Psychology Behind Gardening
I don’t know what it is about a garden that has usually drawn humans to them. But they have usually been very popular, as well as an essential part of peoples’ way of life. Most beliefs feature gardens as their locations for several of the biggest events. According to Christianity, humanity has begun in a garden and the son of God was resurrected in a garden. The Buddhist builds gardens to let nature to permeate their surroundings. Pretty much every major structure and government building has a garden. But what’s so wonderful about these? They’re just a bunch of plants, after all.
Obviously, the reasoning is fairly obvious behind why people cultivate food in gardens. It is to consume! If you settle off the fat of the land and really survive on goods from the garden, it is simple to comprehend the thought. But I’m wondering about those people that grow flower gardens just for the benefit of looking nice. There is no immediate benefit that I can realize; you simply possess a bunch of flowers in your yard! However, after pondering thoroughly about the inspiration behind growing decorative gardens, I’ve formulated quite a few probable theories.
I believe a primary reason people love gardens so much is the fact that while we have a natural desire to advance and industrialize, deep within all of us is a primal passion for nature. Although this drive might not be as solid as the desire for modernism, it remains powerful enough to persuade us to build gardens, small outlets of nature, in the midst of all our commotion.
Considering that being in nature is a lot like regressing to an earlier stage of humanity, we too can regress to a time of comfort and complete happiness. This is the reason why gardens are so soothing and relaxing to stay in. This is the reason why gardens make the perfect spot to reflect and do tai chi routines. A garden is a way to swiftly get away from the busy world.
I have assumed at times that perhaps we as people feel a kind of guilt driving us to restore nature and care for it. This guilt can stem from your knowledge that we, not in person but as a race, have destroyed so much of nature to get exactly where we are today. It is the least we can try to create a small garden in remembrance of all the trees we kill each day. It’s my theory that this is the main basis for most people to consider gardening as a pastime.
Gardening Advice
Many people are probably not aware that gardening can actually hurt the environment. A significant amount of carbon dioxide can be released through tilling the soil. This contributes to global warming. Cultivating and compacting the soil, destroys good fungi. Fertilizers like nitrogen and manure will many times come out of the soil and pollute the water you drink.
You may not know that the earth’s soil gives out carbon dioxide in the atmosphere ten times more than all human activity? This comes from the pill bugs, microbes, fungi and worms when they breathe, digest food and then die. Previously plants have been capable of absorbing carbon dioxide caused by small-scale tillages, this isn’t the case nowadays.
The rise of the globe’s average temperature is because of the carbon dioxide the soil emits when tilled. There is good news in that tilling can be minimized by mulching or sheet composting.
Good Fungi
In untilled soil, there is a good fungus, the vesicular-arbuscular-mycorrhizae or VAM for short. VAM actually forms a symbiotic relationship with plants. Their filaments increase root hairs and provide nutrients to the plant. They give out zinc, copper, potassium and phosphorus. Plants provide carbohydrates for the fungi in return. It is entirely possible to grow gardens without tilling the soil at all by mulching heavily until the soil is soft.
Surplus Nitrogen
Many gardeners waste nitrogen and manures; farmers do otherwise. Farmers only need a quarter to a third of nitrogen to mix with an inch of compost, horse, or cow manure. Notice that gardeners apply larger amounts of compost and manure than farmers. Obviously, they are not only wasting their fertilizer but also their money.
The best gardening advice that can be given to those concerned is to do all things in moderation. Remember that too little and too much of something is not healthy. This is the most valuable advice one can heed.
Gardening is definitely a wholesome habit though, don’t get me wrong. Any hobby that provides physical exercise, helps the earth, and enhances your diet can’t be a negative thing. So no matter what the root psychological cause for gardening is, I think that everybody must continue doing so. In the USA especially, which is dealing with obesity and pollution as the two main issues, I think gardening advice can only serve to improve the state of the world.
Of course I’m no psychologist; I am just a curious gardener. I often stay up for hours wondering what makes me garden. What is it that makes me leave the house for a few hours every day with my gardening tools, and facilitate the small-time growth of plants that will grow naturally on their own? I may not know, but in this situation ignorance truly is bliss.
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