By Kelly A. Shue
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
According to the Colorado Master GardenerSM Program at Colorado State University, “Gardening provides exercise, stress reduction, and relaxation. For many Americans it provides a creative outlet, a sense of accomplishment, and the gardener’s personal link to nature.”
Gardening is also serious business at Greenspring. Each spring over 130 people get their hands dirty seeding, weeding, and prunings, resulting in beds of fresh vegetables, summer fruits, blooming flowers, bushes, and shrubs.
Nature’s remedy
Exploring the psychosocial benefits of green spaces, P.D. Relf writes in Grounds Maintenance that “accessibility to nature is one of the most important factors in life satisfaction. Yard care and gardening activities develop individuals, strengthen families, and build communities.”
The study goes on to say, “Gardening is also a key tool for improved health by providing exercise, stress reduction, and relaxation. From the medical perspective, researchers have documented that people who interact with plants recover more quickly from everyday stress and mental fatigue.”
Community rewards
“At Greenspring there are few limitations to what a gardener can do,” says John St. Louis, Greenspring’s grounds supervisor. Greenspring’s community garden offers plots to budding gardeners on a first-come, first-served basis. St. Louis helps the gardeners by rototilling the garden patches and providing mulch, fertilizer, hoses, and some basic tools.
“We have residents who grow corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, roses, sunflowers, wildflowers— pretty much anything you can think of,” he says.
According to W.C. Sullivan and F.E. Kuo’s article, “Do Trees Strengthen Urban Communities, Reduce Domestic Violence?” published in Arborist News, “Gardening is a universal language that brings the community together. Gardening conversations and activities bring neighbors together, melting differences and uniting neighborhoods.”