Gardening As Therapy

If you call it yard work…..you’re not a gardener.  There may be some “yard work” involved in gardening, but if you really and truly love getting dirty and can’t think of a better way to spend countless hours in your yard, then calling it work just seems wrong. I think a more accurate term is therapy. Of course anyone who gardens already knows this.

Even as a child I spent time pulling dandelions in our yard in Ohio. I was having fun! During the summers of childhood, I spent a week at my grandparents’ home in the country, picking strawberries and helping tend the vegetable garden. I loved sitting on the back steps snapping beans or shelling peas. I ate more fresh peas than ever got on the dinner table.  One summer in junior high I found a picture of their home taken many years prior. It showed a beautiful flag stone walk going from the driveway up to the front door. I don’t recall that they ever used the front door and I figured it was because the walk way was covered over with grass. I took it upon myself to cut away the grass, exposing this beautiful walkway. It took me several hours, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  It filled my need for instant gratification. I was so proud and thought my grandparents would be thrilled. However, being practical about caring for 8 acres in their retirement years, they thought I was nuts. By the next summer, the lawn had grown back over the walkway. My grandma explained that grandpa didn’t have the time to waste on walkways because he liked spending time in his gardens…not dealing with lawn care and edging.  Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t know many 13 year olds spending afternoons digging grass off a walkway…but I did it two summers in a row! I’m sure some children would have thought it was an awful way to spend summer vacation. But my adolescent mind needed time to ponder life’s lessons and of course to fantasize about boys! It was my therapy and I loved it.

Every place I have lived, whether I owned or rented, I planted flowers and created an outdoor space. Even in the winter in Ohio, I shoveled snow off the patio at my cottage, put tiki torched around and built a fire. My friends and I would sit around singing campfire songs and enjoying the night sky.  It’s so easy to forget your troubles or celebrate life when you relax in nature with good friends.

Many times in my life I have lived alone.  No matter how busy I am with work, my social life or volunteering, there are days when I have nothing to do (or I don’t want to do any of the things I should do!). I am most grateful on those days for my yard. Sometimes I just walk around smelling the flowers, taking pictures, noticing what is blooming or needing attention. Sometimes I take my tea, or wine and sit outside imagining a new flower bed or patio. I create it in my mind before I pick up a shovel.  Sometimes the dreaming is as fun as the creating. This active meditation allows me to listen and be still I forget my concerns and feel filled with hope. My mother gave me decoration that sits on my kitchen window sill that reads “One who plants a garden, believes in God”.  Perhaps that’s why I feel tremendous gratitude when I am in my garden.

Another thing I notice is how my cats love to walk around the yard with me.  They have their favorite places to sleep or catch their vitamin D, but they seem to love the yard more when I am there with them. They are so curious about every new plant that goes in the soil and they welcome them like new friends.  They act proud that this is their home and are grateful too.

After a day in the sun with the sweat dripping down my neck, I jump in my pool and float around on a raft feeling refreshed, satisfied and accomplished.  I think my form a therapy will be required for my lifetime………..ah, what a life.