Gardening for the Wealth of It
By: Doug Green
Copyright © 2008 by Doug Green
Smashwords Edition
ISBN 978-1-897395-07-3
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Table of Contents
Gardening
For the Wealth of It
Healthy
Wealthy
Wise
Gardening For the Wealth of It
To begin with, let’s expand the definition of wealth to include other important aspects of our lives in addition to the material comforts that money brings.
Let’s include such things as the wealth that good health brings to our enjoyment of financial security.
Let’s include the contentment that a spiritual dimension brings to our enjoyment of the world around us. These things are as important as good health and finances.
When it comes right down to it, we can say that the important things in our lives make us healthy, wealthy and wise.
And when you think of it, gardening can work its magic in all three areas.
Pigeonier Quatre Vents Garden
It is increasingly clear that gardening is a healthy antidote to the rigors of our society. In fact, it has been an antidote right through our recorded history. Here, in short digestible form, are a few research reports outlining some of the health benefits of gardening.
Bone Density in Women
Bone density for women who did yard work was equal to those who did weight training, and higher than in women who did jogging, aerobics, or calisthenics. Dr. Virginia Relf of Virginia Polytechnical Inst.
Top reasons people garden: To be outdoors (44%); to be around beautiful things (42%); relax and escape the pressures of everyday life (39%); stay active and get exercise (35%). American Demographics, Roper Report.
Woodland Stream Garden
General Research
General research shows that a half hour of gardening a day with its stretching, bending, lifting is an excellent workout equaling time spent in more-fashionable fitness centers. And you’ll know that numerous studies have shown that regular physical activity reduces your risk of premature death, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, adult-onset diabetes, osteoporosis, stroke, depression, colon cancer among others.
Metabolic Rate Increases
For example, research shows that when the metabolic rate is measured, these activities have the same level of response:
Watering lawn or garden; standing or walking, sitting, knitting, sewing have a relative value of 1.5 over resting.
Walking and shopping have a value of 2.3
Applying fertilizer (walking), mowing lawn (riding mower) value 2.5
Carrying or stacking wood; clearing land; digging sandbox; laying sod 5.0
Playing softball or baseball, general; bicycling (stationary), general 5.0
Shoveling snow (by hand shoveling); mowing lawn (walk, hand,mower); gardening w/heavy power tools has a value of 6.0
Aerobics and swimming carry the same 6.0 value.
Salvia argentea in container
Office Workers
The Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association points out that, “people working at computers in an office with plants were 12% more productive and less stressed than people doing the same job in an office without plants.”
Alzheimer's
The Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association also reports on a study of British Columbia residences for Alzheimer's patients showing that, at residences with gardens, the rate of violent incidents declined by 19% over two years. Violence of patients was significantly higher in residences without gardens.
Sarracenia - pitcher plant
Health of the Planet
When it comes to the health of the planet, gardens perform well. Studies in Sacramento, California point out, “in net, mature urban forest remove approximately 3.3 tons per acre of carbon each year with an implied of $3.3 million ($0.55 per tree). Carbon reduction by Sacramento's urban forest offsets the total amount emitted as a by-product human consumption by 1.8 percent".
The Value of Trees
A fast-growing tree absorbs up to 48 pounds of carbon dioxide a year; that adds up to ten tons per acre of trees—enough to offset the carbon dioxide produced by driving a car 21,000 miles. Feed your young trees compost in the fall and watch them both grow and remove carbon dioxide from your air.
There are reports that simply by looking at trees and plants, a person can lower blood pressure, relieve muscular tension and reduce stress levels.
Bottom Line
Given the above, is it any surprise that one study concludes: "Those who are involved in gardening find life more satisfying and feel they have more positive things happening in their lives.”
Japanese tea house Quatre Vents Garden
So that for all things out of a garden, either of sallads or fruits, a poor man will eat better, that has one of his own, than a rich man that has none. And this is all I think of, Necessary and Useful to be known upon this subject.
– Sir William, Temple Of Gardening 1685
Ornamental pool Ireland
When you get down to it, very few of us garden to make money. But isn’t it nice that if you do garden or landscape your property, you’ll find it a very good investment.
The Gallup organization tells us that landscaping can add between 7 and 15percent to a home’s value so if you understand the market value of your home or rental property, then you can quickly determine how much to spend on this property and what the return will be.
• If you’re concerned about making the landscaping investment, Money Magazine tells us that landscaping can bring a recovery value of 100 to 200 percent at selling time. Compare this to kitchen remodeling at a 75 to 125 percent recovery rate, bathroom remodeling a 20 to 120 percent recovery rate, and adding a swimming pool a 20 to 50 percent recovery rate. A prudent investor is not going to add a swimming pool to increase the value of the property.
• Clemson University in their studies showed that homes with "excellent" landscaping can expect a sale price about 6 to 7 percent higher than equivalent houses with "good" landscaping. Even improving the landscaping from “average" to "good" can result in a 4 to 5 percent increase. This is good news if you’re in the selling end of the real estate transaction and Trendnomics reported that 99% of real estate appraisers agreed the landscaping adds value.
• Many of these results have been reported in the general media but you may not know that in one study, 83% of Realtors believe that mature trees have a "strong or moderate impact" on the salability of homes listed for under $150,000; on homes over $250,000, this perception increases to 98%. (American Forests)
• In other words, if a buyer is spending over a quarter million dollars on a house, they will be positively influenced by the existence (or lack) of mature trees. People unconsciously put a value on landscaping and trees on a property. Not only that but poor landscape design was reported to reduce property values by up to 10 percent according to the 1994 study published in the Journal of Environmental Horticulture.
• Not only is there a real estate investment value to landscaping, there is also reduction of current operating costs value.
• Landscaping can reduce air conditioning costs by up to 50 percent and internal temperatures by 9°F. by shading the windows and walls of a home according to the American Public Power Association. The value of this tree is currently $273.00 in air conditioning, air and noise pollution as well as erosion and storm control but this value will increase as power costs escalate.
• Tree roots hold the ground and break air flow; this blunts the effects of storms and cold winds and individual mature trees are routinely evaluated between one and ten thousand dollars for court cases.
• The US Environmental Protection Agency says that trees can reduce noise by up to 50 percent and can mask unwanted noises with pleasant sounds (mind you, sometimes bird calls at 5am on a sunny spring morning might be unwanted as well)
• The U.S. Dept of Energy points out that just three trees, properly situated around the house can save an average household $100 to $250 in heating and cooling costs.
• What does that mean for the landscaping and home construction industry? In 2002, the spending on landscaping (both design and installation) reached US$ 14.3 billion. Given the return on your investment, this only makes sense to focus on things that will give you a good return on your investment. The longer you keep that tree growing, the more valuable it becomes.
Hollyhock - pink fringed
Landscape investments are recovered fully, and sometimes doubled, via increasing real estate values.
– Wall Street Journal
"A Gardiner is never rich, yet he is ever raking together."
– Wye Saltonstall, The Gardiner, Pictures Drawn Forth in Characters 1635
Our societies developed in the face of nature and the roots of our accepted society behaviors are deeply planted in that soil of legend and myth. In many ways, our gardens reflect those myths and legends by taming nature; turning it into a manicured backyard garden.
Many of us will never visit a truly “wild” place; a place where man has not stepped before. The closest we come on a daily basis to nature is in our backyards; and that backyard is our symbolic nature – our personal wild space.
So the question then is, “Does gardening bring us closer to nature and wisdom or are those that are already wise gardening ?”
Backyard Landscape with Twig Chairs
Here are a few things for you to consider when thinking about your gardens.
Researchers found that accessibility to nature was the most important factor—after the marital role—in life satisfaction. Yard care and gardening activities develop individuals, strengthen families, and builds communities. Relf, D. The pyscho-social benefits of green spaces. Grounds Maintenance. March, 1996
Thoreau
Indeed many writers famous for their accessibility to nature had something to say about gardening. Henry David Thoreau said, “Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.”
What a wonderful sentiment that lets us have the organization within our garden but understanding that within a heartbeat, nature can deal out some interesting consequences of that organization.
Ruskin
John Ruskin, in his 1851 classic, “The Stones of Venice” wrote, “There is material enough in a single flower for the ornament of a score of cathedrals.” Touring the cathedrals of Europe will indeed show how architects borrowed from the lore and the symbolism of the garden to decorate their houses of worship.
Tulip ‘Scarlet Baby’
Lincoln
Gardening teaches us about life and allows us to reflect on our life in metaphor. Abraham Lincoln – 1809-1865 said, “Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.” And we learn our place in the scheme of nature while gardening.
Charlesworth
Geoffrey Charlesworth writing “The Opinionated Gardener” in 1988 wrote, “By the time you have grown two thousand species you could believe that you had exhausted Nature’s imaginative variability; by the time you have grown five thousand you realize you never will.” This from a gardener who easily started 1000 varieties from seed each year.
Autumn crocus
Page
Russel Page in “The Education of a Gardener” was clear that one has to focus all of one’s attention to create a great garden, “So with a garden: if you want a lawn, go all out for it. Make everything else subsidiary to the “lawnness” of your lawn.
Any planting that enhances the quality you are trying to achieve is good. Any that detracts or confuses is bad… This directness and simplicity demands courage and discipline.
All the good gardens I have ever seen, all the garden scenes that have left me satisfied, were the result of just such reticence: a simple idea developed as far as it could be.”
Head Gardeners and Business Advisors
I’ve heard it said that business and wealth are much like that. One has to “go all out for it.” with the same determination as one gardens. And one uses financial advisors in the same way one would use a head gardener – to achieve a measured and profitable goal – in health, wealth and wisdom.
"Men are like plants – they never grow happily unless they are well cultivated."
– Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu, Les Lettres Persanes 1721
The National Gardening Association in the U.S. does a survey every year that is eagerly used by the horticultural industry in its planning. The 2005 report lists the top 10 reasons people garden in the United States: Note that 91 million households participated in lawn and garden activities in 2005 which is 83% of all US households. This was an increase of 9 million households or 11% from 2004 and the highest level of participation seen in the past 5 years
Aloe in pots
Top 10 Benefits of Gardening from the National Gardening Assoc.
69% - Gardening is a way for me to decorate, beautify my home
64% - Food gardening is a way to grow fresh and nutritious food
62% - Gardening helps me relax
62% - Gardening makes my outdoor space more liveable
57% - Gardening adds curb appeal to my home
56% - Gardening is a great form of exercise
55% - Gardening helps me connect with nature
51% - Gardening adds to the value of my home real estate investment
51% - Gardening is a way for me to be creative
44% - Gardening is a great educational tool for children
Gardening is indeed for the wealth of it and I invite you to be “wealthy” in ways that go beyond the mere accumulation of financial rewards.
Enjoy your own garden – it is a fine thing.
– Doug
Zinnia
You can find Doug at www.douggreensgarden.com Doug’s ebooks can be found on all major ebookstores now as well as his website at www.simplegiftsfarm.com you can find them by searching on Douglas Green (yeah, he’s called Doug but for the publishing world he’s Douglas) :-)
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