How to Garden Yourself Happy: 9 Science-Backed Ways To Boost Your Mood That Benefit Your Backyard Too

Countless studies show that spending time in nature is seriously good for you. Do you want to reduce anxiety or soothe your nervous system, lower blood pressure or increase serotonin levels, regulate sleep or simply improve wellbeing? Research shows that being outside among natural elements can help to bring all these health benefits. So, if – like me – you’re a little blue after a long winter, the solution to feeling a whole lot better is right outside your back door.

We gardeners are so lucky to have a concentrated dose of natural beauty ready and waiting to boost our mood whenever we want it. Simply spending half an hour every day in your garden will leave you feeling more optimistic (and that’s a fact!), but if you want to maximize the effect, then these particular things will naturally induce all sorts of mood-boosting benefits. Ready to grow some happiness? Try just one idea and see the results for yourself – then do the rest. Happy days!

1. Get Your Fingers in the Soil

Ditch those gardening gloves and get some soil beneath your fingernails and you’ll naturally boost your levels of the feel-good chemical, serotonin. Soil contains a microorganism called Mycobacterium vaccae and studies have shown its effect on neurons is similar to modern antidresspant drugs.

If you’re worried about getting your hands clean afterwards, then try adding a little abrasion to your soap. This Gardener Grime Away bar from Amazon contains pumice, or simply add a half-teaspoon of salt or sugar to your squirt of hand soap.

2. Grow Foliage Spheres

Research shows that human brains react differently to soft curves and harsh angles. We're naturally drawn to rounded features (such as faces) that signify safety, as opposed to angular shapes (like sharp teeth and thorns) that may be dangerous. And spheres are the most soothing shape of all.

Try a little experiment now: simply look at this image and see where your eyes focus. You’ll likely be drawn to the spheres of foliage and these are reassuringly pleasing to your brain.

Add some topiary foliage spheres to your garden and they will provide soothing resting points for your eyes whenever you're outside. Boxwood (Buxus) has evergreen foliage for year-round spheres, and the cultivar ‘Green Velvet’, available from Fast Growing Trees, has particularly dense leaves for a well-rounded effect. If you don’t want the bother of pruning your sphere into shape – though it’s hugely satisfying with a hand-held battery-operated shrubbery trimmer like this one from Amazon – then there are plenty of evergreens that naturally grow into rounded shapes all by themselves. Tater Tot Arborvitae, available from Nature Hills, creates 2-feet-round orbs, and Cryptomeria ‘Globosa Nana’, available from Fast Growing Trees, naturally grows into a wonderfully textured 5-foot-diameter ball.

3. Choose Low Maintenance Plants

We all like to be properly rewarded for our efforts, and the effort-reward imbalance is a well-documented negative human reaction to a perception of getting less out of a task than you put in. It’s usually a term we hear in the workplace but it applies equally in the garden: spend hours tending a plant over several months to get a few flowers that only last for a week or two simply isn’t a satisfying outcome.

There are so many low maintenance plants that deliver abundant flowers for months on end or year-round foliage for very little effort, that it’s a wonder we gardeners ever bother with the more demanding plants!

4. Connect to Nature

Multiple studies show that people who spend time in nature and feel connected to it are happier, more able to regulate their emotions and have better physical as well as mental health. And you have the perfect spot to get connected with nature right outside your back door.

Make it a habit to spend 15 minutes watching the sun go down with a drink on the patio and you’ll become far more aware of the shortening and lengthening days. Add some pollinator-friendly flowers to your borders and enjoy watching the bees and butterflies they attract. Install a birdbath to see the bathtime antics of feathered backyard friends, and marvel at the lifecycle of docile solitary bees with a bee hotel.

5. Look For Fibonacci Spirals

Ever marvelled at the perfect patterns in a sunflower centre or pinecone base? Then you’ve already felt the joy of a Fibonacci spiral. Leonardo Fibonacci was a mathematician in the 12th century who included a sequence of numbers in a book he wrote, that we now recognise as a golden ratio. This numbers create a spiral that’s seen in natural objects time and time again, from coneflower seedheads to snail shells.

The sequence is so simple: start with 0 and 1, then add them together (0+1=1) so you have 0 1 1. Add the last two numbers of the sequence together (1+1=2) and you get 0 1 1 2. Continue to add the last two numbers and you end up with a sequence that can continue forever: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55… and so on. Incredibly, the ever-bigger spiral this creates can be found in over 90% of plants and even in other natural forms such as weather patterns and spiderwebs.

Our brains find it very easy to understand this basic pattern of life, and so we find it pleasurable. Go hunt for some Fibonacci spirals in your garden and see for yourself.

6. Add Some Dopamine-Inducing Blooms

Bright, saturated colors can trigger the release of dopamine, the brain’s feel-good neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, motivation and happiness. Many flowers are vibrantly colored to attract pollinators, in particular annual plants that must be pollinated to set seed and survive to the next generation.

Add a few of these cheery color-pops to your borders, or just grow a patio pot-full, and challenge yourself not to smile whenever you see them! These darlings are all simple to grow from seed and bring a whole heap of joy

7. Share Your Gardening Passion

Oxytocin is the hormone behind bonding, and it’s not solely produced during sex and childbirth – positive social interactions will trigger its release. In particular, sharing a common bond brings high levels of oxytocin, which is linked to trust and feelings of safety and connection. So why not share your passion for gardening with others?

Join a gardening group, get to know neighbors with backyards as beautiful as yours, volunteer with gardening-based charities or share your garden with others on Instagram. This is a win-win situation as the very act of social connection will increase oxytocin levels, and higher oxytocin levels contribute to forming strong emotional bonds. Take advantage of this positive spiralling effect to deepen a relationship with a friend who gardens: you could offer to help them for a couple of hours in their backyard in exchange for time spent gardening together in yours.

8. Benefit From Nostalgic Scent

Our sense of smell is closely linked to memories because of human anatomy. Your limbic system is the bit of your brain that forms and stores memories, and when you smell an aroma, your brain's reaction to it passes right by it. That’s why smells can make you feel emotional and trigger very specific memories.

The plant that evokes happy memories for many of us is lavender, probably because it’s a fragrance we may have experienced in our childhood. The two major scent compounds in lavender oil, linalool and linalyl acetate, are known to calm the human nervous system, too. And this isn’t just an effect studied in modern-day research: in its native countries, lavender has a lengthy history of medicinal use as a sedative and mood stabilizer.

So if you don’t already have a pot of lavender growing on your deck, put that right. Lavandula angustifolia is known for the high quality of its fragrant essential oils and ‘Munstead’ is a reliable variety in zones 5–9, available from Burpee: position a pot by a favorite garden chair and rub a leaf between finger and thumb for a welcome hit of calming fragrance. Lavender ‘Grosso’, though less potent, has far bigger flower spikes and retains its fragrance best when dried, so you can enjoy its soothing effects indoors, too. ‘Grosso’ is also available from Burpee.

9. Enjoy Soothing Green Hues

Green is the easiest color for our eyes to process, which is why it has such a soothing effect. So, as well as adding some eye-poppingly bright blooms to your backyard, consider creating a corner that’s a quiet sanctuary of calming green hues. A garden privacy screen is all you need to section off a small area of your patio or garden, then add a comfy chair – even better if it’s a hanging chair that brings relaxing movement. Surround it with leafy greens and you have yourself a tranquil oasis that you can retreat to for quiet, reflective moments.

Choose lush foliage in a mix of leaf shapes for a deeply textured look. Feather reed grass (Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’), available from Fast Growing Trees, is a super ornamental grass as it has an elegant upright habit. Hosta ‘Guacamole’ has wide ribbed foliage in a lovely chartreuse green and is also available from Fast Growing Trees, while ostrich fern, available from Burpee, grows fancy 3-foot-high feathery fronds, adding horizontal leaves to the mix.

A few accent green blooms and you have yourself a personal mood-stabilizing paradise.