Four Simple Tasks to Greatly Enhance Your Relationship with Nature this Summer

For us as local landscapers, the spring and summer are the busiest seasons of the year. We’re making the most out of these long and sunny days, making sure each project is successful and every client comes home to a healthy and happy landscape.

Interestingly enough, even we need simple reminders to help us stay connected with the natural world around us. You can be surrounded by it every day and still need gentle reminders to appreciate its complex natural beauty.

So for this summer, we want everyone to really embrace nature through these simple, yet super impactful ways to experience nature. Whether you’re new to understanding your authentic relationship with natural world, or a seasoned naturalist, we can all benefit from more intentional connections with the world around us.

Get Creative with a Container Garden

Study after study reveals that gardening has such a positive impact on our overall physical and mental health. From giving us a sense of responsibility, to allowing us to truly connect to the cycle of life – it creates an opportunity to enhance your relationship with both the natural world and your authentic self.

While the sound of a container garden seems rather restricting, it’s actually very much the opposite and leaves plenty of room for creativity. Growing plants exclusively in containers, instead of the ground, also allows everyone to experience gardening at any scale regardless of one’s access to ground space.

When choosing the perfect plant, make sure to understand the proper temperature and lighting it will require. Whether it needs shade, partial or full sun, the placement of your container is key to your plants success. In any home and garden store nowadays, it’s easy to find the correct potting soil and species of plants that can grow successfully together.

Additionally, think outside the box – or container – and don’t restrict yourself to the more common containers found at the store.  Depending on your decorative styles, you can really incorporate colors, textures and shapes into your space. From old boots and sinks, to wine barrels and common house hold objects – the opportunities are truly endless. Whatever you choose to use, however, make sure it has the proper drainage and space to allow the roots of your plant to be happy and healthy.

Spend 20 Minutes a Week Really Noticing your Relationship with Nature – without Technology

A genuinely hard skill to learn is being in the present in the moment. To focus on the world around you, while letting go of the past or worrying about the future. For some, this can be a skill that requires attention and practice with a daily routine.

One of the best tools to help you be in the moment is to allow nature to assist in calming your mind and body. To focus your senses on the natural world around you – embracing each one and moving on to the next. Take to really think about the relationship each organism around you has with its ecosystem, from the bees pollinating the flowers, to the wind moving each individual leaf.

Want to truly enhance your experience with nature? Try it without your phone or any technology

There are so many wonderful advances that technology has given us – that’s without question. Even though one can find thousands of nature-themed apps that promote the environment and our experiences, it still doesn’t compare to embracing and giving your full attention to the natural world around you. With any technology, we should always ask – does it enhance our relationship with nature, or pull us further apart?

So for 20 minutes, whether in your backyard or local park, be present with nature this summer. It’s the perfect time of year to experience the colors, growth, smells and sounds that make up this beautiful earth – so enjoy it!

Grow Something You Can Eat

It’s truly an experience to grow your own food and we think every person should experience that feeling at least once in their life. As a landscaping company, we are constantly suggesting and moving clients to
incorporating a more edible landscape into their home. Whether it’s a specific area for a vegetable garden, or enhancing their yard with herbs strategically placed throughout more floral arrangements – the end results are always overwhelmingly positive.

For example, our own office located in Arden, North Carolina, has blueberry bushes located throughout the property. It’s easy to take a break outside and simply reach out for a sugary treat – straight from the source. It’s the small things in life.

Growing your own fruit, vegetable or herb can also really help you understand and appreciate the origins of your food. Depending on your dedication, it may even help you make better lifestyle choices about what and how much you consume. What started with a simple herb garden, may turn into a growing vegetable garden with each season. Start simple and learn to grow with your experiences.

On another note, if it doesn’t work – that’s okay. We often try to control everything around us, which has been ingrained into our daily routines since an early age. When it comes to growing any plant, you sometimes have to accept and embrace what nature has to offer. Take time to really
understand the process of it all.

Watch the Sunset
Western North Carolina is home to some of the most amazing views in the country. From the Blue Ridge Parkway, to the many mountain top trails, you can find amazing views while still being minutes from the energy of Downtown Asheville.  In the past decade, many of the buildings in WNC have been opening up their spaces to allow outdoor areas where people can embrace the beautiful mountains that we call home.

One of our top requests we get from clients, is to have a space where they can relax and watch the sun go down. To be able to stay within the comforts of their home, but experience one of nature’s greatest light show. It’s a small but powerful enhancement to their home.

There will always be something special about watching the sunset. Whether with friends, family, or alone with the universe above you – it’s one of the best ways to end your day. Another reason that summer has such meaningful sunset experiences is because by the time the sun does go down, it genuinely aligns closely with your natural sleep schedule.

Whether from a rooftop, mountain top, or your cozy backyard, this easy activity is also one that is
completely unique to just you. From your view, location, and time – it’s all yours. There will never be another just like it, so embrace it.

While these tasks are simple, they can have such a large and positive impact on your physical and mental health. It’s the small things in life that we learn to appreciate and hold close to us as we get older, so make sure to include the natural world around you in those day to day activities.

Looking for a landscaper in the Asheville area? We’ve been around for 30 years, enriching the lives of our clients with award winning landscape work. From landscape management to installation, we are able to support all of your landscaping needs. Call our office today to set up an appointment with our one of our team.