This article focuses a lot on large, well curated gardens, but I'm an engineer who found a lot of solace and safety in managing my own garden. (As someone who has faced burnout and anxiety from work before.)
There's something about planning, planting, and then caring for a garden that appeals to my engineer brain. It's an exercise in organization and planning that scales from "throw seeds at dirt" to "these plants will attract bees near these other plants, these plants will repel insects. These will bloom early, these bloom late".
You can grow flowers, you can grow vegetables which you can turn into cooked, canned, or pickled food.
There's something about putting food on a plate that came from your yard, from your care. There's something about sitting in a green (or red, or blue, or yellow, etc.) space that you made.
I'm a sucker for games like Minecraft, Factorio, etc. Raising a garden is like a slow motion version of those things. It's a fusion of creative and scientific/engineering brains. It's great.
> putting food on a plate that came from your yard, from your care.
Can't second this enough. This connection between soil (direct environment) to your gut is, as stupid as it seems, a marvellous thing.[1]
> There's something about sitting in a green (or red, or blue, or yellow, etc.) space that you made.
Few time I walk in a forest (semi-wild) I feel like a forest is like a big nest. Enough roof, enough sunlight, enough green things aronud. It feels very safe most of the time[0].
I'll add something, wood is so superb.. as a material too. Using it as construction (small or large) is a great pleasure. The soft sound, the soft touch, the pale color.. when seen with a bit of chemist eye, you appreciate it a lot.
ps: on volcanic side of caribean islands, the nature is also overwhelmingly present. Giving you a lot of opportunities to be around a tiny stream of clear water surrounded by plants. You know people listening to rainy sonuds to relax. It was an amplified version of this. It made my mind trip in a weird way, as if flowing water became my time source and made me forget about the world.
[0] there are times where your spidey senses will wake up though, which is also super surprising because it's not like fear or stress. It's N times more acute senses and focus. Almost a pleasure.. especially considering how dull a modern daily life can make you feel.
[1] society forgot that because of modern times social delegation but it should be a human right. Today you may not have enough to do your own food growing. If you fall of the city tree you'll starve.
> There's something about planning, planting, and then caring for a garden that appeals to my engineer brain
Agreed, and it's also not a stressful task in itself for some reason. I'm somebody that's over analytical and tends to succumb to analysis paralysis, but when it comes to garden work I never experience that. (possibly because I know plants are resilient and it's hard to mess up?)
As an engineer who also really loves the outdoors (forests, mountains, etc.), I find gardening to be one the most stressful activities I've ever tried.
For example, I had several trees planted for privacy, and I cannot even handle watering them. There's no good recipe to follow, no fixed amount of water, just a vague instruction to dig a hole into the root ball and make sure the soil is "moist" but not "wet" or "dry". Of course, that is just like a customer saying he wants a design that "pops but is not too flashy" - a nightmare.
On top of that, there's one watering system for 7 trees, and various holes next to them have different-feeling soil; and often, different holes right next to each other by the same tree have radically different levels of moisture. Even the rain doesn't helps because arborvitae are very dense and while 2 feet from the root ball it may be almost swampy, under the tree still looks dry and I've no idea whether to water or not water them.
And that's before we get to fertilizer, pests, etc. Ugh.
And ofc unlike e.g. burning a cake, if the trees do die I'll actually feel bad.
It's basically an engineering equivalent of a customer from hell who is super vague, changes specs all the time, and you have multiple bosses who disagree; and if you screw up the project people suffer.
I already wish I just had a taller fence built, cause I'll have to hire someone to deal with this no doubt.
They really should come up with bio-engineered "robot" trees that have an instruction manual with specific quantities of water and stuff to be applied at specific intervals...
I also like to have my own garden, or at least a small communal garden that is harmoniously integrated into the property.
I was living in Copenhagen for a few years, and I was really impressed by how well designed some small blocks of flats were in order to get them integrated into wild gardens and little forests, e.g. [1,2]. Apparently a trend that started with Scandinavian mid-century architecture.
During Spring and Summer, from many living rooms you could not see neighboring blocks because there was an absolutely amazing small forest in between. With Summer breeze, you would only hear leaves moving. Absolutely amazing to work from home in such a property. Silent and very pleasant views.
Trees had been carefully selected and/or flats placed appropriately so that during darker months they would not give any shade. And these were mid-class flats I could rent with a (generous) MSc scholarship, nothing outrageously expensive. Good urban design makes a difference.
I'd guess that you would love permaculture [1], if you're not already familiar with it. It's a set of design principles for organizing and planning gardens that oozes a certain creative engineering and wisdom of natural things.
in the book Digital Minimalism Cal Newport does devote a chapter to this type of 'Leisure' activity. he makes a case that humans are evolved to interact with physical world and such activity is a lot more satisfying/relaxing than the simulated kind (digital world). its well worth a read and making me re-consider my evenings. Even though i avoid TV i still spend "productive" time on a computer. working on a garden would be an excellent candidate!
>I'm a sucker for games like Minecraft, Factorio, etc. Raising a garden is like a slow motion version of those things. It's a fusion of creative and scientific/engineering brains. It's great.
I can't believe you didn't mention Stardew Valley. It is a smash hit game and your comment is basically a short essay as to why it is so popular and enjoyable.
I love the uncertainty of it. There are so many things that can go wrong - weather, pests, misunderstanding a plants needs. Too many factors out of your control. At the end of the day you have to accept that nature will take its own course and appreciate it.
> There's something about planning, planting, and then caring for a garden that appeals to my engineer brain.
Boy you sound like someone who would really enjoy square foot gardening. I doubt I'm telling you anything you don't know, but here's a link for those unfamiliar:
I remember watching a TED talk by Dan Gilbert in which he claimed that there was research showing that tending houseplants improved mood (and extended lifespans, I think?) for elderly nursing home residents, but also that the longevity benefits were reversed after the houseplants were taken away?
I'm very fuzzy on the details, but in retrospect, it sounds like a bit of a cruel experiment to conduct.
You're getting it twice there, because repetitive tasks can have their own soothing effect, especially on people whose minds tend to 'race'.
Weeding, pruning, harvesting become a meditation, after a fashion. That's probably what Grandpa was doing out there futzing with the lawn every weekend. I never got that knack with lawncare, but flowerbeds, sure.
Totally agree. My business partner started gardening from her balcony and blogging about the challenges, which then got several of us into it as well. I now have five raised beds, more than a dozen pots, some vertical planters made from eaves, and a good plant that feels like something out of Little Shop of Horrors.
It's such a connective thing for me now. Stress relief, feeling control over my food source, talking to neighbours more often, and thinking about food sources. Highly recommended gardening to anyone looking for a great and fairly easy hobby.
My balcony becomes an urban farm every summer complete with custom PCB giving me moisture monitoring and individual watering of 8 plants. Not necessary but definitely calming.
I've had a theory for some time now based on my own observations:
A big part of why nature is so calming is the absence of repeating patterns. In our artificial life everything follows standardized forms and patterns. It's a sterile world.
The most obvious example being rectangles and perfect 90 degree angles everywhere. But I would also count things like uniform colors, evenly spread (artificial) light, predictable sounds etc.
That makes me think that somehow something like this absence of patterns - and the knowledge/assumption for our brain that they are not to be expected in nature - helps us.
The beauty in this is that nature _is_ full of patterns. But on a different level, no two patterns are ever the same. When you look at a green tree you simply won't assume to find two leaves with the same color and shape. That's the difference.
Points toward volatile systems (e.g. cells and animals and humans and cultures and all forms of life) preferring a certain degree of fractal dimension and self-similarity, which to me hints at the right balance of chaos and order that is conducive to life and many self-sustaining systems. And so we intuitively "choose" and have preference for a certain fractal dimension range, which nature also happens to prefer at all sorts of different scales.
If this sort of thinking appeals to you, I also highly recommend looking into complexity science :)
EDIT: fwiw, the gist of this article REALLY struck me when I was in the Juifen market in Taiwan [1] (which the anime Spirited Away was inspired by) -- the chaos of the layered canopy covers and random infrastructural protrusions from the lack of central planning -- it immediately felt comforting, like walking into a shaded forest trail, despite being surrounded by a vibrant economy and commerce! (which I would normally kinda HATE)
Sort of off topic:
One of the more frustrating things about going out in nature where I live at least, is seeing the pattern of invasive plants over and over again. I can identify every plant in my area, an area that would have been full of thousands of different trees and bushes now has repeating landscape of about two dozen different plants.
You might be interested in looking at and reading parts of The Grammar of Ornament. In particular some of the “principles” he spells out. I’ll link that page below.
“True beauty results from that repose which the mind feels when the eye, the intellect, and the affections, are satisfied from the absence of any want.”
What you say regarding patterns is true compared to human-made thubgs, but I'm not sure that is what is the root attraction.
For me it's the practically endless possibility that I will see or hear (or even smell) something new if I'm using my senses (instead of busy thinking about human problems).
There's little difference betweey explanation and yours, but I selfishly think it's all about our experience.
I feel like walls should be covered in green/blue stochastically transforming patterns meant to elicit the same response that nature does, ideally with feedback from an EEG headset that picks up on what patterns are most calming for a given person.
Of all the plants, trees by far give me the most pleasure. A suburb with trees is a thousand times better than one without. The shade of a tree is completely transformative. It gives me a fuzzy warm feeling inside.
It’s concerning to me that such an important aesthetic component is so transient and difficult to control. When you build a house, you control every aspect of its design. It’s materials are tough and long lasting. But the trees around the house are prone to dying. They get too old or they get sick or whatever. And when they do, you can’t really replace them. I’ve seen tons of houses where they had great atmosphere but then one of their large trees died and the feeling of the house is totally ruined. I’m not sure if you can order a grown tree and have it implanted but it’s probably really expensive. We need artificial trees that last longer and are easy to replace.
Humans are drawn to vistas. Standing on the top of a hill and looking at the vista is something everyone agrees is beautiful and feels good. I think it might be because our ancestors were tree-dwelling monkeys. The higher in the tree you climb, the better the view, the safer you are from predators. If we are drawn to views then we would likely spend more time high up in the tree. Maybe that’s also why we find trees themselves so appealing. Ancient wiring.
I am fortunate to have a house on a larger plot of land considering it's in a dense urban environment, and on the land are very impressive trees such as an oak, a maple, a few birch, and a black cherry. Regrettably the birch are short lived, and while they still produce leaves they are getting weak and I will need to bring them down in a few years. The cherry still produces leaves and may even flower this year, but its wood is very brittle and it will probably come down this fall. It truly is sad as their loss will definitely impact why I moved into the house.
Before we had kids, my wife and I would work in the garden almost every weekend. After spending a week dealing with servers on fire, doing mindless repetitive work was exactly what I needed to rest my mind.
At one point I dug out a garden that was 37’ x 14’ and over a foot deep. I did the math once and figured out that I moved more than 2000 lbs of dirt (a literal ton) and then I moved a literal ton of bricks to the back yard to build the retaining walls.
Measuring your accomplishments in tonnage is very satisfying.
>I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.
---
I have witnessed this with my wife who's neurological disorder causes her to be in a "fright or flight" state virtually all day every day.
When she is either planning the garden, tending to the garden or just enjoying the garden I can see a reduced level of stress and increased ability to focus and multitask. All things which are very difficult outside of the garden.
That's great to hear. I think being in a place where you can see seasonal change also has a calming and humbling effect. The wisteria in the springtime, the beautiful colors of the leaves in autumn - being around those changes in your natural habitat can be destressing and comforting, as they show that life and the natural world still goes on around you.
Not only is it visually pleasing, as an escape fro our usual concrete-filled world (probably because we evolved living in nature), but without doing any research to look up studies I feel like the reduced stress might also come from the smell (pheromones).
That sounds like you'd need a portable garden. (Whether that still works is another question.)
I've seen people talk about car plants, which would be a similar idea. (The feasibility depends a lot on climate of course.) And then of course there are many houseplants enthusiasts, it seems easy to develop some kind of addiction when stressed or mentally not well. Plants everywhere!
One of the gardens pictured in the article, Elizabeth Street Garden, is a great spot in the middle of retail chaos in New York. Sadly a real estate development filed a lawsuit this month in hopes of destroying it: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/581fb257b8a79bf741c67...
There's something about this I read on Slate Star Codex that I found entertaining and insightful. It's easy to forget that we needed to be in a fertile place in the past, and for the most part we don't need to now, except for emotional reasons.
"Most people are happier when they’re in at least some Nature, whether this means a grand national park or just a leafy suburb with lots of chirping birds. The average person would consider a concrete lot full of Brutalist apartments a little soul-crushing. This probably comes from an evolutionary heuristic in favor of fertile areas and against barren ones; the closest chimpanzee-parseable equivalent to a concrete lot would be a desert or lava flow, where food and shelter are scarce. But nowadays we can order takeout, and the Brutalist apartment buildings provide all the shelter we need. This is probably another obsolete evolutionary relic, but it’s a very persistent one."
I'm (hopefully) on the tail-end of dealing with mental health issues. I was dealing with burnout, depression, substance abuse, trauma, psychosis, and severe anxiety. Right about then I started this backyard project to create a chemical-free, sustainable, and diverse "forest garden". Currently, about two years later that Eco-system is starting to explode with more bugs, fungus, and birds.
I found solitude, peace, and healing in the process of working with nature. I worked hard to revitalize the natural environment around me, and through that process I want to believe that nature found a way to heal me too.
Also, I had a therapist and a supporting partner who helped me through the tough times.
Anyways, I can't recommend enough getting your hands in the dirt, appreciating all forms of nature, and learning about the various Eco-systems that are needed for nature to thrive.
My wife and I have been gardening for around 15 years.
We spent a couple of years, maybe 5 or 7 years ago, trying straw bale gardens.
It was quite interesting. I would recommend giving it a try some time. You can do it even with just one bale. We did it with about 10-12 bales of oat straw from a farm we knew.
Given the author's observations, I would draw a different conclusion. I would conclude it isn't so much that gardens are good for you but that urban living, surrounding yourself with noise, strangers, glass, and concrete is bad for you.
Oddly, I have never felt the allure of gardens, I don't have any plants myself, and if I'd have to choose between a city environment and nature, I'd in most cases choose the city (and not because of its parks). Both when I am happy and when I am sad.
I like a good sunset but that's it.
I'm clearly in a minority with this, it seems.
I am actively working on a startup to encourage gardening for all the mentioned benefits. If someone wants to chat about it please reach out. Email in profile.
Gardens and other natural spaces absolutely affect social and mental wellbeing.
An interesting piece of research into the effects of greenery and nature on wellbeing was conducted back in 2001 by Ming Kuo and William Sullivan [0]. I love referencing it in discussions like these as it's a rather opportunistic experimental setting that might have otherwise never occurred, and gives us some pretty great data to recount when we only otherwise have anecdotes.
In Chicago there was a set of high-rise public-housing buildings. The residents of these buildings had been assigned randomly by the public housing system. Attrition over time had left some buildings surrounded by only concrete and asphalt and others with pockets of green. Kuo and Sullivan were able to compare levels of aggression of 145 residents. They found higher levels of aggression and familial conflict recalled by those living less close to nature. They backed up this data by looking at similar low-rise developments [1]. Controlling for other factors, they compared crime rates of inhabitants who experienced less natural proximity to those with more. They found that roughly 7% of the variation in crime that couldn't be accounted for by other factors could be accounted for by the amount of trees.
Ming Kuo has gone on to research the link between nature and school performance, one of her recent studies concluding that "greening has the potential to mitigate academic underachievement in high-poverty urban schools."[2] In another fascinating piece of research she has also found that "Children with ADHD have fewer symptoms after outdoor activities in lush environments."[3]
Many of this research matches our collective anecdotes. We know that we are somehow hard-wired for nature. Yet we keep ourselves locked away in buildings for hours on end with little of it except corporate potted plants (often fake) and the odd photo or poster on the wall. To pile on with another opinion... I think there's something about 'wild' greenery that is distinctly effective versus manicured greenery. Its chaos and growth somehow synchronise with the minds' inherent nature. In an incredibly fundamental way, we are supposed to be amongst that wildness.
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.
_qwfv|6 years ago
There's something about planning, planting, and then caring for a garden that appeals to my engineer brain. It's an exercise in organization and planning that scales from "throw seeds at dirt" to "these plants will attract bees near these other plants, these plants will repel insects. These will bloom early, these bloom late".
You can grow flowers, you can grow vegetables which you can turn into cooked, canned, or pickled food.
There's something about putting food on a plate that came from your yard, from your care. There's something about sitting in a green (or red, or blue, or yellow, etc.) space that you made.
I'm a sucker for games like Minecraft, Factorio, etc. Raising a garden is like a slow motion version of those things. It's a fusion of creative and scientific/engineering brains. It's great.
agumonkey|6 years ago
Can't second this enough. This connection between soil (direct environment) to your gut is, as stupid as it seems, a marvellous thing.[1]
> There's something about sitting in a green (or red, or blue, or yellow, etc.) space that you made.
Few time I walk in a forest (semi-wild) I feel like a forest is like a big nest. Enough roof, enough sunlight, enough green things aronud. It feels very safe most of the time[0].
I'll add something, wood is so superb.. as a material too. Using it as construction (small or large) is a great pleasure. The soft sound, the soft touch, the pale color.. when seen with a bit of chemist eye, you appreciate it a lot.
ps: on volcanic side of caribean islands, the nature is also overwhelmingly present. Giving you a lot of opportunities to be around a tiny stream of clear water surrounded by plants. You know people listening to rainy sonuds to relax. It was an amplified version of this. It made my mind trip in a weird way, as if flowing water became my time source and made me forget about the world.
[0] there are times where your spidey senses will wake up though, which is also super surprising because it's not like fear or stress. It's N times more acute senses and focus. Almost a pleasure.. especially considering how dull a modern daily life can make you feel.
[1] society forgot that because of modern times social delegation but it should be a human right. Today you may not have enough to do your own food growing. If you fall of the city tree you'll starve.
hanniabu|6 years ago
Agreed, and it's also not a stressful task in itself for some reason. I'm somebody that's over analytical and tends to succumb to analysis paralysis, but when it comes to garden work I never experience that. (possibly because I know plants are resilient and it's hard to mess up?)
sershe|6 years ago
For example, I had several trees planted for privacy, and I cannot even handle watering them. There's no good recipe to follow, no fixed amount of water, just a vague instruction to dig a hole into the root ball and make sure the soil is "moist" but not "wet" or "dry". Of course, that is just like a customer saying he wants a design that "pops but is not too flashy" - a nightmare. On top of that, there's one watering system for 7 trees, and various holes next to them have different-feeling soil; and often, different holes right next to each other by the same tree have radically different levels of moisture. Even the rain doesn't helps because arborvitae are very dense and while 2 feet from the root ball it may be almost swampy, under the tree still looks dry and I've no idea whether to water or not water them. And that's before we get to fertilizer, pests, etc. Ugh. And ofc unlike e.g. burning a cake, if the trees do die I'll actually feel bad.
It's basically an engineering equivalent of a customer from hell who is super vague, changes specs all the time, and you have multiple bosses who disagree; and if you screw up the project people suffer.
I already wish I just had a taller fence built, cause I'll have to hire someone to deal with this no doubt.
They really should come up with bio-engineered "robot" trees that have an instruction manual with specific quantities of water and stuff to be applied at specific intervals...
nextos|6 years ago
I was living in Copenhagen for a few years, and I was really impressed by how well designed some small blocks of flats were in order to get them integrated into wild gardens and little forests, e.g. [1,2]. Apparently a trend that started with Scandinavian mid-century architecture.
During Spring and Summer, from many living rooms you could not see neighboring blocks because there was an absolutely amazing small forest in between. With Summer breeze, you would only hear leaves moving. Absolutely amazing to work from home in such a property. Silent and very pleasant views.
Trees had been carefully selected and/or flats placed appropriately so that during darker months they would not give any shade. And these were mid-class flats I could rent with a (generous) MSc scholarship, nothing outrageously expensive. Good urban design makes a difference.
[1] https://nybolig.mindworking.eu/resources/shops/N270179/cases...
[2] https://nybolig.mindworking.eu/resources/shops/N270179/cases...
pcmaffey|6 years ago
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
SonicSoul|6 years ago
billmalarky|6 years ago
I can't believe you didn't mention Stardew Valley. It is a smash hit game and your comment is basically a short essay as to why it is so popular and enjoyable.
wefarrell|6 years ago
js2|6 years ago
Boy you sound like someone who would really enjoy square foot gardening. I doubt I'm telling you anything you don't know, but here's a link for those unfamiliar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_foot_gardening
rlue|6 years ago
I'm very fuzzy on the details, but in retrospect, it sounds like a bit of a cruel experiment to conduct.
hinkley|6 years ago
Weeding, pruning, harvesting become a meditation, after a fashion. That's probably what Grandpa was doing out there futzing with the lawn every weekend. I never got that knack with lawncare, but flowerbeds, sure.
lux|6 years ago
It's such a connective thing for me now. Stress relief, feeling control over my food source, talking to neighbours more often, and thinking about food sources. Highly recommended gardening to anyone looking for a great and fairly easy hobby.
rboyd|6 years ago
Factorio is next in my queue. Cities: Skylines is my current go to.
xvf22|6 years ago
malandrew|6 years ago
KingFelix|6 years ago
atomi|6 years ago
Check out https://github.com/OpenSprinkler/OpenSprinkler-Firmware which you can easily run off an RPi Zero W and a cheap 5v relay.
My favorite is plant propagation which is especially fun and challenging to scale in a small indoor space.
aloer|6 years ago
A big part of why nature is so calming is the absence of repeating patterns. In our artificial life everything follows standardized forms and patterns. It's a sterile world. The most obvious example being rectangles and perfect 90 degree angles everywhere. But I would also count things like uniform colors, evenly spread (artificial) light, predictable sounds etc.
That makes me think that somehow something like this absence of patterns - and the knowledge/assumption for our brain that they are not to be expected in nature - helps us.
The beauty in this is that nature _is_ full of patterns. But on a different level, no two patterns are ever the same. When you look at a green tree you simply won't assume to find two leaves with the same color and shape. That's the difference.
Some years ago I got myself an empty canvas frame and put natural linen fabric (https://www.fabric.com/buy/ff-357/kaufman-antwerp-linen-natu...) on it. No painting, just the linen. For the same reason: It's calming to look at
Or maybe I'm just weird :)
starpilot|6 years ago
patcon|6 years ago
Points toward volatile systems (e.g. cells and animals and humans and cultures and all forms of life) preferring a certain degree of fractal dimension and self-similarity, which to me hints at the right balance of chaos and order that is conducive to life and many self-sustaining systems. And so we intuitively "choose" and have preference for a certain fractal dimension range, which nature also happens to prefer at all sorts of different scales.
If this sort of thinking appeals to you, I also highly recommend looking into complexity science :)
EDIT: fwiw, the gist of this article REALLY struck me when I was in the Juifen market in Taiwan [1] (which the anime Spirited Away was inspired by) -- the chaos of the layered canopy covers and random infrastructural protrusions from the lack of central planning -- it immediately felt comforting, like walking into a shaded forest trail, despite being surrounded by a vibrant economy and commerce! (which I would normally kinda HATE)
[1]: https://www.edreams.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019...
imesh|6 years ago
flycaliguy|6 years ago
“True beauty results from that repose which the mind feels when the eye, the intellect, and the affections, are satisfied from the absence of any want.”
https://archive.org/details/grammarornament00Jone/page/n13
The book’s evaluation of leaves and nature at the end is also relevant.
blunte|6 years ago
For me it's the practically endless possibility that I will see or hear (or even smell) something new if I'm using my senses (instead of busy thinking about human problems).
There's little difference betweey explanation and yours, but I selfishly think it's all about our experience.
blotter_paper|6 years ago
hospitate|6 years ago
It’s concerning to me that such an important aesthetic component is so transient and difficult to control. When you build a house, you control every aspect of its design. It’s materials are tough and long lasting. But the trees around the house are prone to dying. They get too old or they get sick or whatever. And when they do, you can’t really replace them. I’ve seen tons of houses where they had great atmosphere but then one of their large trees died and the feeling of the house is totally ruined. I’m not sure if you can order a grown tree and have it implanted but it’s probably really expensive. We need artificial trees that last longer and are easy to replace.
Humans are drawn to vistas. Standing on the top of a hill and looking at the vista is something everyone agrees is beautiful and feels good. I think it might be because our ancestors were tree-dwelling monkeys. The higher in the tree you climb, the better the view, the safer you are from predators. If we are drawn to views then we would likely spend more time high up in the tree. Maybe that’s also why we find trees themselves so appealing. Ancient wiring.
voidmain0001|6 years ago
jedberg|6 years ago
At one point I dug out a garden that was 37’ x 14’ and over a foot deep. I did the math once and figured out that I moved more than 2000 lbs of dirt (a literal ton) and then I moved a literal ton of bricks to the back yard to build the retaining walls.
Measuring your accomplishments in tonnage is very satisfying.
benj111|6 years ago
Why did you stop? Personally I make an extra effort to get them outside, for young kids theres so much to learn in a garden, or out for a walk.
jrace|6 years ago
I have witnessed this with my wife who's neurological disorder causes her to be in a "fright or flight" state virtually all day every day.
When she is either planning the garden, tending to the garden or just enjoying the garden I can see a reduced level of stress and increased ability to focus and multitask. All things which are very difficult outside of the garden.
ivoallasap|6 years ago
hanniabu|6 years ago
kaybe|6 years ago
I've seen people talk about car plants, which would be a similar idea. (The feasibility depends a lot on climate of course.) And then of course there are many houseplants enthusiasts, it seems easy to develop some kind of addiction when stressed or mentally not well. Plants everywhere!
sinemetu11|6 years ago
kingkawn|6 years ago
granfalloon|6 years ago
benatkin|6 years ago
"Most people are happier when they’re in at least some Nature, whether this means a grand national park or just a leafy suburb with lots of chirping birds. The average person would consider a concrete lot full of Brutalist apartments a little soul-crushing. This probably comes from an evolutionary heuristic in favor of fertile areas and against barren ones; the closest chimpanzee-parseable equivalent to a concrete lot would be a desert or lava flow, where food and shelter are scarce. But nowadays we can order takeout, and the Brutalist apartment buildings provide all the shelter we need. This is probably another obsolete evolutionary relic, but it’s a very persistent one."
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/24/value-differences-as-d...
adreamingsoul|6 years ago
I found solitude, peace, and healing in the process of working with nature. I worked hard to revitalize the natural environment around me, and through that process I want to believe that nature found a way to heal me too.
Also, I had a therapist and a supporting partner who helped me through the tough times.
Anyways, I can't recommend enough getting your hands in the dirt, appreciating all forms of nature, and learning about the various Eco-systems that are needed for nature to thrive.
vanderZwan|6 years ago
checkyoursudo|6 years ago
We spent a couple of years, maybe 5 or 7 years ago, trying straw bale gardens.
It was quite interesting. I would recommend giving it a try some time. You can do it even with just one bale. We did it with about 10-12 bales of oat straw from a farm we knew.
E.g., https://www.amazon.com/Straw-Bale-Gardens-Complete-Karsten/d... was the author of the book we used, though this seems to be an updated version to the one we used.
I prefer raised soil beds, but this straw bale style was quite enjoyable.
galazzah|6 years ago
someone7x|6 years ago
He boils it all down to fundamentals that are easy to apply.
Causality1|6 years ago
imartin2k|6 years ago
fillskills|6 years ago
padolsey|6 years ago
An interesting piece of research into the effects of greenery and nature on wellbeing was conducted back in 2001 by Ming Kuo and William Sullivan [0]. I love referencing it in discussions like these as it's a rather opportunistic experimental setting that might have otherwise never occurred, and gives us some pretty great data to recount when we only otherwise have anecdotes.
In Chicago there was a set of high-rise public-housing buildings. The residents of these buildings had been assigned randomly by the public housing system. Attrition over time had left some buildings surrounded by only concrete and asphalt and others with pockets of green. Kuo and Sullivan were able to compare levels of aggression of 145 residents. They found higher levels of aggression and familial conflict recalled by those living less close to nature. They backed up this data by looking at similar low-rise developments [1]. Controlling for other factors, they compared crime rates of inhabitants who experienced less natural proximity to those with more. They found that roughly 7% of the variation in crime that couldn't be accounted for by other factors could be accounted for by the amount of trees.
Ming Kuo has gone on to research the link between nature and school performance, one of her recent studies concluding that "greening has the potential to mitigate academic underachievement in high-poverty urban schools."[2] In another fascinating piece of research she has also found that "Children with ADHD have fewer symptoms after outdoor activities in lush environments."[3]
Many of this research matches our collective anecdotes. We know that we are somehow hard-wired for nature. Yet we keep ourselves locked away in buildings for hours on end with little of it except corporate potted plants (often fake) and the odd photo or poster on the wall. To pile on with another opinion... I think there's something about 'wild' greenery that is distinctly effective versus manicured greenery. Its chaos and growth somehow synchronise with the minds' inherent nature. In an incredibly fundamental way, we are supposed to be amongst that wildness.
[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245234610_Aggressio...
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249624302_Environme...
[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327876862_Might_Sch...
[3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23192434_Children_W...
gamebak|6 years ago
sctb|6 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
johnsimer|6 years ago
Doesn't mean people shouldn't recommend restaurants to me