9. Stressed Out
Life Lessons of a Backyard Gardener
When you earn the “experienced gardener” badge in the game of horticulture, it unlocks a new level of unforeseen obligation. Much as the family computer guru is on speed dial to revive dead hard drives, you are now the personal plant medic to the stars – at least the stars in your life. We all have friends and family who can argue a case or set a bone or balance an account or frame a house …but who regularly kill anything that is green and has roots. They often summon us through voices of frustration or desperation to inspect a sickly shrub or teetering tree or ghastly garden. And we struggle to keep expectations low. We tactfully explain that the exotic (read: expensive) ornamental has gone to meet its maker, and maybe it wasn’t the best choice for this or that location, or perhaps was not planted properly. It is a sad conversation, repeated countless times across the land, as spring breezes coax the sleeping landscape into its waking state, leaving a few sad cases behind -- the victims of stress.
We think of stress as a human thing, but it is a “life” thing. And thus a plant thing too. Like humans, every plant has its presumed ideal lifestyle -- that particular combination of light, warmth, moisture, pollinators, soil structure and nutrients that allows it to thrive without struggle. Humans have their own varied dream lives. A big house. Travel. Fulfilling professional life (or no professional life). Mai tais on the beach. Soul mate found. We convince ourselves that deviations from faux paradise are the source of the excess stress in our lives. But this is a tragic lie. The ideal is a figment, a product of the mind. Perceived perfection almost always reveals itself to be a dead end street, or even a Trojan horse. Humans are not designed to spend all of their time consuming fruity adult cocktails on serene, sub-tropical beaches. Our minds and bodies are designed for activity. We need goals. We need to persevere. And struggle. The meaning of life is not consumption, but reaction.
Plants also benefit from the stress of adversity, a fact that comes as a surprise to most new gardeners. Seedlings raised indoors in rich soil, under ideal lighting, take on the trappings of health and vigor – luxurious deep green foliage, robust, dendritic root systems, perfect stocky form. And this is a good and appropriate way to start them on their life’s journey; after all, we do the same with our own offspring, nurturing and protecting them in their vulnerable early months and years. But this appearance of vigor and contentment is an illusion. Overly coddled children face severe challenges as teens and young adults, as the real world does what it will do, without regard for its impact on the unprepared. The same goes with perfect tomato seedlings, perhaps set out a week too early without any opportunity to acclimate to the outdoors, often meeting an early, heart-wrenching demise in the unforgiving hands of even modest wind and cold. Lacking any ability to deal with stress, the plants instead succumb to it.
At a glance, a well-adjusted seedling looks similar to a healthy indoor seedling that has been insulated from stressors. Both boast the outward signs of health and vigor in roots, stems and leaves. But look a little closer. The lower stem of a “hardened off” tomato plant will often start to turn purple, which is a sure sign that it has successfully negotiated some cooler nights, and is prepared for battle. Gently pressed with thumb and forefinger, that same stem will feel stiffer and less squishy than its more sheltered colleague’s. If you put both plants outdoors for the duration of a bright day in late spring, you might see subtle or obvious signs of distress on the indoor plant later in the day. The edges of the leaves might look wilted or burnt -- a result of an inadequate, immature root and vascular system suddenly pitted against a full sun approaching the summer solstice. The unprepared seedling cries ¡No mas!, while its seasoned sibling confidently exclaims ¡Dale!.
The later stages of stress cycles can become a kind of self-induced feedback loop, where the energy expended avoiding stress is ultimately far more devastating than the original challenges. Trees are a great example. Both inexperienced homeowners and landscape professionals routinely plant trees incorrectly, often almost guaranteeing their early demise (and, if you are the resident guru, real or imagined, you will often be summoned to mourn and explain, if not resurrect). Trees live their long lives in a single location, and they must adapt to that environment early on. Giving a sapling “good soil” when planting encourages the opposite; the roots have no interest in exploring the soil beyond the cozy, familiar, nutrient-rich world. Instead, they simply loop around the inner surface of the hole, eventually cutting themselves off from the world that would save and enrich their lives, if they would only face it. A minor pro tip, to the tree planters: Dig a square hole rather than a round one. The right angles make it more difficult for the plant’s roots to simply follow the path of least resistance around the hole. For the non-gardeners, digging square holes in your life isn’t such a bad idea either. Comfort zones can be unhealthy places.
Stress management is now a household term, as medical science and media revealed the damaging effects of unhealthy stress levels on mind and body. The mind-body connection is very obvious at the biochemical level; excessive stress causes hundreds of chemical reactions in the body, some of which cause long term damage if left to flourish. As best we understand, the purpose of stress chemistry is the so-called “fight or flight” response, which is part of your system’s calculus between the need to deal with immediate danger vs. your need for longer term balance and health. Your sensory systems detect a threat, and your brain (or even the local nervous system) prepares your body to deal with it. This is important and effective if you hear a fire alarm, for example – many situations require a rapid response, and your body is equipped to provide it. But your body was not designed to do this every moment of every day. The by-products of excess stress will ultimately cause health problems, some very serious or fatal. Hypertension, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other conditions can all be correlated with excessive stress. In plant parlance, hardening off is one thing, but succumbing to an overnight frost is something very different. And so we must learn to manage stress, both in our own lives and in our garden.
But stress management is not stress elimination. We can learn important lessons from plants, regardless of the hues of our thumbs. Shielding ourselves and loved ones from the challenges of daily life is a recipe for personal disaster, not success. We need to be challenged, we need to grow, we need to harden off to the rigors of life, the world and the culture around us. Sometimes stress is the motivation that we need to meet a goal, or pass a test, or negotiate a difficult personal situation. If we eliminate all the stress from our lives, we lose the ability to react and succeed when life demands it -- just as we will lose our beloved seedlings if we fail to prepare them for the rigors of life outdoors.
Of course, as gardeners, we also enjoy a wonderful twist to this two-sided tale of tension. Because gardening is stress management! The activities of gardening are precisely tuned to the needs of our mind/body alliance in counteracting the excess demands of life. The pace, the reflection, the fresh air, the physicality, the positive focus, the direct connection with ecosystems – all of these conspire into a calming synergy that brings your physical and mental systems back to healthy equilibrium. Your garden brings you more than beauty and food – it can and should be a center of joy and peace. Nurture it. Prepare it. But use it too.
Keep stress in the toolbox, not in the pantry. And when in doubt, seek the garden.