I Love Gardening!

Apart from financial benefits, gardening has a lot of other positive benefits. For me, the most important benefits of gardening are overall health, increased knowledge about our environment and our world. Gardening also teaches us a lot about life and life skills. Just by observing our environment we can begin to appreciate everything nature has to offer.

When it comes to health benefits of gardening, it has been scientifically proven that one can lose weight just by doing garden work. I know this from my own experience. During summer I normally lose all the weight I've gained during winter months when I did not do a lot of gardening. Gardening combines aerobics, stretching and muscle-toning. In fact, just by doing gardening and eating healthy, one can lose and/or maintain their weight. Exercise releases endorphins which help with stress and depression.

Another health benefit is distressing and relaxation. So much of what we do on a daily basis adds a lot of unnecessary stress to our lives. So, when I want to forget it all for a moment, I do a little weeding. Taking my mind off things that are not good for me have invaluable benefits. Distressing and relaxation again have major benefits against diseases that are stress related like heart disease and strokes.

Increased knowledge about our world and environment is also one of the benefits of gardening. I don't know how much plants I have researched since I started this project. I did not realize for instance, how much many beautiful plants from Asia have contributed to our landscape. Also, that Europe has so many plants that are native to Europe and Asia. When it comes to environment, I've learned that some plants can be invasive and detrimental to eco-systems and some will do just fine and blend in.

I have also learned that gardening can teach us a lot about life. If you have children please listen up. Gardening can teach you and your children about patience, perseverance, nurturing, caring, diversity, tolerance, and appreciation of what we already have. One time I was gardening with my daughter and she said something that stayed with. She said, plants always grow towards light! Imagine if our common humanity always grew towards light! Where would this world be. This world is so intolerant and we could learn from nature that we can indeed coexist!

So get your gardening on!