National Gardening Week

Due to the recent lockdowns, many of us may have been spending more time at home and indoors, but this can also negatively impact our mental wellbeing, meaning it’s never been more important to venture outdoors to spend more time in nature. Spending time outdoors – whether it’s your garden, or a walk around a park or nature reserve, can greatly improve our overall wellbeing.

To celebrate National Gardening Week, we are exploring the vast wellbeing benefits of getting your daily dose of fresh air and greenery, plus, we share our top tips to get your garden summer ready.

Bring the outside, in

Keeping plants and flowers around the home can have an abundance of benefits for our health such as improving memory and concentration, increasing oxygen in the air, boosting productivity, and even promoting better sleep. They help promote a natural environment, which may also have a soothing and lifting effect on our mood (as we ourselves are creatures of nature!)

Whether you’re green-fingered or not, the experience of growing things can have positive effects on our mental wellbeing and can even be a cathartic process. Whether you want to try your hand at growing herbs, or you think a snake plant might help to jazz up the space, the more greenery you can add, the better!

If you’d like some ideas and top tips of what you can grow, have a read of our other blogs:

Grow at home

Six bedroom plants to help you sleep better

How houseplants can help improve wellbeing

Plant daffodils

How do you know when it’s springtime? The daffodils are in bloom! After planting the bulbs, you’ll most likely forget all about them, which will make it even more special when you catch that first glimpse of yellow and orange. It’s a sign that warmer weather is on its way, meaning there’s more time to be spent with nature in all its bloom and glory.

Make it mindful

When we think of gardening, many of us may think of muddy hands, overalls, and a lot of hard work. However, gardening can be relaxing, too! Mindful gardening can have an impressive array of benefits for your physical and mental health – such as giving you an overall sense of calm and allowing you the space and freedom to ‘just be in the moment’. So, next time you’re in the garden, take some time to pause and take in your surroundings. Clear your mind of your ‘to do lists’. It’s a fantastic mood-booster, especially if the weather’s nice (you’ll get that much-needed vitamin D boost too!)

Try the following mindful techniques next time you are outdoors:

• Walk barefoot (if the weather allows!)
• Reconnect with your senses- what can you see/hear/smell?
• Study a flower- how do the petals look? What is its detailing like?
• Take some deep, calming breaths or sit outside with a cup of tea.
• When gardening, just focus purely on the task in hand, and try not to let your mind wander.
• Appreciate nature, including the beauty of the plants and flowers around you.
• If it’s raining, listen to the sound of the rain.

Get summer ready

Is your garden in need of a summer glow up? Here’s our top tips:

• Prepare, prepare, prepare! Clear any gutters, have a shed clear-out, trim bushes, mow your lawn and banish weeds. Give fencing a lick of paint if needed.
• Give it some style- add some neat borders with border plants and be creative with colours.
• You’ll most likely be spending a lot more time in the garden during summer, so make sure you have a cosy space set up where you can relax and unwind- think comfy chairs, cushions and blankets.
• Don’t forget to think about evening glam too; fairy lights, lanterns or solar lights to line pathways can work wonders to make your garden space a bit more magical – perfect for sitting out under the stars and reconnecting with your loved ones. Don’t forget the bubbly!