ParkerBrand will celebrate World Book Day in 2024 by considering the strong link between gardening and well-being, particularly mental health. It is probably clear to most that being outdoors in the countryside or simply in our own gardens if we are lucky enough to have one, is good for the mind. But just what does it do for us?
Modern life seems to constantly move us away from nature and from the simple pleasures we can find just a few paces from our doors. The relentless pace of modern urban life, with its smart technology and instant feedback, leads to a "devaluing of the slower rhythms of natural time." Like battery chickens, we have become battery humans, but we're born to be free-range!
ParkerBrand specialises in gardening machinery and equipment, so being in the garden is what we're all about. Like Sue Stuart-Smith, the author of the brilliant 'The Well-Gardened Mind', we realise the intense value of being free of the confines of the mental and physical spaces we seem to accept as the norm too readily. When the tilling is done, the trimmer and mower are back in the shed, we enjoy the peace and serenity of active guarding, and when that's done, well, it's good to kick back and read with a glass of something good at the elbow an the mobile phone switched off!
Through masterful storytelling, Stuart-Smith's book is replete with insights as to the true joy of caring for a garden whilst simultaneously subtly caring for ourselves. In our devotion to caring for the living, productive, and flowering garden, we reap the rewards in manifold ways, finding that such care and attention alters the rhythms of our lives and changes our outward view of the wider world. In reconnecting with that which truly supports us, the actual world wide web, we feel nurtured and comforted, just as if we had arrived home after a long journey. Our gardens offer therapy, mental down time, even healing and give us a sense of lightness and joy that can't be found elsewhere.
Amid the mounting contemporary concern regarding the blurring of the lines between what is artificial or natural, what is fake and what is true, the garden invites us back to what is perennial and real. The soil between your fingers, the buds and blooms, the lilting birdsong, and the symphony of the living sky, all return us to that which is native to us. We are of the earth. Having studied English literature and later qualifying as a doctor of medicine, Sue Stuart-Smith possesses both the clinical and psychological knowledge as well as the literary prowess to deliver an insightful and stimulating read that we at ParkerBrand thoroughly recommend. May it serve you well!
You can find 'The Well Gardened Mind' by Sue Stuart-Smith on Sue Stuart-Smith.com or on Amazon as well as your local bookshop.
