Last Updated on February 14, 2024 by Lifevif Team and JC Franco
Creating a garden can add aesthetic appeal to your outside space. As well as enhance your property’s “curb appeal” and, subsequently, increase its selling price. But are these the only reasons why people create beautiful gardens surrounding their homes? I don’t think so. In fact, there are many ways in which gardening can be good for the environment too. I can think of 14 reasons off the top of my head.
14 reasons gardens are important for the environment:
- Plants eat pollution for breakfast!
- A garden helps to ensure cleaner groundwater.
- Having your own garden helps you to reduce your carbon footprint.
- Gardens keep soil erosion in its place.
- Your garden can feed your family!
- Home gardens help to preserve and protect wildlife.
- Gardens police noise pollution.
- Having your own garden reduces waste.
- A home garden can be your family’s “lungs”.
- Gardens help to reduce urban temperatures.
- A garden with the right plants and trees can act as a natural air conditioner.
- Gardens reinforce the soil.
- Home gardening promotes sustainable agriculture.
- Gardens provide shelter for wildlife.
As humans, we tend to take the environment for granted, when there are various things we can do to improve it and protect it. While it might seem that you cannot change the world, you can change yourself. Starting a home garden is a good place to start if you wish to see a positive change in the world and how humans interact with and treat the environment.
As we watch on, while the world (us) destroys the environment, it is important to make a choice – do you want to be part of the destruction of the environment, or do you want to be part of the solution? Doing something as small as planting your own home garden can be doing your bit for the environment. And you never know who is watching on and being positively influenced by your example.
If you want to take a closer look at the reasons why gardens are important for the environment and how home gardening can have a positive environmental impact, read on. Below, I cover each of the abovementioned reasons in a little more detail.
Gardening is Important for the Environment! Here are 14 Simple Reasons Why!
For me, gardening is a fun hobby. No wait; actually, it is an obsession. The fact that it has such a phenomenally positive impact on the environment is a major perk, in my opinion. I can spend hours pottering around in my garden and be happy as ever.
For those who haven’t started gardening yet, but have an interest in it, you might be wondering if your home garden will have much of an impact on our life and the environment in general. The answer is a big resounding, “yes”. Creating your own home garden will have a positive impact. Here’s how:
1. Plants eat pollution for breakfast!
Yup, it’s true. Plants, as well as trees, are designed to suck up carbon dioxide and spurt out clean, purified, fresh air for us to breathe. Without plants, we wouldn’t have any oxygen to breathe, so be kind to the plants in your garden. Because we breathe and because we produce so much carbon dioxide, it is important that we take steps to mitigate our impact on our immediate surroundings.
Get planting! The more trees and plants you have in your garden, the more oxygen you are producing for yourself and, of course, everyone else.
2. A garden helps to ensure cleaner groundwater.
The water that runs below the surface is called groundwater. This water is what we eventually drink. What most people aren’t aware of is the fact that plants filter out chemicals and bacteria from water, before it reaches the groundwater level. This means that the water below the surface has been somewhat purified.
3. Having your own garden helps you to reduce your carbon footprint.
For many people, the concept of a carbon footprint is difficult to understand. Let’s first understand what this is. The carbon footprint of a product is just how much of a negative impact that product has had on the environment before it ends up in your shopping basket. For instance, products that have been shipped from another country and then transported by road from a depot to the various retail stores and later are collected by you at the grocery store and driven back to your home, has quite a big carbon footprint.
When you grow your own herbs, veggies, and fruit, there’s no traveling and no carbon emissions involved in the process, thus reducing your personal carbon footprint.
4. Gardens keep soil erosion in its place.
Soil erosion is a serious problem as it leads to unwanted debris and sediment, making its way into storm drains, roads, and into streams. By having a home garden, you are doing your bit to reduce soil erosion as the plants’ roots hold the soil in place.
5. Your garden can feed your family!
What better environmental benefit could you hope for than to be self-sustaining? By growing your own vegetable garden, you are removing yourself from the “system” and are creating your very own self-sustaining environment. This isn’t just great for the environment – it’s great for you and the health of your family too.
6. Home gardens help to preserve and protect wildlife.
Ecosystems are important. Most people overlook this and proceed to spend money on pesticides and other mechanisms that kill smaller creatures such as worms, snails, grasshoppers, and so on. What they don’t realize is that each and every creature has its place in the ecosystem and that by removing them, they are creating an imbalance in nature.
When you create a garden space, you provide the perfect opportunity for ecosystems to exist as they were meant to. This goes a long way towards preserving and protecting creatures that are otherwise removed from the ecosystem.
7. Gardens police noise pollution.
Having a nice flourishing garden could protect you from the noise of passing cars, trains, and other urban living sounds. It is known that plants form insulation around a home, which means that they absorb noise. In theory, the more plants and trees you have, the less noise you can expect to be exposed to.
8. Having your own garden reduces waste.
Every time you buy a fresh produce item, it probably comes in a plastic or Styrofoam punnet and is covered in some type of plastic. You rip the plastic off, cook the product, and then what? That plastic and Styrofoam is thrown into the bin and heads off to a landfill – which, as you know, aren’t exactly environmental palaces. If you want to remove yourself from the cycle of excess waste production, stop buying veggies and herbs from the grocery store. Grow and eat your own.
9. A home garden can be your family’s “lungs”.
The more plants and trees you have, the more and healthier oxygen you will have floating around your home and neighborhood. If you want to help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide floating around, plant more trees and plants – they could be the lungs that provide your specific family with all the oxygen it needs.
10. Gardens help to reduce urban temperatures.
Every day, trees and plants are cleared away to make space for tar roads, complexes, shopping malls, and urban development in general. It’s hot out there on those roads and within those developments, and this heat causes the surrounding areas to become hot too. By planting more plants and trees, you can help to bring those temperatures down.
11. A garden with the right plants and trees can act as a natural air conditioner.
If you run your air conditioner or cooling system all day long, perhaps it is time to look at ways to reduce that. Planting trees and plants around the home that provide shade will naturally reduce the heat that gets trapped inside your house. You can also look at creeping plants to grow on the side or over your home to act as additional cooling mechanisms.
12. Gardens reinforce the soil.
Without enriching the soil, the earth will become desolate. I personally turn old vegetable peelings into the soil to enrich it and keep it nutrient-packed for my plants. The more you do this, the more beneficial it will be for the environment and future generations too.
13. Home gardening promotes sustainable agriculture.
Most people don’t know this, but they don’t really need to buy half the stuff at the grocery store that they do. Agriculture nowadays is taking its toll on the earth, the environment, livestock, and even our plants. It’s becoming unsustainable for the long term. Sustainable agriculture involves each and every person taking the time to do their bit for their own food production.
Creating a healthy vegetable and herb garden at home is indeed sustainable agriculture on a small scale.
14. Gardens provide shelter for wildlife.
If you are a lover of wildlife like I am, you will truly come to appreciate the shelter that your garden provides for it. When you create a beautiful garden, you can expect to get visited by birds, butterflies, bees, and maybe even other critters and creatures. Your garden could become a prominent feature in the lives of a multitude of other creatures – and that’s something to be proud of.
Start (or improve) your own garden!
Creating your own garden is undoubtedly good for the environment. If you want to have a positive impact and be part of the solution to environmental deterioration instead of the problem, think about starting your own garden. The benefits for you, your family, and the environment are undeniable.
This article was co-authored by our team of in-house and freelance writers, and reviewed by our editors, who share their experiences and knowledge about the "Seven F's of Life".
JC Franco
JC Franco is a New York-based editor for Lifevif. He mainly focuses on content about faith, spirituality, personal growth, finance, and sports. He graduated from Mercyhurst University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business, majoring in Marketing. He is a certified tennis instructor who teaches in the New York City Metropolitan area. In terms of finance, he has passed the Level I exam of the CFA program.