Gardens. They come just like humans: in different forms, sizes, and colors. Some gardens are filled with tomato plants, whereas others are filled with green peas. Some people prefer to plant flowers, and others, believe it or not, have a garden filled with cactuses.
A garden is a very unique way to show your personality. Plants are living beings, just like pets, and in the same way, they need to be taken care of with love and lots of attention. The way a gardener takes care of their garden is a way to tell how disciplined, patient, and careful that person is.
And, believe it or not, gardeners have increased over the last years, because of the whole quarantine situation, and how people have started to look for ways to improve their mental health and share themselves with other living beings.
Surprisingly, taking care of plants and seeing them grow, also counts as a form of contact. In fact, gardening has gained a lot of popularity thanks to quarantine, according to this article. This is also the case for landscaping, just on a smaller scale.
Considering the benefits, it is to no surprise. Scientifically proven by research and studies, gardening can greatly improve someone’s mental health because it aids the body at lowering stress levels, and increases the brain’s production of dopamine and serotonin, two hormones heavily related to happiness.
The Challenges Behind the Peace
Now that we know how gardening and landscaping can help us achieve a certain level of inner peace, we have to consider something too: the challenges we have to surpass in order to achieve said benefits.
Still, most of these challenges are pieces of cake. They just become challenges because of one simple thing: lack of experience. Without the experience of gardening, and of course, without the knowledge required for it, we are pretty much set to fail during our first attempts of growing a plant.
And that is okay, it is part of the process, and failing helps us improve, and understand, the personality of the soil and plants we are trying to work with.
But some people prefer to avoid failure, and that is also a wise decision. To do so, they research and learn about different things, then, prepare themselves for the adventure.
And believe me when I say that, one of the most important parts of gardening is having the right tools. This includes things like shovels, rakes, digging tools, pruners, hoses, wheelbarrows, among many other things. For very detailed information on the matter go here: https://www.familyhandyman.com/list/must-have-garden-products/.
The Pre-Gardening Process
The right tools will help you during certain aspects of the process. The first part of the adventure is preparing the soil for planting. This will require you to clean the place from weed, rocks, and any other debris that might complicate the process.
You might also want to set up a pattern that will display the garden itself since it will work as a limitation, and as a mark for people that there’s a garden and they have to be careful around them.
A type of fence can be helpful if you have small children or animals that might want to “play” around your garden. And we all know how that usually goes.
If you are an indoor type of person, or just someone who doesn’t have the outdoor space to go for a garden, you can pick a certain area of your house to plant an indoor garden. For that, you’ll need gardening pots and soil, then organize everything accordingly.
Choosing Plants and Designing
Some people go as far as designing their gardens even before buying the plants. This can be difficult, but very possible, and can be helpful since it will be a way to distribute the space of your garden much more efficiently.
Now, picking plants comes up next. This is, possibly, the most important part of the process, since you’ll have to pick plants that physically attract you, and also, that can be maintained by your current level of skill.
There are plants that are great for beginners because of their simplicity, and if you are a newcomer, they should be your priority. Afterward, you can try more complicated plants. The main idea of this is to adapt yourself to the activity and improve as time goes on.
The Maintenance and Watering
After you’ve properly set up your plants, now is time for probably the second most important part of the process: maintenance and watering. You see, plants require water and sunlight to nourish themselves and grow healthy and strong.
With that said, too much sunlight can dry some plants, and too much water can drown and rot their roots. That is why, before picking a certain plant, you should accurately research them to understand their properties and water them accordingly.
Depending on the size of your garden, you can depend on a watering can, or go for an irrigation system. The latter option works wonders if you don’t have the time to water your plant at specific times of the day (usually in the early morning or during the night) since they can do the job for you and other irrigation supplies can make the process much easier, like water pumps and hoses.
Depending on the type of garden you have, some irrigations system can go as far as watering the plants based on the amount of water they need, and some can be set up to water different plants with different levels of water, at different times, and even set up timers for you to check out the whole process. These are called smart irrigation systems, but you also have the option of having much simpler systems, based on what you like.
Take in mind that this option is very common among outside gardeners, since maintenance is probably the most common problem among beginners since they tend to forget to water and maintain the plants at certain specific times.
