Gardening: is it really a good idea?
Gardening. Doesn’t it sound like hard work?
All that trying to persuade the plants you want that they actually do want to grow in your garden, whilst simultaneously fending off slugs, weeds, pigeons and yet more greedy gastropods. From a Biblical perspective, given the curse God placed on humanity’s relationship with the ground itself, gardening may seem like a very strange choice for a therapeutic activity.
While there’s no denying the frustration of finding your carefully coddled cauliflowers gobbled up by very hungry caterpillars, there is increasing evidence that gardening is good for you.
Spending time outside, in a natural environment, has been shown to boost our wellbeing in a number of ways. Just looking at the colour green is thought to be relaxing (as they are right in the middle of our visual spectrum, green colours are theorised to be the easiest colours to see – read more here).
Gardening as an activity in it's own right has also been specifically linked to lots of health benefits. For example contact with soil is thought to be a natural antidepressant, exposing us to Mycobacterium microbes, which naturally increase the production of serotonin in our brains.
Here is an infographic summarising some of the health benefits associated with gardening:
From a Christian perspective, this makes sense. After all, we were originally designed to be gardeners; working with God to create beauty and fruitfulness in Eden.
While our experience of gardening here and now will always be marred by the brokenness of our world, gardens still point us forward to the day when all things will be restored and perfected in the new heavens and earth. This hope is expressed beautifully in Doug McKelvey’s Liturgy for the Planting of Flowers:
