You have the most beautiful garden @bede your photographs show that. Perhaps you should genuinely send a Video to Gardener's World and share with others just starting out in gardening what can be achieved. It is something that I have done hard work but worth it although my video skills leave alot to be desired!
As you know I garden organically, so some of your advice which you obviously feel is correct or you wouldn't post it , I struggle to agree with [something you are also aware of I am sure]. I accept that my background is gardening and that I have no understanding of your Chemical related career but we both garden and there should be a point at which we agree on things. I have read many of your posts that have offered good sound advice but there is a need to think how some of your comments relate to a stranger. You obviously realise how helping others is rewarding to you too, as you continue to post. I have re read this post before I pressed the post button may I kindly suggest you do too.
RETIRED GARDENER, LIVES IN SOUTH NOTTS, SOIL CLAY.
'Tis sweet to visit the still wood,where springs. The first flower of the plain. Longfellow.
To be honest I've always thought the mental health benefits of gardening was a bit over egged. I can only relate to my own experiences and others may feel it really does give them a lift. I've had my own mental health issues and when I've done a days gardening I certainly feel in a happier place so maybe there's more to the connection than I first thought?
One of the great things about gardening is that it involves planting/sowing for the future and having faith that they will grow ... then going out there and seeing development ... lots of looking forward rather than back 🌱🌱🌱
“I am not lost, for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.” Winnie the Pooh
Our neighbour, who by his own admission suffers from severe anxiety and depression, loves his garden and always seems much chirpier after a good day of gardening. On the other hand, he gets really down when it's rainy and grey and he can't get out to his garden.
There is a surprisingly large amount of very good scientific research backing up the claims of gardening being good for mental health. In mild/ moderate depression it has been shown to be at least as good as antidepressant medication.
There are ashtrays of emulsion, for the fag ends of the aristocracy.
I kind of agree with Chris that the mental health angle can be over-egged in how it's covered. I find it helpful for me, but I love gardening so I would say that! We know that being absorbed in simple tasks can be good for our mental state, and being around greenery is also good for us. However I kind of wish gardening was sometimes promoted as something nice to do for its own sake rather than something to do for your 'mental health'.
I think outside is good for mental health and you do what you enjoy out there. For me, gardening, for OH a motorcycle ride, for one son a camera, for the other a paintbrush
Have to agree with @Loxley. Gardening is great - can be fun, satisfying, hopeful, optimistic and fatalistic (when things go wrong) but always with optimism for next time or next year. I do sometimes think the preachier exhortations to garden organically or for mental health can be counter productive.
That said, I do garden organically and for bothe pleasure and food and the sheer joy of being outside, helping things grow and seeing the birds, bees et al doing their thing and sharing our space.
@bédé it is possible to be forthright without being rude or hurtful if you have the wit to master language and expression and couch your opinions diplomatically. I'm afraid you fail with unpleasant regularity.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast. "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
I agree, just being outdoors is good for my mental wellbeing. I also think as Dove said, the essentially optimistic nature of gardening - looking forward to the next season, planning for a future that is within reach - is the key thing about gardening specifically. I'm glad you've found such a positive remedy, @janeandperry, and I hope you do decide to share it
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first”
Part of the problem is that if you say 'mental health' people immediately assume that you have a medical problem and that you only need to speak to a therapist if a doctor refers you or something along those lines. It's easier to think of it like maintaining a car though. Servicing a car is good for its health just as servicing your brain is good for its health. You wouldn't drive a car until it was smoking and consuming excessive fuel before doing something about it.
Some people are good at finding appropriate activities to keep them well balanced, or they may have a good support network to talk to, and they may also be lucky that they don't have significant problems to deal with in the first place, or have never had to grow up under the spotlight of social media. From that position it can look like others are snowflakes but not everyone is so lucky and these days it's more common for people to be feeling isolated and overwhelmed. When you leave for work in the dark and drive home in the dark five or six days a week it's hard to imagine gardening, or any outdoor activity, having much benefit to your mental health. Most therapists have to spend a lot of time breaking the cycle of 'get a grip' parenting that has persisted since the war. "You think you've got it bad?" etc has been used to invalidate the experience of previous generations. You'd be amazed at the things that people are bottling up now because they don't feel that it's acceptable for them to feel bad about it. I was speaking to a long-term client of mine recently who is a doctor of psychiatry and her advice to me was to try and raise my children with emotional resilience because of the uncertainty of the future now. The difference between showing them how to grip and telling them to get one.
Posts
As you know I garden organically, so some of your advice which you obviously feel is correct or you wouldn't post it , I struggle to agree with [something you are also aware of I am sure]. I accept that my background is gardening and that I have no understanding of your Chemical related career but we both garden and there should be a point at which we agree on things.
I have read many of your posts that have offered good sound advice but there is a need to think how some of your comments relate to a stranger.
You obviously realise how helping others is rewarding to you too, as you continue to post.
I have re read this post before I pressed the post button may I kindly suggest you do too.
'Tis sweet to visit the still wood,where springs. The first flower of the plain. Longfellow.
for the fag ends of the aristocracy.
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
In the sticks near Peterborough
That said, I do garden organically and for bothe pleasure and food and the sheer joy of being outside, helping things grow and seeing the birds, bees et al doing their thing and sharing our space.
@bédé it is possible to be forthright without being rude or hurtful if you have the wit to master language and expression and couch your opinions diplomatically. I'm afraid you fail with unpleasant regularity.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw