Archive for April 23rd, 2022
Gardening is good for my mental health… and helps some charity too as I #PlantPink
I have never really been one for gardening. Even when I was growing up, I think the most successful planting I ever did was of some cress in school. And I think that only worked because everyone else’s did as well. So you can imagine my surprise that in the last month I have been planting some plants in pots in the front garden of our house.
Now, this may have something to do with living close to a branch of Glanbia’s Countrylife here in County Kildare. Not having a car makes buying plants, pots, and bags of compost quite difficult. Ok, so the buying of them is the easy part, it is the getting them home from the garden centre that has historically been the difficult part. But, as I said, Countrylife is about 500 metres from the house, so there really is now no excuse. Even when there is an item or three that is too heavy, the local store will arrange delivery by a helpful assistant as they did with the three bags of compost.
The first day that Andrew and I went there, we bought one pot and put three heather plants in it. The next week, I went back and bought another larger pot and put a plant in it. Today, I went bought two smaller pots but in green and put some lavender in one and some “Tickled Pink” dianthus in the other.
All of the pots are from Lemonfield Pottery’s Botanical Gardens range. Unfortunately, Lemonfield Pottery is trade only, but they do produce some lovely pots. I’m sure your local garden centre will be able to source them should you want them.
But why did I start on this gardening? Well, I had read that gardening can be good for your mental health. It is also good to get out into nature, and living in the countryside I had been noticing more and more of the flowers around us. Wouldn’t it be pleasant to have some close by? So, that is basically why I am doing it. The lavender may also be useful later on in the summer as Andrew really loves the smell of it: it is useful for helping him to go to sleep. Hopefully we can use some of our own to assist.
Originally posted on HIVBLogger.com.
