Lingering in a Garden

Shams al-Din Hafiz Shirazi asked, “What more has earth to give?” in a poem called “Lingering in a Garden Fair.” I wondered about the answer after a recent visit to Bournville, a residential neighborhood in the British city of Birmingham. I was invited to an open-garden day to which the village residents are invited each year. Bournville is considered Britain’s original garden community. It eventually became a member of the U.K.’s National Garden Scheme. This organization encourages local neighborhoods to open their gardens to the public and charge entrance fees that are then donated to a charity.

I chose my arrival at a garden called Vinwood to coincide with the half-hour entertainment of the Bournville Clarinet Choir. Its performance enhanced the entire afternoon’s magical ambience. I lingered there for about four hours, conversing with other visitors and the property owners. The rich soft grass underfoot enticed the audience to sit and listen to the choir’s performance of music by Dvorak.

The house was not imposingly large, and its lawns at the front, back, and one side were surrounded by five-foot-high hedges. This made the lawns look like separate rooms, each with a different arrangement of intimate corners offering onlookers a chance to sit and peer through the underbrush. The plants and flowers at the edges of the lawns camouflaged a bench here, an armchair there, masks, mirrors, pots and pans reconfigured and repurposed, and small statues.

Ezra E. H. Griffith, M.D.

The owners of the property developed the garden partly as a sanctuary. They acknowledged that it required great manual effort but agreed that the work made time pass quickly and allowed them to relax as they admired the benefits of their labor. They enjoyed working together and supporting the plants’ efforts to thrive. They were pleased to contribute to their community. At times they entered the garden dispirited but always came out uplifted.

Some visitors commented that the garden’s beauty distracted them from their problems, and the flowers’ perfumes were refreshing. The landscapes slowed them down and forced them to look around imaginatively. There was also the ineffable sensation of being held briefly captive in a space for meditation.

As I watched the visitors strolling on the garden’s narrow stone pathways, I couldn’t help but smile. Everyone seemed entranced, putting names I didn’t know to the plants and describing the flowers’ colors with a knowledgeable vocabulary that was beyond mine.

We know that these relatively passive activities help people live longer. There are also benefits to sitting on a bench in a beautifully designed floral alcove chatting with friends and neighbors. The activity enhances social networking and reduces stress. That is why a colleague recently told me about the Biophilic Cities Network, which is committed to improving the connection between city residents and urban nature. After all, Vinwood is in a city but seems to bring the country into the urban space.

What more indeed does the earth have to give? Well, some answers have been discussed by Ephral Livni in a piece called “The Japanese Practice of ‘Forest Bathing’ Is Scientifically Proven to Improve Your Health” (Quartz, October 12, 2016). Just being in the presence of trees can have a positive effect on one’s stress level and immune system. ■