Gardening is a rewarding hobby that not only provides the freshest vegetables and beautiful surroundings, but will also teach you a lot about nature. Here are some surprising facts you may not know about your garden.
1. Sunflowers aren’t just one huge flower — Sunflowers, and other flowers in the same family like daisies, coreopsis, asters, and yarrow, are actually composed of hundreds of tiny flowers called florets, explains Better Homes and Gardens. In the case of the sunflower, each floret matures, producing one sunflower seed.
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2. Gardening can help you beat the blues — Gardening can help make you happy, and not only if you enjoy the act itself, says Tomato Envy. In fact, numerous studies prove that regular contact with a certain bacteria strains found in ordinary garden soil helps the brain produce serotonin, an important chemical for beating depression. When gardening, you can absorb the bacteria through your skin and through breathing.
3. Plants respond to sound — Once considered an old wives’ tale, studies prove plants respond to vibrations of music or even just your voice and will grow with increased vigor, says Good Housekeeping.
4. You can change the color of your hydrangea blooms — The color of some hydrangeas depends on the pH of the soil. More alkaline (basic) soil can be achieved by adding lime to the soil around your plants for pink blooms. An acidic soil amendment will turn the blooms blue, explains Good Housekeeping.
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5. Mason bees are better pollinators than honeybees — Honeybee decline is a serious environmental problem that threatens our food supply, explains Tomato Envy. However, mason bees are powerful pollinators that are native to North America, are sometimes mistaken for flies, and are very easy to attract to your garden by providing a mason bee house.
6. Baking soda can sweeten your tomatoes — Good Housekeeping recommends sprinkling a little baking soda around your tomato plants to reduce acidity and yield sweeter tomatoes.
7. Butterflies love weeds — Before you start eliminating all of the weeds in your garden, consider that butterflies are often more attracted to everyday native weeds. The fragrance and flavor of the nectar is much more appealing than garden cultivars, which have been bred to produce less nectar.
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Brande Plotnick is an ambitious home cook, gardener, beekeeper, writer, and speaker who started her website, Tomato Envy, to inspire others to find their deliberately decadent life at home. Brande’s down-to-earth style and approachable manner have been winning over the readers who follow her blog. Her work has been featured in Urban Farm Magazine, Natural Awakenings, Mother Earth News, and the Whole Seed Catalog.
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