Experiencing both mental and physical health benefits, Souderton residents and landscapers garden year-round, planting flowers and producing seeds.
For Students Against Violating the Earth (SAVE) officer Quincy Canavan, gardening is a relaxing and rewarding activity. “You put in this time to get out food that you grew yourself,” Canavan said.
According to Mayo Clinic Health System’s Lisa Wimmer, gardening has many benefits. “A busy day in the garden can be a good form of exercise,” Wimmer said. “While tending a garden, you perform functional movement that mimics whole body exercise.”
In addition to providing a way to exercise, growing food at home can improve diets.
“Gardeners are more likely to include vegetables as part of healthy, well-balanced diets,” Wimmer said. “My family eats corn, potatoes, and salsa made from ingredients grown in our garden year-round.”
Further, growing food provides “the benefit of knowing” where and how a plant was grown.
“You know exactly where it was and what was used to grow it,” Canavan said.
According to Canavan, knowing where food comes from and how it was grown is an important advantage. “ We are very disconnected from the food we eat,” Canavan said.
For science teacher Karen Wolfe, gardening is a lifelong hobby. “I have been gardening my whole life,” Wolfe said.
Gardening is a “sign” of spring to Wolfe.
“It’s very hard for me to be inside,” Wolfe said. “As spring comes along, I find it really hard to get my schoolwork done because I want to be outside doing things and piddling around in the yard.”
In addition to planting at home, many individuals hire landscaping companies in the spring to do work on their property.
“It makes [people] feel good when they have a nice landscape in front of their house,” RMS Landscape owner John Rice said.
According to Rice, a bonus to landscaping is the trees that are planted.
“It’s beneficial to our environment to have more trees in the ground,” Rice said.
Rice said an additional benefit of a good landscape is reduced flooding.
“A lot of planting impacts water issues like drainage and flooding,” Rice said. “You can use plants to help eliminate some of those issues.”
For Canavan, despite what many people believe, gardening is relatively easy to start doing.
“At first it may seem like a lot of resources and stuff are needed,” Canavan said, “but after buying some of it once, the needs will slowly lessen over the years of use.”
According to Canavan, there are other ways to get involved as well. “Most [gardeners] want others to start their own gardens and are willing to help [someone] to start by getting involved,” Canavan said.
Other gardeners, such as Wolfe, share similar beliefs.
“I think there is a community out there that loves plants,” Wolfe said. “Sometimes they do just share and swap [advice].”
According to Wolfe, talking to “plant people” can be very helpful for anyone to get started. “You can learn a lot from other people,” Wolfe said.