I come from a family of gardeners. My grandfather supported his family in Europe by selling narcissus and various other flowers at market. While in a different part of the property, my grandmother grew all the produce to feed their family of 9. When they had a bumper crop, they canned, sold or shared the extras. My mother always had a gorgeous and well-maintained yard. It only made sense that when I had children I started gardening with them.
While we observed a very strict lock down in our house, we started work in the garden as a way to break up the day and get some fresh air. Over time, we got more attached to certain plants over others. We planted a sycamore tree two years ago and it was getting smaller every year. Everyone would joke that I must grow roots, as I clearly did not share the hereditary green thumb that runs in my family. I checked the clay soil to verify it was actually retaining water. I bought an auger to deposit compost near the root system. Eventually, something we did worked, it was suddenly exploding with huge, healthy leaves.
After that, we began troubleshooting other plants in the yard. Through research, moving plants to better locations, we noticed that our attitude about the garden changed. When we bought new plants, we took care to plant them in the optimum area of the yard for their type. I now can tell you the names of most plants in our yard, what areas get the most sun and what areas do not hold water.
While everyone knows that gardening is good for your health, I thought it was due to the fresh air. While that may be true, we have gotten way more benefit out of it than that. The satisfaction of knowing that nearly everything in our yard has been touched by our hands, that we can watch and improve their growing conditions, working with my three daughters while having fun and seeing immediate results, getting dirty from something so wholesome, hearing my daughters talk among themselves whether we should plant more coreopsis or echinacea in the back corner and knowing we are doing something beneficial for the earth and all the little creatures that are finding our yard a safe space. Gardening has become a great mental health outlet for us all.
I’m sure there are many more mental health benefits. But for us, Covid-19 has had at least one silver lining – creating and enjoying this healthy and vibrant garden with my family. And that is enough for me!
