Gardening is Therapeutic

The Beginning

Gardening is therapeutic. It is one of the best forms of therapy and I owe my deep love for plants to two of my most important women in life. My mother and my wife.

It all started when I was a single digit-year-old boy who loved to be around his mommy most of the time. My mother after her marriage relocated to Guwahati, Assam. My father had just purchased a plot and built a two-bedroom ‘Assam-type’ house.

Mom had an incredible green thumb and a passion for gardening. Whenever she visited her parents, she bought along with her fruit saplings of superlative quality from her paternal farmhouse. She had developed an empty plot of land to a ‘green paradise’ from scratch by the time we reached our early teens. The trees include three varieties of mango(ah!), blackberry, jackfruit, guava(both pink and white), pomegranate, banana, papaya, jujube(ber), custard apple, rose apple (unique), poniyol(unique), betel nut and leaves( her favourites.. LOL). We had trees which yielded year-long supply of seasonal fruits all the time. Besides these, kitchen greens such as green chilli, carrot, dhania(I thank God from the core of my heart for giving the mankind this! ), spinach, gondhoraj lemon and other seasonal veggies in a small corner of our courtyard.

Out of many flowering plants, we had near our entrance, I clearly remember a rose plant (chaitri variety) and a Nyctanthes arbor-tristis (Sewali in assamese) tree which emanated magical aroma especially during autumn evenings.  

We often helped mom in watering the plants. She sometimes instructed me to put leftover tea leaves /eggshell to the base of that fragrant pink rose plant. I just obeyed like a robot..without understanding much. This is the time I slowly started to realize the beauty of nature. I also watered the kitchen greens. The scene of a plant shoot emerging from a dry seed sown just a couple of days ago had a deep impression in my heart.

By the time we grew up to our pre teens, the trees in our courtyard became huge and formed a green canopy over our house. I along with my siblings used to jump around from this to the other trees like ‘Mowgli’ and ate varieties of home grown fruits to our heart’s content. The shade of trees and the cool breeze were most sought after especially during hot summer days. We had fruits more than enough we could have. We used to distribute it among our neighbours. This was a mutual gesture we had during those times.

I am sure this was the scene in almost every household, especially those who grew up in the suburban/rural areas. I give it a special mention because all these were done in an urban set up with limited space. Now, I realise its importance, even more, when I live in an apartment with limited/calculated space for everything. I feel blessed to have lived so close to nature during our childhood. I salute her efforts for creating such a green paradise.

Season-2  Present day

Now, after all these years I had shifted to places owing to my profession. Slowly, that feeling stayed dormant.. in all the hullabaloo of academics and professional life. It is only after I had married the love of my life I realized that she was crazy for plants. She influenced me re-ignite that passion once again.

 Due to our transferable jobs, we stayed either in govt. quarters or rented apartments. Gardening in present-day urban life has been restricted to a balcony garden with limited space and options. Urban Gardening however does comes with its own set of baggages. It gets pretty tough even to keep them alive, let alone healthy; especially due to pests and harsh summers in Rajasthan where we lived for 6 years. We will write our experience on dealing with pest infestations in balcony garden in our subsequesnt posts. After our transfer, we donated almost all our plants to friends/colleagues back in Rajathan. It was heartbreaking parting away all our plants. Sad as we were, we started our own sweet green corner again with same zest and passion in the new city as well (Read that experience here**) in the form of a balcony garden.

In whatever limited space available, we mostly grow perennial foliage plants, seasonal flowering plants, seasonal kitchen greens in pots. We have close to 60 plants now and watching them grow every day gives immense pleasure to the soul. The wife sometimes gives pep talks to the plant babies. It works. They seem to understand love and care!! It might sound crazy, but after every pep talk, we have seen good results. It may be a pure coincidence, but we both like to believe they can understand/feel the love and care. Taking care of our plants has now become a regular full-time activity in our family.

Back in my hometown, we have shifted our home. Mom has grown old, but her love for plants persists and she has set up an exhaustive garden in our new home as well. We still eat yummy homegrown fruits  and veggies even now when we visit home. But, I miss the old home where I grew up. That was something else, just incomparable. Back then, digital photographs were not available, but, I do have photographic memories of that place.

I am sure anyone reading this post would already be a huge plant lover. Through this write-up, I would like everyone to spread love by adopting plants in whatever nos. they are comfortable with and make this world a greener and better place. Also realise for themselves that gardening is therapeutic in the best possible way. It might be difficult for people who have to travel a lot for work. There are ways, believe me! We also need to travel for month-long official tours. Those are the toughest times. We relocate them one by one outside. We tip our maid or watchman to water our plants when we are away on tour. It needs effort. But, the return is much more and totally worth it!

Grow a home garden of your own and realise that gardening is therapeutic in all phases of life.