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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Planting Mental Health

Recent research shows just five minutes of active gardening a day decreases the risk of mental illness and increases the sense of well being. Until now, nobody knew how much time people had to spend in green spaces to reap these benefits. Really, it was any physical activity in presence of nature that was found to provide these results. (Garden Chic, Feb. 2011)

Life as a business owner must be extremely different for all of us. I often wonder what it would be like to go to auction to pick out cars, do you choose the colors that you sold last year, or just the pink ones that you think would look pretty driving down Maine Street. When you have a hardware store - how do you make the decision exactly how many nails are needed in any given month, and can you imagine trying to do the buying for a restaurant, not knowing how many people are going to venture through your door each day - and just what do you do with the leftovers? It's not like you can lose them in the freezer for a year or two until you are forced to clean it out like I do.

Well I don't order food, or cars, or nails - but I do order trees. Lots and lots of trees. This is the week that our very first shipment is coming in for Spring 2011. Over the last two years we have all been faced with uncertainty in our own personal financial lives, and in the business world it has been no different. So this year it is a little more difficult to put together an order for trees when the landscapers in our town are hurting and the local real estate market is in one of the worst slumps in the country. But, anyone who knows me, and if you are reading this that probably includes you, also know that I am the Queen of Optimists. So, I am ordering trees!!! and shrubs!!! and more trees, and a thousand roses, and flowers, and organic soils, and hundreds of varieties of seeds, and colorful gloves, and gardening books and anything else I can manage to find that will bring us back to the soil and our roots. I truly believe that if we all just dug our hands in the dirt a little more it would be a happier, calmer world.

And for me at this moment, it's time to head outside while the sun is shining and the wind has stopped and get some of that great mental health going. See you in the garden, Susan

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

you continue to inspire me. keep writing, i will keep reading. Bev

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