GARDENING: A TONIC FOR OUR TIMES?
The scent, colour and planting design of your garden can help calm thoughts, energise mood and even boost your health. It’s just what the doctor ordered…
How scent, colour and design can boost your health
An ever-increasing body of scientific evidence confirms what many of us know instinctively: gardens and gardening are good for our wellbeing. Very few other activities have such a measurable impact on active lifestyles, mental health and social interaction. Gardens and plants improve our environment and protect us from noise and pollution. Planting, pruning, digging and weeding help us to keep fit, to enjoy and be part of nature, and to revel in colour, wildlife and beauty. Simply contemplating nature helps to rest and recharge our brains. With gardens in full bloom, now’s the perfect time to harness the power of plants through their colour, scent, shape and position and transform your plot into a healing sanctuary.
MOOD-BOOSTING COLOUR
Colour affects our emotions, so the varieties of plants we grow can have an important impact on mood. A 2017 German study found that people’s emotional response to colour is influenced by all three of the colour dimensions: hue (true colour), saturation (the purity or vividness of a colour) and brightness (the degree of light a colour reflects). Participants were more emotionally responsive to bright, saturated colours, for instance, than they were to darker colours with medium or low saturation.
When planting, the warm hues of reds, yellows and oranges can be combined to bring energy and intensity to schemes, especially when the colours are bright and saturated ones, such as the petals of zinnia, poppy and calendula. A more calming or relaxing scheme might feature cooler colours such as blue, purple, white and green (think delphinium, wisteria and eryngium). These, along with silver-grey foliage, such as wormwood and cotton lavender, generally have a cooling effect. Many studies show that green is the colour people find most soothing, so make it the main ingredient for areas where you want to create a feeling of serenity.
“Colour affects our emotions, so the plants we grow can have an important impact on mood”
POLLUTION-BUSTING PLANTING
Air pollution is linked to rising levels of respiratory diseases, cancer, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, dementia and early death. Tiny, ultra-fine particles of air pollution are the most dangerous, penetrating lung tissue to enter the bloodstream. However, research shows that plants have the ability to capture those pollutant particles, known as particulates, on their leaves, taking them out of circulation and improving local air quality.
You can harness this for your own outdoor space, using trees, hedging and shrubs to create a barrier against pollutants. If space is at a premium, climbers, trailing plants and living walls or roofs all offer alternative options.
All leaves trap small amounts of air pollutants, but some plants outperform others. Studies have found that those with hairy (such as cotoneaster and ribes), scaly (such as red cedar and lemon cypress), waxy (such as yew and holly) and rough leaves (such as hawthorn and hornbeam) are particularly effective.
Recent Royal Horticultural Society research showed that a yew canopy can accumulate four times more fine airborne particles than photinia, which has smoother leaves and is less dense.
CALMING SCENTS
For centuries, people have believed in the power of botanical scents to boost mood, health and wellbeing – and now scientific studies are providing increasing evidence of their positive effects.
Research reveals the parts of the brain that process smell, memory and emotion are closely related, and that scents can affect our brainwaves in powerful and measurable ways. For example, evidence increasingly supports the role of lavender scent in cognitive performance, as a mood and sleep aid, a muscle relaxant and a migraine reliever. While this may in part be due to lavender’s pleasant smell leading to a positive emotional response, evidence also suggests physiological effects, including the scent interacting with brain receptors and neurotransmitters to promote relaxation.
Rosemary, which has long been used in aromatherapy to boost energy levels and has traditional links with memory, has been shown to suppress both beta and alpha brainwaves, which increases alertness and learning retention.
When designing your own therapeutic garden, think about whether you want an area for relaxation, which might include planting marjoram and damask rose, or one that will invigorate you or increase concentration, with pots of peppermint or a trellis of jasmine.
DESIGNS TO DAMPEN NOISE
Noise pollution is not just annoying, it’s also bad for our physical and mental health. According to the World Health Organisation, it’s second only to airborne fine particles in polluting health and is linked to a range of issues, from tinnitus and hearing loss to elevated blood pressure, sleep disturbance and mental health problems. But, with some clever design tricks, you can restore quiet.
While hard surfaces reflect sound, plants can help to diffuse noise pollution. Sounds interact with plants or structures in different ways. Trees with smooth trunks, for example, redirect sounds by bouncing or bending them around the garden. Textured surfaces, such as rough-barked branches, twigs and leaves, scatter sound in many directions, lessening its effects in any one place. Soft, spongy surfaces – such as grass, fleshy leaves and some more porous barks – make effective sound absorbers.
Different plants dampen different sounds: for example, photinia is effective at absorbing high frequencies, while deodar cedar is particularly good at absorbing low frequencies. So create a tranquil space by layering plants of varying heights, leaf shape and textures to create boundaries for quiet zones.