I do not know what it is about a garden that has always drawn humans to them. But they have always been very popular, and an integral part of peoples lifestyles. Almost every major palace and government building has a garden. But what is so great about them? They are just a bunch of plants, after all.
Of course, the reasoning is fairly obvious behind why people grow food in gardens. It is to eat fresh vegetables that have not travel hundreds of miles! If you live off the fat of the land and actually survive on stuff from your garden, it is easy to understand the reasoning.
But I am thinking about those people who plant flower gardens just for the sake of looking nice. There is no immediate benefit that I can see; you just have a bunch of flowers in your back garden! However, after thinking extensively about the motivation behind planting decorative gardens, I have conceived several possible theories.
I think one of the reasons people love gardens so much is that while we have a natural desire to progress and industrialize, deep within all of us is a primal love for nature. While this desire might not be as strong as
the desire for modernism, it is still strong enough to compel us to create gardens, small outlets of nature, in the midst of all our hustle and bustle. Since being in nature is like regressing to an earlier stage of
humanity, we too can regress to a time of comfort and utter happiness. This is why gardens are so relaxing and calming to be in. A garden is a way to quickly escape from the busy world.
I have thought at times that perhaps we as humans feel a sort of guilt driving us to restore nature and care for it. This guilt could stem from the knowledge that we, not personally but as a race, have destroyed so much of nature to get where we are today. It is the least we can do to
build a small garden in remembrance of all the trees we kill every day. It is my theory that this is the underlying reason for most people to take up gardening as a hobby.
Of course I am no psychologist; I am just a curious gardener. I often stay up for hours wondering what makes me garden. What is it that makes me go outside for a few hours every day to my square foot garden with limited gardening tools, and to grow fresh vegetables such as cabbage
I may never know, but in this case ignorance truly is bliss.
Gardening is definitely a healthy habit though, do not get me wrong. Any hobby that provides physical exercise, helps the environment, and improves your diet ca not be a negative thing. So no matter what the underlying psychological cause for gardening is, I think that everyone should continue to do so. In the UK especially, which is dealing with obesity and pollution as its two major problems, I think gardening can only serve to improve the state of the world.