349 Stressed? Your Garden Can Help.

Show Transcript

349 TRANSCRIPT  Stress and Gardening

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by SmartPots, the original lightweight, long -lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit smartpots .com slash Fred for more information and a special discount. That's smartpots .com slash Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, well, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred

Are you feeling stressed? Well, who isn't stressed lately? How can you reduce stress in your life? Well, I tell you what, just keep doing what you're doing, and that's gardening. Scientific studies have shown that gardening, and even just slowing down and looking at your garden or nature, can help reduce anxiety and stress. And that is also true for having a collection of indoor plants, especially near your workplace.

America's favorite retired college horticultural professor, Debbie Flower, is a firm believer who stops and smells the roses as well as other aromatic plants that can calm your day down. How your garden can help get you through these stressful times. It's here on the Garden Basics Podcast. We're podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon jungle in suburban purgatory. It's the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast brought to you today by SmartPots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Let's go.

STRESSED? YOUR GARDEN CAN HELP. Pt. 1

Farmer Fred

Glad you could join us for this episode of the Garden Basics podcast. We're recording this on July the 15th for its first playback on Friday, July 19th. And so if you are with us here on the 19th or the 20th or the 21st. Wow, what a stressful week it has been and still is.

for all of us and we're all kind of stressed out. There is some good news. Gardening can help you reduce stress. How's that? Interestingly enough, it started with a column I read last week in the Washington Post by their medical correspondent, Dr. Leanna Wen. And the name of the column, if you want to look it up,

is called, “How everyone can experience the magic of forest bathing”. You've probably heard of forest bathing and you're saying, “Fred, I have no desire to grab a bunch of detritus from the forest and jump in a tub with pine cones and sharp conifer needles.” I don't blame you. I wouldn't do that either. But no, forest bathing is a little different than that. Forest bathing is basically enjoying nature, really just doing a slow walk or sitting, in a forested area or a natural area that has a lot of natural calming sounds to it. And it was interesting to note that in this column about forest bathing, how she was basically so receptive to the idea. Also, she had no idea how many devoted practitioners there were in the United States. One of her readers

of her column in the Washington Post was Ben from California. He's 87 and he wrote that he's healthier now than when he was 57 and working a high stress job. He says, “my doctor has taken me off all medications for high blood pressure and cholesterol. I credit forest bathing”, Ben says. He's part of a group that does weekly forays into a local wooded park, which he says are therapeutic, convivial and magical.

That sounds maybe a little far fetched to you, but try it sometime, it really is very relaxing. But not all of us live near natural areas. Maybe though, you have room for a garden. That can help. Maybe you only have room for interior plants. That can help as well. But getting back to this idea of forest bathing, Dr. Wen cited this study from Australia during that country's covid lockdowns that showed people who had a view of trees and grass from their apartments had better mental resilience than those who didn't. Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. And we are, of course, recording this here in the Abutilon jungle of Suburban Purgatory. But the view, Debbie, it's flowers, it's greenery,  it's relaxing. It's better than staring at another house in suburban purgatory, if those shrubs weren't there.

Debbie Flower

Yeah, I've lived in a number of different houses and one of the things that really drives which one I buy is what you see out the window. Kitchen window, the kitchen sink has to be under a window that looks at greenery or that I have the option of putting greenery outside of, not into somebody else's wall. I'm pretty picky about that.

Farmer Fred

Dr. Wen points out that just looking at greenery can help alleviate stress. I feel less stressed right now.

And if you're working from home and you have a garden, you may want to position your desk so you too get to look at greenery instead of maybe a rooftop or traffic going by. She also encourages people to bring plants into the home and to try your hand at gardening. She says research shows that indoor horticulture activities like potting plants and handling soil can reduce anxiety and sleeping problems. And she had a link to that research which piqued my interest, so I went to that article. And it's an article about indoor therapeutic horticulture. It's from the publication, it's a peer -reviewed publication, called “Complementary Therapies in Medicine”. And this particular one is called “a feasibility study on indoor therapeutic horticulture to alleviate sleep and anxiety problems, the impact of plants and activity choice on its therapeutic effect.”  And basically they had groups of people playing with houseplants. That study found that it did reduce a lot of anxiety and it even reduced a lot of sleeping problems. And they found in this study too, the effect of the essential oils of aromatic plants that can help to do a lot of good things for you too. They have mental health benefits like a lot of words I can't pronounce, like anxiolytic, which I guess means reduce anxiety, I'm guessing; anti -depression or sleep improving. But this group also found out as they were studying these plants, they studied some ornamental plants for this group that was basically potting plants and doing things with them, general aromatic plants and functional aromatic plants. The regular plants they were dealing with included Heucheras, Plumbago, some varieties of Pelargoniums and Star Jasmine.

And they use another group called the General Aromatic Plant Group, which included the Plectranthus, Lantana, which I believe is the official flower of Folsom. I'm not sure about that, but every neighbor seems to have it except me. And Catnip too. See, your cat is right. Also, they had functional aromatic plant groups which had the best effects, and that included some salvias, the Salvia officinellis, a Pelargonium called Graveolens, which is the rose scented geranium; Lemon Balm, lavender mint and Asian mint. And they say about that group, the plants in this group are aromatic and their odors have been proven to be effective in relieving anxiety or depression. And boy, if this isn't a week to relieve anxiety or depression, it makes you want to run out and find a rose scented geranium right now. Or salvia or lemon balm or lavender mint or Asian mint. A lot of these can be grown inside a house too.

Debbie Flower

I was on the way in, on your street was one of those lantanas and there was a turkey really going at it, chewing on that plant. So maybe that turkey had some anxiety to relieve. It was alone. know, turkeys are usually in a group. Maybe it had some, had been kicked out of the group or something. don't know.

Farmer Fred

Separation anxiety.

Debbie Flower

Separation anxiety, right. Yeah. I totally believe the things that you're reading, that we're reading in these articles. When I worked, taught interior scaping, which is growing plants indoors.

But on a bigger scale, growing plants indoors for commercial in commercial situations like in the bank or the doctor's office or whatever casinos, hotels where you see plants. There were studies done and I don't have them cited. I don't have the citations with me. But if you had a plant outside your business, then people would spend more money in your business. If you had a plant on your desk.

A lot. These are live plants. know you sometimes say you silk plants or plastic plants in these interior scapes, but these are live plants. If you have one at your desk, people took less sick time and they're just regular indoor plants. I have, I keep counting them. have 40 or 45 house plants in my house. So I agree a hundred percent. And really the enjoyment is wherever you find it.

Farmer Fred

There are a lot of aromatic plants that obviously this group did not study.

But if you think about it and think about plant aromas, there are certain plants in your life that when you get a whiff of it, it's like you immediately become calmer, you immediately become happier, you immediately sigh with relief. Those are the ones to have. And I think one of the best places to put an aromatic plant like that, a show for the nose, as I like to call them, is right outside, if it's an outdoor plant, right outside.

a that you use a lot, front door, a patio door in the back or whatever. And I remember when we lived in the country, we had two aromatic plants, very aromatic plants, two of my favorites. One outside the back patio door was the banana shrub, which does not grow bananas. That is, it's just a flowering green plant. At the time it was referred to by its botanical name, Michaelia figo, which is now called Magnolia figo. I think the reason it's called banana shrub is because the smell of the flowers. like juicy fruit gum. Outside the front door was another plant, but it only had that show for the nose going on in the dead of winter. And that was the winter Daphne, which is to me, just wonderful. Going out the front door on a cold gray day in February and you get that. (dogs barking) Guess where we're broadcasting from. That's right. Outside that front door was The winter Daphne, which just had the most wonderful aroma on a cold gray winter day. And it was just delightfully. And a fairly easy care plant. You can kill it with love. But generally speaking, a winter Daphne is just a wonderful plant.

Debbie Flower

Yes. And here in California, we're blessed to be able to grow citrus. And when those citrus bloom, my whole yard is, I one in the front yard and three in the backyard. And the whole yard is just full of this sweet fragrance.

Farmer Fred

But you have to sort of isolate that area where that aroma is so you can enjoy it to its fullest. For instance, the banana shrub that we have here, I have it planted out front. But it's upwind from our walkway. So when you go down the walkway leaving the house in the afternoon when that aroma usually happens in the spring, that aroma comes right to your face. that's really nice.

But your citrus trees are in a rather confined area between the house and the fence.

Debbie Flower

Yes, they are. And so that really concentrates that aroma. Yes, yes. It's wonderful. So these are seasonal, the bloomers, when the fragrance comes from the flower, that's a seasonal smell. But it's wonderful to have some things that the leaves provide the smell, like the sages. I have white sage and that smells really beautiful to me and it is. it'll have leaves most of the year. So I can go out and crush them in my hand and get the fragrance from that.

Farmer Fred

There are all sorts of great shrubs like that too. The bay plant, Lauris nobilis. You talk about a triple duty or quadruple duty plant. It's a shrub that can get 15 or 20 feet tall. It's evergreen, so it's great habitat for birds, small birds that can help control the pests in your yard. The leaves, if you crush them, you get that wonderful bay leaf smell, perfect for a spaghetti sauce.  you can use them in cooking.

Debbie Flower

Yes. I have a big bay in my yard and it is definitely where the hummingbirds have their nests and other birds too. I see lots of birds coming and going from it. It's very big. And I use the leaves. don't buy bay leaves. just take some of those, put them on newspaper, dry them, wash them, and store them. Use those in my cooking.

Farmer Fred

Yeah. Or if you have the plant just go out and clip them.

Debbie Flower

Right. Use them fresh. And use them fresh like that.

Farmer Fred

And it's a great privacy screen too.

Debbie Flower

It is.

Farmer Fred

And it doesn't require that much water once it's established.

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STRESSED? YOUR GARDEN CAN HELP. Pt. 2

Farmer Fred

Let's get back to our conversation with Debbie Flower about reducing stress with your garden.

Dr. Wen in her column in the Washington Post that I've been quoting from, she said she tried forest bathing. And she went out and said, “one recent morning I saw two playful bunnies and a woodpecker. I smelled a pine tree, I held a rock and notice how smooth its edges were. I heard birds singing and leaves rustling. It was calming, relaxing. And dare I say even magical.” All of that you can get in your garden.

Debbie Flower

Yes.

Farmer Fred

And it's pretty darn easy. If you haven't already, you should have a table set up in your garden where on a nice morning, you can go out and have your coffee and enjoy the action. Enjoy the aromas enjoy just the life that you hear around you.

Debbie Flower

Yes. I was doing that today. It was a lovely morning and I have tea in the morning. So I had my tea with me and I was listening to the birds in particular and they were flitting around. There's lots of them.  it pleased me that there was habitat enough to attract all of these birds.

Farmer Fred

Right. I know a nursery owner who sort of does the same thing. He likes to walk out and contemplate his garden at home, which is rather extensive, while wearing a modified hard hat that can hold two cans of beer with a straw out of each.

Debbie Flower

Is this a morning routine?

Farmer Fred

There are hard times in the nursery business.

Debbie Flower

Yes, there are.

Farmer Fred

So maybe. But the fact is, if you just slow down and enjoy what's around you.

Debbie Flower

And get out of your head. Concentrate on what's going on in you, how life goes on. No matter what may be happening on social media or anywhere else in your life. just get out there and enjoy the sights, the sounds and the aromas. And visit your local florist. Just stick your head in. Buying something would be great. They would love that. But stick your head in and smell. Take a nice deep breath. When I was working, you could get a certificate in flower arranging and that sort of thing, floristry. And I didn't teach those classes, but when I could, I would go by and just open the door and stick my head in and take a nice deep breath. And that was so calming for me.

Farmer Fred

we both made lists of aromatic plants that bring us joy. And I think that's a good starting point for others to discover their own shows for the nose. What are some of yours?

Debbie Flower

Well, I mentioned the citrus flowers, lilacs, flowers and plants can bring back memories. My mother loved lilacs. They don't grow very well here in the hot part of California, but when I get to a place where they are, I love them. And that's flowers. Gardena is another sweet flower. I mentioned the leaves of the white sage. I love to smell the, and the stems when I'm pruning it, when I'm around it, it smells really good. Mint, I have mint in a pot. It is in general something you should only grow in a pot because it will take over where you have. Douglas fir, I love Christmas time. I don't have a fake tree, my husband keeps wanting one. I get a real one, even if it's just a little tiny tabletop one. Because of the smell, and it doesn't have to be a douglas fir, but they're very common here for Christmas trees. But many of the trees we use for decorating at that time of year smell really good. Wreaths and swags and all kinds of things smell really good to me.

Farmer Fred

Would you ever consider a rosemary plant as a Christmas tree?

Debbie Flower

I'm very allergic to rosemary. So that's one thing. The smell I love and I use it in cooking. I have a shrub and I love having it in my yard because it attracts so many insects. It's evergreen. I've seen it used as a hedge, but no, I wouldn't grow it in my house because I'm so allergic to it. I had it in my car once for a project I was doing and I just sneezed the whole way. It was terrible.

Farmer Fred

It is one of those plants though that if you crush the leaf you get a wonderful aroma.

Debbie Flower

yes, yes. It has lots of oils in it which is where that aroma comes from. The Creosote Bush in the desert. you love the smell, if you've experienced the smell of the desert, the Sonoran Desert in particular, which is in Arizona after rain, that's the Creosote Bush. My Eleagnus blooms at Christmas time.

Farmer Fred

That's the false olive, not false olive, but the something olive.

Debbie Flower

Autumn olive. Yes, and it has very tiny flowers, but they're very fragrant. Ruta graveolans, the common name is herb-of-grace, and it has medicinal uses, which I'm not real familiar with, but I used it as in a leaf activity because it has very interesting compound leaves. The whole classroom smelled. I liked it. Some people, though, are allergic to it, the oils that are in it. They seem to only express themselves when that the oil on the skin is in the sun. That's when you can end up having a rash. So I stopped using it in my activities in the classroom.

Farmer Fred

There are a lot of ways you can experience that show for the nose. And one popular way not so long ago, it may still be popular, is using a diffuser and some essential oils. you put some water in it, plug it in, and put a few drops of oil in it. And pretty soon a whole room smells of something that you put in there. .

And I often wonder is, well, is what they say is in that bottle really what is in the bottle? or should you make it yourself? And for that, you need to take a class. And there are some classes.

Debbie Flower

Yes, there are. My neighbor and friend is an herbalist and she knows how to make tinctures and things out of using plant parts and then using those medicinally, either topically touching you or even smelling.

Farmer Fred

A fun place to visit if you have one nearby is an herb nursery. Because they're usually an herbalist, but they're growing all sorts of different herbs from all over the world that can really broaden your gardening expertise and give you some delightful taste too for your cooking.

And here in Northern California, probably the most famous one would be a Morningson Herb Farm over in Vacaville, California. But there are probably some wherever you may live.  You just have to search them out.

Debbie Flower

And that is something I definitely like to grow is the herbs that I use in cooking. So I have parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme.

Farmer Fred

Thank you, Art.

Debbie Flower

Oregano and...And it's wonderful to be able to go out and when the recipe says, you know, three sprigs of thyme, I can go get it. And it really changes the flavor much more than the dried stuff we have in the bottles.

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STRESSED? YOUR GARDEN CAN HELP. Pt. 3

Farmer Fred

Let's get back to our conversation with Debbie Flower about reducing stress with your garden. I'm very fortunate to have a wife who has really gotten into cooking now and basically wants to cook as much stuff as she can from the garden. So we have an ever -growing herb collection outside and it's very nice and it's fun to grow too. Lemon verbena, I think it is one of my current favorites as far as shows for the nose. It's an aromatic crushed leaf, but what a wonderful aroma it has. They grow it as almost a small tree out at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. And one of the people who work in the herb section there took some of the leaves and made lemon verbena cookies. They were delicious. And I noticed that the herb calendar I have hanging up in the kitchen has a recipe this month for lemon verbena lemonade.

Debbie Flower

I thought that's what you were going to say because that seems like such a logical way to use it.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, that's on the list of things to do, is to start gathering up some leaves from the lemon verbena. It's a tiny shrub now in our yard and do something with it like that.

Debbie Flower

Yeah, and there are lots of recipes where you can use mint like that. And sometimes lavender, I've heard of lavender cookies. I've had some, my sister -in -law made some, they were very good.  And you'll feel better afterwards. You'll have less anxiety.

Farmer Fred

I have a lot of seasonal shows for the nose. And I think one of my favorites, as you might guess, is rubbing my finger gently along the stem of a young tomato plant. And it's just the promise of the summer to come. That is distinctive.  And all those tiny little hairs, that you say can become roots.

Debbie Flower

No, I don't think I ever said that.

Farmer Fred

Yes you did. You didn't?

Debbie Flower

No.

Farmer Fred

No? What becomes roots then, if you buried the plant deeply?

Debbie Flower

Those knobs that form.

Farmer Fred

not the hairs?

Debbie Flower

No, not the hairs.

Farmer Fred

Okay, they’re knobs.

Debbie Flower

The hairs are called trichomes and they're extensions of the epidermal cell. The epidermal cell is the very outside cell that encases the plant. Like we have skin, that would be our epidermis.

The hairs are extensions of them and they're there to protect the stem in some way, to make a deep forest so that an aphid can't get to the stem or to prevent wind from getting to the stem as strongly so it won't dry out, something like that. That's what, and producing oils; so that the oils might be repellent to a pest. But roots arise from further inside the plant.

Farmer Fred

That all makes sense. But there is something, if you've never stroked your finger along a tomato stem, give it a try. It's not as crazy as it sounds. I noticed in that study about reducing or the therapeutic effect of indoor horticulture that they used a plant that the study was done in China and this the plant they used, they call it Confederate Jasmine, the Tracheolspermum jasminoides, which we know as star jasmine.

Which is a very common garden shrub here. Actually, it's more of a vine. And it's often used in a shady area along a fence.  And boy,  in May, you can smell that a half block away.  So star jasmine, another one to add. I'm not sure of the vitality of star jasmine across the country. I know it does well here in USDA zone nine.  I don't think it can survive in many colder places. I guess I could look it up in this big book I have sitting next to me. “Well, Fred, it's the 21st century. You could use your computer and look it up”. What if I want to look it up in a book? Why are you trying to raise my anxiety levels? All right. See, I have fights with myself. All right. “Zones vary by species”. I did not know that. Now I'm looking at the Sunset Western Garden book, and it basically says the star Jasmine, also known as Confederate Jasmine, Sunset zones 8 through 24. Now anything over  zone 14 or so is usually a fairly mild zone in California according to Sunset. But the fact that it goes down to zone 8 would probably give it some resistance to temperatures down to about 30 degrees, I would think.

Debbie Flower

Right, the references I'm seeing online say USDA hardiness zones 8 through 10, 7b with some protection. So yeah, I think that's you're right about that 30 degrees and that it can be damaged by frost.

Farmer Fred

But you could always grow it as an annual.

Debbie Flower

Yeah. Yeah. So and once sometimes plants like that, once they're well established, you know, have a good underground root system may die to the ground, but reappear the next year. Takes a few years, up to five years of coddling that plant, protecting it in the winter so it can establish and retain that big root system that then allows it to survive.

Farmer Fred

Excuse me, I'm smelling my fingers only because I was working in the garden before you showed up and you'd mentioned the white sage and I was trimming off, deadheading  the flowers.  But that aroma stays with you as you're pruning it. Even though I was wearing gloves, I could smell it on my fingers.

Debbie Flower

It's a plant that is used in ceremonies. Smudging, if you can buy smudge sticks and they're very often

from White Sage. My neighbor, the herbalist, takes the dead heads that I take off of my White Sage and she has fires in her yard and little ceremonies for things that she finds the need.

Farmer Fred

Wow, that's nifty. So I could take my trash can full of White Sage stems, light the thing on fire in the front yard, and when the fire department arrives, I'll just say, no, this is a religious ceremony.

Debbie Flower

You probably need some references as to that being a religious ceremony. Usually it's smudging. Yeah. Which uses green leaves.

Farmer Fred

But OK, I can see why. basically what she was. What I was doing her job today, then, basically is cutting off those spent branches.

Debbie Flower

Right. And she enjoys the fragrance when she burns them in a campfire, basically in her backyard.

Farmer Fred

They're in my green waste bin. If anybody wants them. Well, it's too late. They were picked up Wednesday. OK. Sorry about that.  Well, now I'm going to have to try it before the trash man gets here and see what that's like. Everybody has their own favorite shows for the nose. And when you encounter them, embrace it. Enjoy it. Get rid of that anxiety. Think of it as not spending another 20 minutes on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or threads or wherever your anxiety levels may take you to. It's healthier for you.

Debbie Flower

Yes. Yes. Slow down and look around. do that Forest bathing. Forest bathing, in your own surroundings.

Farmer Fred

One thing I pointed out, though, in that article in the Washington Post about forest bathing is if you're a runner or you're a biker and maybe you use a trail that is in a natural area, and heavens knows I bike in lot of natural areas, that is not really considered forest bathing. It's only when you get off the bike or you stop running and you let your heart rate get back down to normal and your blood flow get back down to normal, that you can really let those aromas and the sounds that are around there too really soak in and help you out.

Debbie Flower

I was thinking of that on my walk today where we saw a couple of hawks, a bunch of deer, a quail, and it was among trees. and I tried to stop and spend a little bit of time in those places. Stop and smell the roses is a saying that many people have heard and it needs to be observed more for our internal health.

Farmer Fred

And that's a completely different show that I think is somewhere in the catalog of garden basics are fragrant roses (Ep. 198). So I'll have a link to that in the show notes if you like fragrant roses. There we go. Debbie Flower, thanks for stinking up the place with us today.

Debbie Flower

I like the sweet smell. Yes.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred

So, whatever happened to the Tuesday edition of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast? It ran away from home and joined the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, on Substack. There, it really is a deeper dive into what you may have heard on the podcast, with more information, links, pictures, opinion and stuff that just popped into my head.

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Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Friday. It's brought to you by SmartPots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics, it's available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast as well as an accurate transcript, visit our website, gardenbasics .net. And there you can find out about our newsletter, Beyond the Garden Basics. And thank you so much for listening and your support.