Stay at home & take up gardening during Coronavirus restrictions
It’s extremely important that everyone stays at home at the moment and we’re huge supporters of this, so have tried to come up with some suggestions of interesting things for people to do.
Now is the perfect time for people to take up a new hobby and we think gardening is a great place to start!
We regularly encourage our older service users to get into the garden if they can. Gardening is a brilliant way for everyone to get some fresh air and connect with the natural world. It’s also a great way for us all to get some exercise.
You can burn up to 250 k/cal for every 30 minutes of digging you do, 195 k/cal mowing the lawn and 105 k/cal weeding and 100 k/cal raking. Beds, equipment and tools can all be modified for anyone who finds it difficult to get around too, so there really is no excuse.
Planting, pruning, digging, sweeping and weeding can improve dexterity skills. Gardening has huge benefits cognitively too, allowing the gardener to go through the planning stages, deciding what seeds to sow, what vegetables to grow or how they want the overall garden to look if you’re giving it a complete makeover.
Maintaining a garden gives a person a task to focus on every day/week as ongoing jobs such as watering and pruning need doing. Gardening is also fantastic for stimulation of the senses, there are lots of wonderful smells emitting from flowers, herbs, grass and even soil and the colours and light can really spark the imagination. There’s also the sensation of touch, of soil or plants in your hands as you plant them, and fantastic sounds too such as birdsong, rustling of leaves in the wind and the odd sounds of wildlife.
We will be publishing a series of seasonal, easy to follow, gardening tips and advice blogs here on our website and via our social media pages using the hashtag #keepcalmandgetreadytogarden.
A lot of mail order gardening companies and local garden centres are still operating and delivering while maintaining social distancing rules, allowing people to stay safely in their own home.
Those who believe gardening is only for the young and more mobile among us, couldn’t be more wrong, as it’s just as much for the elderly too. It is the perfect time of year to be outside and we’d encourage the people of Wales to stay at home and get gardening!
If people don’t have an outside plot, they can grow salad leaves in pots or try growing their own herbs for using in their cooking too. Houseplants also require love and care but are easier to manage for the less-able.
