GWS Gardens Featured in NPS Newsletter

Sometimes a love of the great outdoors starts not with a mind-blowing wilderness trek, but through tending a garden.  There are probably examples happening all through your neighborhood.  Within sight of downtown Washington is a fantastic community garden inside Fort Dupont National Park.  The garden offers small plots where the Park’s neighbors can find the space to grow – to experience the physical, mental, spiritual and social benefits of tending a garden – in a green refuge from the city’s pavement.  The garden’s Dibbles n’ Buds newsletter is a resource for anyone interested in garnering gardening skills.

In addition to fresh, healthy food, gardening also provides mental health and social benefits.  Hester Parr of the University of Dundee has documented substantial benefits, including a key insight that people with mental health problems generally felt positive emotions when gardening.  Nonprofit Groundwork Trusts like the ones in Somerville, Massachusetts and Buffalo, New York are helping build community gardens in schoolyards and in public housing developments as a key strategy for building healthier communities.

If you’re ready to find a community garden near you before it’s planting time again, check out the American Community Gardening Association.  They can help you find a nearby community garden, or grow one near you.