hard, but you will ultimately get what you put into it. While some might call my inaugural harvest of one lonely tomato a failure, I saw it as an opportunity for further growth (pun intended!). Learning from your mistakes is a valuable life lesson that will enhance your mental health and wellbeing.
Jenny Uglow, an English biographer may have captured the essence of gardening best when she said, “We may think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it's our garden that is really nurturing us.”
Comments