Get grounded: Connect with the garden to boost your wellbeing

Eyeing up the green, glassy horror of our outdoor entertainment spaces can send many of us charging to the aisles of DIY outlets. Heavy chemistry is deployed to annihilate algae, mosses and small biological growth, and these cocktails leach off into the groundwater, not just killing the weedy stuff but everything they dribble into. 

Think about your garden as part of a wider landscape, even if you’re nestled in the suburbs. There are several Earth-friendly leave-and-forget products to strip the gunge from your hard landscaping without manual labour. You’ll need a dry day and a watering can to disperse these clever solutions. 

Don’t expect the same super-kill and long performance as you would with petrochemicals; Algon’s Organic Path & Patio can handle deck boards, paving slabs, and flagstones, 2.5l, €15, Hanelysofcork.com. When you’re down restocking at your garden centre, ask about alternatives to everything from slug pellets to weed killers and insecticides for your roses.

Waterwise

Blasting away at your synthetic furniture, your walling and your outdoor landscaping, power washers use as much as 500l per hour, more than any water-fed appliance in your home. Reducing water usage does two things. 

First of all, it’s good practice and often enforced in urban areas in the summertime, and secondly, it reduces run-off pollution caused by demanding every surface is spanking clean. 

Avoid using a muscular attack with the lance on soft joints and block paving as will blow open some wall pointing and patio surfacing. 

Alternatively, get a stiff broom, or biodegradable washing-up liquid and using several changes of water and the trigger head of your standard hose, get down and dirty. 

Use rainwater where you have it — a perfect incentive to install a diverter and rain barrel in your garden to take pressure off our mains supply; 100l butts from €45, suppliers nationwide.

Seeds of positivity

Find your gardening confidence. In 2021, the RHS released research that revealed those who garden every day have wellbeing scores 6.6% higher and stress levels 4.2% lower than people who don't garden at all. The modern garden is often more hard landscaping than soft, it’s true, but this doesn’t mean you cannot start to enjoy the manifold benefits of putting your hands into the soil. 

March is the perfect time to scatter some wildflower seeds into an area of bedding, the shaggy edge of the lawn, or cracks in dry stone walling. Create some satisfying and swift returns in beginner-friendly vegetables and herbs. As for exercise, the number of calories burnt from 30 minutes of gardening is comparable to playing badminton, volleyball or practising yoga. Try marking out even 15 minutes to tease up some containers after work as the evenings brighten –— the benefits can even improve your social interactions away from home. See Bord Bia’s excellent free guides at Bordbia.ie/gardening/tips.

Meditation gardens 

Centring ourselves in green spaces has been shown to reduce cortisol levels, reduce stress and to improve emotional and physical well-being. Find a quiet area of the garden or conservatory to just relax, reflect and unwind. You can ground yourself while seated on the lawn, in a chair or on low walling. 

Look for a quiet, private spot without distractions, and focus on a classical or religious statue, some beautiful planting, a pond or a view. Noise-cancelling headphones can cut the racquet of traffic and the neighbours. 

Fragrant plants like lavender and the sound of running water can help you to find yourself for even a few minutes a day, and calming gardens like these can be put together with simple materials from stepping stones to rustic plank benches. For affordable solar water features in polyresin or ceramic from €106, many with LED lighting, try Very.ie.

Spring greens 

Many of us haul home a gas barbecue the size of a Mini-Cooper, because, well, it’s more convenient, isn’t it? The March aisles are already heaving with quadruple burners, kettles, smokers and newly hatched kamado eggs. I know my regular readers are expecting a long, virtue-heavy moan here, but having seen the increasing evidence of the damage caused by burning anything outdoors, we rate gas for outdoor cooking (not heating). 

Its instantaneous performance and super-fast pre-heating times, mean it’s used in reasonably short fits and starts compared to combustibles including wood. Buy a quality grill that will get through a decade rather than rattling off to landfill after a couple of summers. Keep your BBQ clean to maximise its efficiency when lit, and look into the excellent electric grills on offer including models by Safe, Ninja and Weber.

Outdoor heating 

It’s an empowering feeling to be part of the solution in terms of climate change. With wood and charcoal, choose Forest Stewardship Council FSC-certified materials and organic, lump-wood charcoals free of additives. The release of carbon and biomass to the air over several hours is inevitable in your fire-basket, chiminea or any open cooking position, with coal, turf, and wet wood the worst choices. Be mindful. 

Cut back on dramatic flaming pyres — letting the embers glow and die back. Electric outdoor heaters with short-wave quartz heat technology, produce about 15% CO2 to the equivalent power propane gas heater and cost about 10% of the cost of gas to run. 

I remain addicted to the perfume of wood. Champion companies like Greenfuel Ireland. Its olive, eucalyptus & mulberry firewoods are sourced from sustainably managed orchards and kiln-dried using solar energy; ten 20kg sacks, €170, greenfuelireland.ie. WillowWarm briquettes can also be burned outdoors; €240 for 40 bales.

Electric avenue

Reduce your carbon footprint even further by giving up the exhaustion and expense of dirty, emission-heavy, petrol mowing. Cabled or battery run, go electric this year. As your first EV, range and recharge times with batteries will really matter. 

A small lawn would reach up to 300sq m, 300sq m-600sq m is a medium lawn, while if your garden is 600sq m or over, most manufacturers will regard the site as large. Roughly pace out metres (width and length multiplied to get the figure for square metres) or use Google Maps to set a distance around your lawn.

When choosing a machine, I would add 20% extra, as hillocks, circling and boost features can take a good chomp out of the expected run time. In smaller gardens, corded electric rotaries include the excellent Bosch Rotak 34R and start at just €140, weighing in at a featherweight 11.1kg, Diy.ie.

Unkindest cut 

If you need an excuse to put the lawn slashers away entirely, No Mow May is swiftly approaching. The annual campaign is one way to protect and nurture the biodiversity in our own little scraps of ground.

Did you know Ireland is home to 100 different types of bees and 180 hoverflies? But one-third of our wild bees are threatened with extinction — mainly because of hunger, according to Ireland’s National Biodiversity Data Centre (biodiversityireland.ie). “If all of us chose to put our lawnmowers away for one month, we could start creating a network of places where pollinators can survive and thrive,” it adds. “Dandelions, red and white clover, and bird’s-foot trefoil (often murdered as misplaced plants or weeds), are all excellent sources of food for pollinating insects, bees, butterflies, and birds.” 

Soft rewilding 

We are not alone. That first cut of the year is calling — just lift the blades a centimetre or two. A bowling green finish is a desert for micro-diversity. Throw prunings into a corner to biodegrade in a little untamed corner for small mammals and birds to enjoy. 

Be wary of strimming in long tufted areas where frogs may be vulnerable and alert for their spawning season.

Open a small tunnel at ground level between adjoining (dog-free) gardens, and you could provide a hedgehog highway expanding their habitat significantly. Once April starts, be very wary of pruning thick hedges. They could be hosting nesting birds. 

A wildlife pond could start with something as small as a washing-up tub and make a fascinating project for children over six years old. Find something in this excellent guide by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, rspb.org.uk/helping-nature/what-you-can-do/activities/make-a-splash-with-water.