Gardening is healthy: plant flower bulbs

The effect of plants

Professor Roger Ulrich of the University of Texas conducted research into the effect that plants have on people. His studies showed that people in natural surroundings recover more quickly from stress than they do in artificial surroundings. Being in the vicinity of trees, plants and flowers helps to get a person’s blood pressure and heart rate back to normal levels faster. Another study showed that surgery patients recover better when able to look out over natural surroundings. They recover more quickly, go home sooner, require less pain medication, and complain less of their symptoms. Wow! Just being in natural surrounding has a wonderful effect!

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Burning those calories

The nice thing about gardening is that you usually do it for pleasure. There you are in comfy old clothes, rooting around in the dirt with the sun on your face. And you get a beautiful garden with lots of colour – a garden that your nose enjoys, too. But that’s not all. You’re also becoming more slender! After all, you’re burning 350 calories an hour by planting, sowing and pruning your flowers, plants and trees. Digging and raking even burn more calories than cycling. So, after a busy stressful day, coming home and puttering around in your garden is a real boon.

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Planting flower bulbs

The outdoor season is almost over, but isn’t it nice that this is exactly the time to plant flower bulbs? It gives you Zen, burns up lots of calories, and makes sure that you get treated to the first colour in the garden next spring. The perfect time to plant flower bulbs is from September through December (before the first ground frost). If you follow these four steps, you can’t go wrong.

  1. First, loosen the soil with a spade at the place where you want to plant the flower bulbs.
  2. Dig a hole with a spade or bulb planter.
  3. Plant the flower bulbs in it with their pointed sides facing up and rounded sides pointing down.
  4. Fill the hole with the previously removed soil and tamp the surface gently.

Tips

  • Did you know that flower bulbs can also be planted in layers? This is called ‘lasagne planting’.
  • If you have a balcony or patio instead of a garden, you should know that flower bulbs will also grow just fine in pots and containers. Be sure to provide enough potting compost to retain moisture for the flower bulbs.

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