Now that Memorial Day weekend has ended and the official start of summer kicks off, it is a great time to consider (if you haven’t already) gardening. Whether you live in a house, condo, or apartment, everyone can enjoy the benefits of growing plants.
Those who garden regularly can’t imagine passing by the growing season without making their mark on the land and soil. Others find the prospect too much work and pass completely on planting, growing, and caring for plants. The latter misses out on the many benefits that gardening has on a person’s well-being.
Two major medical institutions, the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic, list the medical benefits of gardening. Their recommendations are similar, meaning medical researchers have a consensus that gardening is good for your health.
The researchers mention that getting out and receiving the sun’s rays is a good way to get Vitamin D, a vitamin needed for our health. Getting outside and caring for a plot of flowers and herbs in a planter increases activity and is a good way to exercise. You need to dig, stretch, and carry, all good for the body, especially women, who need to strengthen their bones through activity.
It has been scientifically proven that increased activity and exercise are good ways to relieve stress. Being busy and working with your hands helps to handle stress, so people do things like cleaning or manual labor to temper their anxiety levels. Stress usually happens when a person feels incapable of fixing a problem or situation. When a person gardens, a sense of control is brought back into their life by the gratification of observing plants growing and the routine of daily watering, weeding, etc. Surprisingly, these actions help greatly because plants don’t talk back or demand anything from you.
Gardening helps psychologically and emotionally by bringing satisfaction in seeing your handiwork come to fruition as the plants peek out and then come to full bloom by summer and early fall. For those who plant vegetable gardens, the produce of their toil is incorporated into their diets. Talk about organic food.
Far from being only beneficial to your health, gardening provides a way for your spiritual life to grow alongside the plants. Deep in the core of individuals is a yearning to fulfill the mandate given to humanity at the beginning of time. When God created humanity, he placed them in a garden called Eden to cultivate and care for it. It appears that part of what it means to be human is to care for God’s creation as faithful stewards, and gardening surely answers the call.
God gifts certain people the ability to create aesthetic and beautiful things with their hands. Some can paint on a canvas to express beauty, while others have carved magnificent statues from a block of stone, or play melodies on instruments that transport us to another place by the beauty we experience. For most of us who do not have that kind of talent, gardening is a way in which, even in a small way, we can bring beauty to the world. A pot of flowers makes every doorstep more beautiful. Tomatoes hanging from the vine bring color and texture to a landscape that might ordinarily be just blah. The creation and fostering of beauty are spiritual endeavors, and the process by which we achieve it is a connection to the source of beauty itself, God Almighty.
Gardening enables another spiritual reality to unfold during the growing season. Although we are agents in caring and cultivating, the real magnificence happens in silence. The power of God, invisible and undetectable, is taking place every second, and every month the plant grows. All the energy from the sun to rain and everything life needs to survive is the manifestation of God’s omnipotence. Without Him, no life can exist.
How awe-inspiring plants are in a garden. When we garden, we become co-creators with God, who graciously allows us to participate. Every time you go out and water and weed, give worship to God who allows you such a moment with him.
Time to start gardening.