Back to Living Roots

With the onset of spring, the appearance of the first greenery, many of us rush to the country. And those who do not have their own house outside the city sigh and try to create a mini-garden on their balcony. What drives us? What makes even an avid city dweller cherish a lawn the size of a handkerchief or grow a peach tree in a pot?

Rest for the soul

“In recent years, there has been no better vacation for me than in the country,” admits 32-year-old Marina. “In the spring, I plant gladioli in the ground, cut raspberries, look at the awakening trees, and absolute peace descends on me. Every time I wait, like a miracle, when the sprouts begin to break through the ground. This is a whole world with its own laws and values ​​that enriches life, prevents you from fixating on current work or home problems.

Communication with plants can really relieve stress and give strength, says Evgeny Kirichenko, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biology of the Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“At lunchtime, I always try to go for a walk along the oak alley. And in twenty minutes I return renewed, filled with strength, without a trace of accumulated fatigue. Even if you manage 20 plants, many of which you have been working with for thirty years, communication with them remains a lively and exciting process, and the plants themselves are even more mysterious and beautiful than at the beginning of the “acquaintance”.

Garden of Eden

“Even one flower pot on the windowsill is proof that beauty and harmony exist in the world. It is no coincidence that many nations associate the concept of paradise with the idea of ​​a garden, says psychologist and convinced gardener Ekaterina Mikhailova. There are no ugly plants. The English, for example, like to say that a weed is a beautiful plant that just grew in the wrong place.

The image of Eden in our minds is Mother Nature herself, generous, abundant, giving everything necessary for life.

“Communication with plants is an endless practice of patience and humility,” continues Ekaterina Mikhailova. – The result is delayed, sometimes for a long time. In the realm of nature, man is forced to cope with his thirst for the result “here and now.” We have to wait, but not passively, but by influencing, directing and refusing the daring desire to create a miracle.

Any collaboration with plants is an adventure. But its pace is not fast, it promises surprises, and disappointments, and entertainment, and excitement.

Stand firmly on the ground

People’s love for plants is not reduced to pure self-sacrifice and selfless service. Let’s be honest: even the most capricious orchid or passion fruit will give their guardian less worries than raising a puppy or kitten.

“Plants, due to their characteristics, are more predictable and manageable,” says Ekaterina Mikhailova. “They allow us to build a controlled model of a big reality, a world where something really depends on us, where a lot can be foreseen and even prevented. A flower in a pot will not let you down, will not betray, will not run away. That is, we get from plants – and from the earth itself – a sense of reliability, support, which we often lack in everyday life.

At the same time, I would not say that we prefer plants to animals out of laziness. The Cultivation process with a capital letter, focus on results means taking care of pets not only when you want to relax your soul, but also when it is necessary.”

Life cycles

Another important point that explains our fascination with the green kingdom is the opportunity, through the mediation of plants, to get involved in the measured course of time, to feel the deep rhythm of cyclicity, to join the sacred process of development.

We are watching the change of seasons: pale green leaves bring us good news – spring has come, and in autumn the greens are replaced by crimson and orange-yellow hues, symbolizing the end of a certain life stage.

Many people like to “put to sleep” their garden before the onset of winter, carefully sheltering them from the cold, and long before the onset of heat, they begin annual chores with seedlings. The older we get, the more pleasant, the more necessary the troubles with the earth become for us, because plants teach us the lesson that life is endless, that it goes on cycle after cycle. Wounds heal, seeds germinate… and we learn this lesson unconsciously and very firmly.

green energy

Plants are unique creatures in many ways. Their most valuable and amazing properties are the production of oxygen, which, as you know, is the key to life on earth, as well as the ability to accumulate and store the healing energy of the sun.

“The smell of plants is nothing more than recycled solar energy,” explains biophysicist, aromatherapist and essential oil expert Yulia Irisova. – This applies not only to the aroma of flowers, but also the smells of branches, bark, grass, leaves. Plants are able to incorporate photons and electrons that make up sunlight into their life processes, and they share this recycled light with us. The easiest way to explain this process is with the help of wave theory.”

Everything in the world emits electromagnetic waves of different lengths. What we perceive as color, sound, smell, is basically an impulse of energy. At the beginning of the last century, this discovery revolutionized science, molecular physics appeared, scientific and technological progress made a sharp leap, and a new direction was formed in medicine – wave medicine.

Wave medicine is based on the fact that the internal organs, like everything in the world, emit and receive waves of energy. From this point of view, plants are a tuning fork of harmony. Contact with them automatically tunes the body to a healthier “wave” and has a pronounced psychotherapeutic and even anti-aging effect.

“Often, women begin to grow geraniums precisely on the threshold of maturity – they intuitively feel its beneficial effect. It contains geraniol, one of the most powerful phytohormones, which is actively used in aromatherapy in anti-aging programs,” Yulia Irisova explains. “And if you plant a lemon or tangerine tree at home, it will share energy and an optimistic attitude with you.”

How profoundly beneficial the effect of contact with plants on us depends on the frequency of these contacts.

“If you go for a walk in a birch grove once a month, we can talk about psycho-emotional correction,” says Yulia Irisova. – Forays twice a week provide a harmonizing effect on the hypothalamus, which is responsible, among other things, for temperature, food, sleep. Constant interaction with green spaces has a beneficial effect on the pituitary gland – the main endocrine gland of our body.

More to communicate

But is it possible for people to communicate with plants in the truest sense of the word? Even if we leave aside the semi-pagan Slavic custom of crying in an embrace with a birch, many today admit their habit of talking to cacti, praising azaleas or scolding a rhododendron.

“The question of the existence of a higher nervous system in plants has been repeatedly discussed in the scientific community,” says Evgeny Kirichenko. – Most biologists and zoopsychologists believe that plants do not have such a system. But the fact has been experimentally confirmed that plants react differently to people: they seem to “recognize” those who take care of them or, on the contrary, hurt them.”

This is how Yulia Irisova explains the phenomenon of these “relationships”: “What looks like sympathy (or inexplicable antipathy) between people, animals or plants is a consequence of the coincidence (or mismatch) of individual vibrations, or, if you like, wavelengths. And in this sense, the plant, of course, is able to “sympathize”, that is, to help tune in a harmonious way, to overcome an emotional failure.

That is why you should not rationally choose the form of communication with nature. Our unconscious mind itself will understand everything perfectly. A well-groomed mowed lawn suits one, another loves to lie under the pine needles, the third takes care of his mini-flower garden on the window. Surrendering to sensations, we always choose the best option. One thing is certain: plants literally make our life brighter and more voluminous, without them our world would become bleak and gray.