Finding Ground in a Chaotic World
Climate change. Wars. Inflation. AI. Data centers. A challenging job market.
When the world around us feels unsettled and out of our control, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. But doom-scrolling only elevates anxiety, and relying solely on social media for connection can add to isolation. How can you alleviate feelings of hopelessness and make a positive change in the world?
The answer: grow a great garden.
Sounds simplistic, right? But gardening offers immense therapeutic benefits. It reduces stress and anxiety, improves mood, and enhances mindfulness. When the world feels crazy, gardening helps ground you in positive, proactive actions to alleviate feelings of hopelessness.
When you’re engaged in gardening, you’re making the world a better place—one plant at a time.
When you swap the pure aesthetics of gardening for a deeper, purpose-driven philosophy, you’ll reap the rewards of beauty intertwined with impactful action. From benefiting the environment to feeding hungry neighbors to building community, gardening can soothe your soul during troubling times.
Purpose-Driven Gardening: How to Create a Positive Impact.
Set aside your device—you can doom-scroll later—and get outside where you can make a difference. Positive actions lessen constant worry, and soil microbes help regulate immune systems, which is linked to boosting moods.
Here are a few ways to turn your concern about the world into optimistic action:
1. Benefit the Environment
One of the easiest ways to make a positive impact on both your mental health and the natural world is to garden for the environment. Whether you hope to attract more pollinators to your kitchen garden or plan to preserve water by planting a xeriscape, taking proactive steps in the garden helps instill a feeling of action, rather than reaction to a stressful world.
Try a few of the following ideas to benefit the environment:
Embrace native plants
Native trees and shrubs not only provide food and shelter for birds, bees, and other wildlife but are also smart choices for growing a low-maintenance, successful garden. Because they’re adapted to local soil, temperatures, and rainfall, they often require less water, fertilizer, and pest control than exotic ornamentals. Plus, since they co-evolved with local insects, birds, and mammals for millennia, their bloom time, nectar composition, and leaf chemistry are perfectly aligned with the needs of native pollinators. And by creating a garden filled with a variety of native plants, you’re boosting biodiversity with a mosaic of habitats. From trees to form a canopy to mid-story shrubs for food and shelter to tall native perennials that provide pollen and nectar to rich groundcover plants, you’ll find a wide array of native choices to create a beautiful, beneficial wildlife habitat in your garden.
Grow pollinator-friendly flowers
From host plants to nectar-rich, beautiful blooms, you’ll find an amazing selection of plants that benefit pollinators. While milkweed often receives top billing for pollinator gardens, due to monarchs’ life-cycle needs, create a vast, diverse pollinator planting to feed an array of pollinators. Choose pollen and nectar-rich plants, like coneflower, bee balm, tickseed, goldenrod, rudbeckia, aster, and cardinal flower—but ensure your pollinator garden offers blooms throughout the year. Also consider adding host plants beyond milkweed. Plants like dill, fennel, and parsley serve as host plants for black swallowtail butterflies, while passionvines provide food for zebra and gulf fritillary butterfly larvae. Many trees also serve as host plants for larvae. By offering food sources for both adults and young, you’ll enjoy the full life cycle of pollinators in your garden.
Don’t forget: those spring “weeds”—dandelions and clover—provide an early food source for pollinators.
Sometimes, you can create a positive impact on the environment by simply doing nothing. Leave the weeds, and watch native bees feast to their delight.
Feed birds naturally
Filling bird feeders each morning and watching the cuties arrive for breakfast makes a terrific start to the day. But planting grasses and flowers that feed your feathered friends throughout the year adds even more pleasure and purpose to your garden. From annual sunflowers and zinnias that add colorful cheer to garden beds—and produce seeds for your bird friends—to cardinal flowers and salvia that provide the perfect sip of nectar for hummingbirds, curating a collection of wildlife-friendly food sources for your garden proves both pretty and practical. You can enjoy the beautiful blooms while also admiring your adorable neighbors as they flit throughout the flowers for a snack. Make sure to leave the seedheads and stems at the end of the season, as birds will eat the seeds—and many insects, such as native bees, use the stems for overwinter shelter.
Create a compost pile
It’s a perfect way to benefit the environment: amend garden beds naturally with homemade compost. Not only are you recycling garden waste instead of cluttering a landfill, but compost enriches your soil, adding beneficial nutrients and microbes that help grow a great garden. Plus, you’ll save money by producing a free, high-quality soil amendment, which reduces the use of fertilizers and pesticides. Pick a spot in your yard for a simple compost pile, or use a compost tumbler, then simply add your carbon-rich “browns”—dry leaves, plant stalks, shredded paper— and “greens”—fruit/vegetable scraps, grass clippings, coffee grounds, eggshells–water and turn the mix periodically to speed decomposition. Soon, your plants will enjoy rich soil to produce a terrific harvest and beautiful blooms—chemical-free.
Reduce the lawn
Thirsty lawns not only tax the environment with their water needs, but they also leak money from your bank account due to their costly water consumption. And, as water becomes an even more precious resource due to data centers sucking up much of our water reserves, transitioning from lush grass to a more environmentally-friendly alternative makes good economic and environmental sense. Leave space for the kids to kick a soccer ball, but swap most of the grass for a wildflower meadow, pretty cottage garden, waterwise xeriscape, or a vegetable bed. Not only will your bank account thank you, but you’ll also enjoy increased biodiversity, homegrown floral bouquets, and delicious garden-to-table meals. By proactively reducing lawn and replacing it with beneficial garden spaces, you’re making a positive impact on the environment.
Save water
As droughts persist and data centers consume water, consider ways to reduce water usage in your garden. From growing drought-tolerant plants to harvesting rainwater to installing drip irrigation that more efficiently waters your garden, conserving water makes a big impact on the environment—and your wallet. While it might feel frustrating to watch big industries waste our precious natural resources, you can make proactive waterwise choices for your garden to help protect your community and the environment.
2. Feed Your Neighbors
Imagine finishing dinner, not knowing how you’ll feed your family—or yourself—the next day. In our country, 1 in 7 households (13.7 percent) experiences food insecurity, or lack of access to an affordable, nutritious diet. That’s approximately 47.9 million Americans. In 5.4 percent of U.S. households (1 in 20), the residents regularly skip meals or reduce intake because they can’t afford more food. And 14.1 million children live in households that experienced food insecurity.
While it’s heartbreaking to see these numbers, it’s important to remember these are not just statistics: these are our neighbors, our community members, and our children’s friends. We may not know their private needs—but as gardeners, we can help.
In 1995, “Plant a Row for the Hungry” launched to encourage gardeners to share their bounty. By adding an extra row, container, or even a few plants to edible gardens, soup kitchens, and food pantries benefit from donations of fresh, homegrown produce to feed the community. Since its inception, home gardeners have donated more than 20 million pounds of produce, providing more than 80 million meals. Growing extra food in your garden is an easy way to make a profound difference in the lives of your neighbors.
But you don’t need to join an official campaign to donate food. If you find yourself with a surplus of squash or tomatoes this summer, enter your ZIP code into AmpleHarvest.org, where you’ll find donation sites near you.
3. Build Community
Community gardens offer more than a common area to grow veggies. In fact, studies show that growing flowers and veggies in communal spaces positively impacts mental health by reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. Community gardens can serve as inclusive, therapeutic spaces that promote social connection, enhance physical well-being, and support healthier lifestyles by empowering individuals to grow their own food to improve nutrition and overall well-being. And let’s face it—growing plants alongside other gardeners is so much nicer than watching gardening YouTube videos alone. Plus, if you’re an experienced gardener, you can offer hands-on tips and tricks to new growers to help them enjoy a bountiful harvest. And new gardeners have built-in access to people who’ve been there, done that—with experience to share.
While community gardens offer opportunities for connection, they’re not the only way to build a gardening community. Consider hosting a plant or seed swap with your neighbors and friends. Volunteer at your local farmers’ market to share your gardening expertise at an information table. Create common areas filled with pollinator plants and establish wildlife corridors in your neighborhood. Invite neighborhood kids into your garden to look for ladybugs and butterflies—and slip in some subtle, fun environmental lessons to help them become future environmental advocates. Join with other gardeners to plant trees in parks, or volunteer at a local elementary school to help kids plant flowers for pollinators. Growing plants and sharing the love of gardening help build bridges between political and social divides. And we all need positive ways to heal a divided country.
Before you organize a community tree planting or new pollinator garden, make sure to check with local municipalities for permission.
And before you dig, always call 811 to avoid public utility lines!
4. Soothe Your Soul
So many online posts mention the need to “touch grass.” As gardeners, we get it: there’s nothing more restorative and healing than spending time in nature. Whether it’s snipping your favorite roses to create a bouquet, plucking blueberries to snack on straight from the bush, or harvesting mint for a festive mojito, time in the garden soothes the soul.
While it’s easy to automatically focus on chores, force yourself to slow down and relax in your garden. The weeds will wait, and you can tackle the mulch pile another day. Instead, wander through your pretty plants. Pluck a ripe strawberry. Marvel at a monarch. Peek inside the bluebird box. Inhale the aroma of the lilies. Slow down, let your brain decompress, forget the stresses of the outside world, and bathe in the beauty of your gorgeous garden space. Rest, reset, and revive your passion in the garden—and then get back to work, making the world a better place.
Do you know that National Garden Bureau members include the most innovative breeders and distributors of plants and products perfect for purpose-driven gardens?
If you want to create a pollinator paradise, an edible garden, or a community space, check out the plants and products available from National Garden Bureau members.
About National Garden Bureau
Founded more than 100 years ago, the National Garden Bureau educates, inspires, and motivates people to grow home gardens. National Garden Bureau members are horticultural experts, and the information shared with you comes directly from these experts to ensure your gardening success.
“This post is an educational/inspirational service of the National Garden Bureau and our members. Please credit and link to National Garden Bureau when using all or parts of this article.”
1 Comment. Leave new
Loved this article on Purpose Driven Gardens! Informative and inspiring.