Have you ever sat back and thought about how good gardening is for us in general?

There are obvious benefits to gardening, for example if you grow fruit or vegetables in your garden you have access to fresh fruit and veggies throughout the growing season. The produce your grow is so much fresher than what we can purchase in grocery stores isn’t it? Not to mention that it likely lacks harmful pesticides and other chemicals that could be bad for our health.

Less obvious perhaps are the social, psychological, and physiological benefits of gardening. Maintaining a garden, whether it’s one that produces food for your family, contains a mix of flowering and leafy plants or a mix of both is good exercise, gets us outdoors for some fresh air, and allows us to spend quality time with our family or friends when we are working in the garden, or sitting back and enjoying the view from the patio.

My garden is many things to me. I spend several hours working in the garden from Spring though to Autumn. I know that I get a fair amount of exercise while working in the garden.

When I’m out working in the garden my neighbors often come out to work on their own yards, or simply just to say hello. Therefore I get a chance to get to know my neighbors better and to create a sense of community within my neighborhood.

When I’m not working in the garden, I can often be found either gazing out the window at the lovely flowers, or sitting at my patio table enjoying a drink or pleasant meal with my husband and or friends and relatives.

My garden is also one of the first places that I head after a long night of working as a Nurse in the ER. There is nothing like walking through the garden in the early morning hours to see which new flowers are about to bloom and smelling the heavenly scent of rose perfume wafting through the air. A few minutes in the garden after a long night of taking care of patients and perhaps saving a few lives and I’m almost magically de-stressed. It’s wonderful.

I also take great pride in how my garden looks and I’m very pleased when people stop on the sidewalk as they are walking by our house to look at the flowers in the front yard, or even to stare down our driveway to see the beginning of our backyard paradise. If I happen to be outdoors when my garden catches their eye I usually don’t mind talking to them about the plants I grow, or listening to their compliments.

Why do you garden? What benefits do you derive from gardening?