Couples who garden together stay together. You heard it here first.
It may be helpful to think of your relationship the same way you would think about caring for a plant. Every relationship, romantic or not, needs love, attention, and a little bit of food and water in order to grow, thrive, and continue to bloom.
So, in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we are sharing some relationship advice for you. All of the tips and tricks can spill out into other parts of your life including friendships and self-care. The first love of your life is you, so make sure you treat yourself as such.
10 Reasons Why Couples Should Garden Together:
- Gardening has been proven to lower stress levels. Lower stress means lower cortisol, which means increased levels of serotonin and dopamine! When you and your partner both have a better balance of hormones from all of the time spent outside, getting dirty, and soaking in some Vitamin D, there will be more to feel good about in your day-to-day and fewer stressors adding to negative energy.
- Move your body. Couples who run together? How about couples who garden together? Gardening is a great, simple way to get your body moving and grooving, all while spending quality time conversing with your partner and practicing teamwork. Skip the gym and hit the garden!
- Feel a sense of pride in your collaboration. Teamwork makes the dream work. Oftentimes, it may be difficult to acknowledge or see all of the small details that your partner does for you or that you do for your partner. Furthermore, the two of you may have different roles in your relationship, which makes it more of a challenge to see any sort of alignment or collaboration. Gardening is the secret ingredient to success in collaboration. You can research together, care together, and harvest together to create a better you.
- Get time out of the house. Do you have a house full of kids? Or maybe an annoying roommate who never leaves the common space? When it feels like it is impossible to find a moment alone to chat and spend quality time together, take it outside. Spending time in your garden can give you a neutral space to unwind, have important conversations, or just feel the sun energize you and bring life and love to your relationship.
- Make your holidays and special occasions feel more ~special~. As noted in 10 Best for Women, planting and growing together can add some uniqueness and specialty to whatever is going on in your lives. Everyone says spice it up in the bedroom, but why not spice it up in your garden as well? Make Valentine’s Day more romantic and meaningful with a hand-grown rose bush. Give Halloween a bit more flare by harvesting your own pumpkins. Give Christmas the holly jolliness that it needs by planting poinsettias or festive Amaryllis wax bulbs
- Trying something new is good for you. It is the tale as old as time: couples falling into a rut and feeling stagnant in their relationship. If you are feeling this way, then it is time for a switch-up! Sometimes, a new activity is all it takes to breathe some perspective and life into a long-term relationship.
- Gardening gives you something to look forward to. Penelope Lively, author of Life in the Garden, believes that “‘gardening has this wonderful way of defying time.‘You’re always anticipating, for example, what the seeds you are planting are going to turn into. There’s the shared excitement of something that’s gone well, and you vow not to make the same mistakes again.’”
- Getting your hands dirty helps you reconnect with yourself and the earth. The practice of grounding yourself with the direct energy of the earth has ample physical and mental benefits. Connecting with nature in its purest form can help you get better sleep, decrease your stress hormones, and allow you to embrace your ancestors and the human experience.
- Planting encourages mindfulness and gratitude. Gratitude practices are a simple and quick way to ground yourself and put the world in perspective. Gardening can have that effect on the mind, as well. As you are weeding, sitting in the sunlight, or moving soil around with your bare hands, you can think of all of the good things that you have grown in your life, cultivate an appreciation for the things that you have, and transfer that positive energy and mindset to your partner, yourself, and your friendships.
- Enjoy your harvests together. We’ve got you covered on the next date night idea. Throughout your weeks of moving your body, enriching your mind, and practicing open and honest communication with your partner, you’ve likely cultivated a bountiful garden to harvest. That means it is time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Harvest your garden and cook together to make a fresh, romantic meal that will taste even better, knowing that you two created it, together.
Grow and nurture your love fern.
Get dirty this Valentine’s Day!