I don’t know what it is about a garden that has always drawn
humans to them. But they’ve always been very popular, and an
integral part of peoples’ lifestyles. Most religions feature
gardens as the settings for some of the biggest events According
to Christianity, humanity was started in a garden and the son of
God was resurrected in a garden. The Buddhist build gardens to
allow nature to permeate their surroundings. Almost every major
palace and government building has a garden. But what’s so great
about them? They’re just a bunch of plants, after all.
Of course, the reasoning is fairly obvious behind why people
grow food in gardens. It’s to eat! If you live off the fat of
the land and actually survive on stuff from your garden, it’s
easy to understand the reasoning. But I’m thinking about those
people who plant flower gardens just for the sake of looking
nice. There’s no immediate benefit that I can see; you just have
a bunch of flowers in your yard! However, after thinking
extensively about the motivation behind planting decorative
gardens, I’ve conceived several possible theories.
I think one of the reasons people love gardens so much is that
while we have a natural desire to progress and industrialize,
deep within all of us is a primal love for nature. While this
desire might not be as strong as
the desire for modernism, it is still strong enough to compel us
to create gardens, small outlets of nature, in the midst of all
our hustle and bustle. Since being in nature is like regressing
to an earlier stage of humanity, we too can regress to a time of
comfort and utter happiness. This is why gardens are so relaxing
and calming to be in. This is why gardens are a good place to
meditate and do tai chi exercises. A garden is a way to quickly
escape from the busy world.
I’ve thought at times that perhaps we as humans feel a sort of
guilt driving us to restore nature and care for it. This guilt
could stem from the knowledge that we, not personally but as a
race, have destroyed so much of nature to get where we are
today. It’s the least we can do to build a small garden in
remembrance of all the trees we kill every day. It’s my theory
that this is the underlying reason for most people to take up
gardening as a hobby.
Gardening is definitely a healthy habit though, don’t get me
wrong. Any hobby that provides physical exercise, helps the
environment, and improves your diet can’t be a negative thing.
So no matter what the underlying
psychological cause for gardening is, I think that everyone
should continue to do so. In the USA especially, which is
dealing with obesity and pollution as its two major problems, I
think gardening can only serve to improve the state of the
world.
Of course I’m no psychologist; I’m just a curious gardener. I
often stay up for hours wondering what makes me garden. What is
it that makes me go outside for a few hours every day with my
gardening tools, and facilitate
the small-time growth of plants that would grow naturally on
their own? I may never know, but in this case ignorance truly is
bliss.
