Gardening is more than just a hobby that provides brief entertainment and momentary rewards. Gardening brings life to the soil, clarity for the air, and enrichment of the mind. In today’s article, we’re going to discuss the various ways that gardening benefits the environment and encourages creativity.
From Roots to Riches – Plant & Soil Interaction:
If you regularly attended your high school biology class, you probably learned that plants engage in this complex process called photosynthesis. By using chlorophyll, a green pigment found in their chloroplasts, plants absorb light and convert it into cellular energy.
During this conversion, the plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. This absorption of carbon dioxide helps reduce air pollution and provide us with cleaner air to breathe. By planting flowers, fruits, or vegetables in your garden, you are aiding plants on their mission for cleaner air.
Another passive benefit of growing new plants is the interaction between the soil and their root structures. As water enters the water cycle, it inevitably makes its way up to the clouds in the form of rain. As this water is exposed to air pollution it may become polluted and become acid rain.
Acid rain is bad for the environment and potentially detrimental if it ends up contaminating the water table. Fortunately, a plant’s root system can absorb this acidic rain, filtering it before it even makes its way into groundwater. Root systems also help reduce water and wind erosion in arid climates by locking the nearby soil in place.
Maintaining the Eco-Friendship: Eco-Friendly Pest Control
Although your garden may provide you with a source of food and enjoyment, it can also provide for unwanted pests and critters that interrupt the growth cycle. Common garden pests like aphids and beetles chew on the leaves of growing plants which could potentially kill them or stunt growth.
To solve this issue, you can use environmentally friendly pesticides. Traditional pesticides have been linked to causing cancers, birth defects, and other debilitating diseases. Eco-friendly pest control takes a safer approach by avoiding toxic chemicals that harm the environment.
Instead, eco-friendly pesticides target the pests directly and have little to no footprint on the local environment when keeping away opossums, mites, and other pests. This will keep your garden safe from unwanted intruders and your family healthy when it’s time to harvest.
How Gardening Promotes and Encourages Creativity:
Whether you’re decorating natural areas with flowers or lining up rows of fruits and vegetables, gardening is a transformative process. There’s something satisfying about watching your plants grow from seed, to stem, to the first leaf, and beyond.
In fact, therapists utilize gardening as the primary practice for horticultural therapy. By gardening, patients under horticultural therapy improve upon their mental and physical well-being. Through satisfaction and rewarding work, gardening helps to improve upon one’s creative spirit.
If you’re interested in the benefits of horticultural therapy, ask your therapist how you can get started. You can also consult the internet via social media or gardening forums to seek inspiration/best practices for a successful garden.
Helping the environment and reducing your carbon footprint doesn’t need to be hard. Sometimes all it takes is a hand-shovel and some seeds to truly create something magnificent. ❀
