A healing garden provides a place of calm, relaxation and inspiration. It can serve both healthy individuals and those recovering from illness alike.
Get started right with this unique kit that contains seeds for 10 herbs you can use to craft natural remedies of your own. Follow the easy instructions provided in the Herbal Medicinal Guide and turn your plants into tinctures!
Herbs
Herbal remedies have long been recognized for their curative powers and can help soothe aches, pains, and promote overall wellbeing. Simply being Around Plants Can be Healing; However, Designing A Garden to Focus On This Purpose Can Provide even Greater Benefits.
To make maintaining your healing herb garden easy, consider selecting varieties suited to the hardiness zone in which you live and grouping those with similar requirements together – this will reduce maintenance requirements while creating a cohesive garden design.
Some herbs such as mint can be invasive; others, like chamomile (an aromatic diaphoretic that soothes fever) and mullein (an effective lung healer that thrives even in poor soil conditions) are perennials that will thrive year after year. Other popular options are lavender (calming, sedates and reduces anxiety) and eucalyptus – known for its high content of eucalyptol for aromatherapy in steam inhalations, oils or ointments.
Flowers
Gardening can be therapeutic to some degree because plants provide visual and aromatic stimuli. But intentionally designing one to promote wellness offers additional advantages. Plants that smell pleasant, are beautiful to view and feel pleasant underfoot can help relieve stress while encouraging exploration and awe.
If you enjoy bright colors, include annuals such as zinnias, petunias and sunflowers in your healing garden. Or if herbal remedies interest you, experiment with lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), chamomile (Matricaria recutita), basil (Ocimum sanctum) or anise (Pimpinella anisum) which boasts sweet licorice fragrance and can easily be grown as both an annual or perennial plant.
Modern medicine comes from plants, so adding medicinal species to your healing garden will add an array of fragrance, form, and taste. You can grow these plants either directly into the ground or pots on your porch or patio.
Vegetables
An essential feature of any healing garden is real nature. Green vegetation and flowers offer an oasis of serenity, connecting people with nature to help ease stress, anxiety, sadness and other negative health symptoms.
Vegetables add color and flavor to gardens while providing various nutritional benefits. Certain vegetables boast high concentrations of dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals as well as natural anti-inflammatory agents.
Vegetable gardens can be an engaging way to engage children with gardening while teaching them about healthy eating habits and food production. Vegetable gardens should include an assortment of colorful and textural vegetables; to get optimal results, consider growing those which thrive well in your climate (such as Dill, which grows well in Northeast climates with its sweet licorice flavor). For best results, when planting vegetable gardens it is also important to ensure they contain plants which provide visual contrast among each color and texture – for instance dill is an annual herb which grows easily there and offers sweet licorice flavor!
Water
Gardeners who cultivate plants with medicinal properties can utilize them to craft herbal teas and glycerin macerates that can treat common maladies such as headaches, insomnia and nausea naturally without suffering the side effects associated with medicines. These remedies take longer to act but offer long-term solutions without their adverse side effects.
Gardens can help enhance health in many ways, providing psychological, physiological and behavioral advantages that have an immediate effect. Gardens offer opportunities for relaxation, engagement with nature, movement and exercise, social support and an overall sense of control – making gardens the ideal therapeutic spaces.
Longwood Horticulture Assistant and certified herbalist Susan Meyers suggests selecting plant species that are easy to grow while offering multiple positive health outcomes. Borage (Borago officinalis) is an attractive blue flower that’s easy to cultivate as an annual, boasting Calcium, Iron, Potassium and Vitamins A&C content. Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) can also be grown as both an annual or perennial, offering relaxing properties like anti-inflammation and sleep inducing qualities.
