SMART THINKING
Visitors to a proposed Healing Garden will experience the curative properties of nature.
Visitors to a new Healing Garden will experience nature’s curative properties.
Did you start to notice bird calls and the changing season in your garden while in lockdown? Were there moments of absolute bliss sitting in the sun within your garden or balcony fascinated by the colour of a plant, the shape of a leaf or the smell of herbs or flowers?
The stress-relieving effects of gardening have been tested in a field experiment in the Netherlands where 30 allotment gardeners performed a stressful Stroop task (a psychological experiment that demonstrates the difficulty of naming the ink colour of a word if there is a mismatch between ink colour and the word, e.g. the word ‘yellow’ printed in blue ink) and were then randomly assigned to 30 minutes of outdoor gardening or indoor reading. Salivary cortisol levels and self-reported mood were repeatedly measured. Gardening and reading each led to decreases in cortisol, but decreases were far stronger in the gardening group. Positive mood was fully restored after gardening, but further deteriorated during reading. These findings provide the first experimental evidence that gardening can promote relief from acute stress. Gardening is relaxing, visually stimulating and has a positive impact on stress levels and our mental wellbeing.
The Heide Museum of Modern Art set on 16 acres of parkland with Yarra River frontage in Melbourne has teamed up with landscape architecture studio Openwork and revealed design details for a new Healing Garden. Inspired by Heide founder Sunday Reed’s profound love for her garden, the Healing Garden draws on the curative properties of plants and the role of gardens as powerful tools for connecting communities and reducing social isolation. Heide Artistic Director Lesley Harding said, “For Sunday Reed, who founded Heide with her husband John, her garden was a creative outlet and a place of respite and rejuvenation. Like Sunday, the Heide team recognise that gardens and nature can help improve people’s wellbeing and restore a sense of equilibrium, something that will be particularly important in the coming months.”
If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it was surely to slow down a little. Make a space in your garden, or on your verandah surrounded by plants, under your favourite tree, even in your vegetable plot to sit and just live in the moment. Listen to the bird life that perhaps you started noticing while you were in lockdown, breathe in deeply and appreciate the work you have done in creating your very own ‘healing garden.’