Plant Parenthood

By Larry Ferguson Editor

Anxiety, low self-esteem, and lack of focus are extremely common issues when you’re a hard-working college student. Sometimes, it’s a little too easy to forget about all the progress you make and all the amazing work you’ve done in light of tough times. With a new semester of prospective successes awaiting you, there’s a fun and engaging way that you can kick off the spring that will ameliorate all of the nerves that may be holding you back: horticulture!

Starting a little green family for yourself might be the perfect niche activity for you to dive deep into as the flowers begin to bloom this year.

The art of garden cultivation and management, also known as horticulture, is a practice that goes back to the roots of civilization. For as long as societies have had the means to grow their own agricultural products, the door to recreational gardening was busted wide open. However, according to Geoffrey A.C. Herklots, former Principal and Director of Research at Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad, it wasn’t until the European Renaissance that “the emergence of the garden as a form of creative display properly began in the 16th century.” From that point forward, people who sought to produce elegant and refined art using nothing but nature itself as their tools found a medium of expression “in composing harmonious forms in the garden,” Herklots said. Tracking the life of this art form into the present, there isn’t much change to be observed. The only noticeable differences are the increased access to the materials necessary to do successful gardening, causing a slight shift from an exclusively artful and regal endeavor to more of an everyman’s hobby, and research that gives us insight into what good the growth of this scene has brought about to certain groups of people.

The kind of joy that you can grow in your life! Pictured is Max Csedrik standing in his bedroomturned greenhouse, surrounded by beautiful plants.

Over the years, numerous studies have sought to understand the value that recreational gardening can add to people’s lives. The findings conclude that people stand to benefit both physically and mentally from engaging in the hobby. If you’ve found that you’re riddled with nerves or aren’t all that confident in how you may perform either socially or academically during the Spring Semester, it turns out horticulture might just be therapeutic for you. According to the former president of the Royal College of Physicians in London, Sir Richard Thompson, green spaces, including home gardens, are “associated with less depression, anxiety and stress.”

Even though quality research has affirmed these findings, for someone who is looking for a way to work on some of these issues it’s important to understand the specific ways this hobby may improve their quality of life.

Environmental Science Major at Southern New Hampshire University, Max Csedrik, who is deep into the hobby, had a lot to say about the topic. Lessening depression, anxiety, and stress probably sounds too good to be true for a student who is having those problems, but according to Csedrik, it’s no lie.

When it comes to depression, in reference to his plants, Csedrik said “They make me happier. They add life and color to my room, which keeps the space from getting drab and depressing. Seeing the big leaves and the long vines always puts a smile on my face.”

After talking to him for a good while, it was plain to see that the plants were more than just a way for him to have a more vibrant and lively living space. Csedrik was quick to admit that he has always been an anxious person, but when pondering the proposed effects of the study over his own experiences, he made a correlated connection between his anxiety and stress and his hobby.

“I guess I would say that working with my plants has become an outlet for my anxiety. It’s like when I’m taking care of them, I’m also taking care of myself. Whatever bad feelings I have are kind of transformed into positive energy that I then put into the plants,” he said.

These factors, combined with the confidence boost that comes with cultivating life with his own hands, has without a doubt made finding a love for plants one of the best things that has ever happened to him.

Despite how appealing the mental health benefits may sound, the physical benefits are just as alluring. In addition to easing the nerves flooding your brain at the beginning of the semester, gardening is also a convenient way to get some exercise all while in the comfort of the cushy green space you’ve created. According to the Julia Darnton, a District Director for the Michigan State University Extension, “moderate-intensity level activity for 2.5 hours each week can reduce the risk for obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, depression, colon cancer and premature death” and it just so happens that “The CDC considers gardening a moderate-intensity level activity.”

It may initially seem hard to believe that kneeling down for an hour or two while playing in the dirt could help you progress toward your fitness goals, but it is true. During our interview, as he was speaking, Csedrik was actually repotting a few of his plants that had grown too big for their old pots. The whole endeavor lasted a little over an hour. Between moving the heavy pots, dumping the soil, separating the roots, mixing in fertilizer, watering the plants, making them look pretty, and cleaning up all the mess that has spilled on his floor, Csedrik had engaged in a large amount of physical activity. When everything was said and done, his sweat was dripping onto the floor.

Don’t be discouraged by this, though. You would only work this hard if you had a massive terrarium in your room like Csedrik and like to do work on all of your big plants in one sitting. Taking your time and pacing out the upkeep for your plants will allow you to hit that 2.5-hour mark over the course of a week easily.

Springtime has always been considered a time for new life to grow, both figuratively and literally. Picking up recreational horticulture as a hobby at the beginning of the Spring Semester is your opportunity to do both. You can allow external life to bloom with the power of your own hands while simultaneously breathing new life into yourself by becoming healthier on all fronts. All along it turns out that a little bit of dirt, water, and sunlight isn’t just a recipe for plant growth, but happiness as well.

By Nhathalie A. Jean-Baptiste Senior Staff Writer

Everyone has a story they either won’t, can’t, or want to tell. I was all of those, I was all of those, and more. I just couldn’t tell one person how I felt because she is gone, my maternal Grandmother Alice. She was a rock for me and an ear to listen to as well as a shoulder to cry on. When she started getting sick at the end of 2017 going into 2018, I felt the shift. I felt that she was going to leave us. She left us on March 4th, 2018, due to complications after her first radiation treatment for her Stage 4 cancer. We just wanted her to get radiation, just so she could last long enough for my mom to send her back to Haiti and she could die surrounded by my aunts and many cousins. Unfortunately, she passed on my cousin’s birthday. She didn’t even get to celebrate her 80th birthday.

After she passed, I fell into an intense depression; it was like all I knew was gone, only because me and my mother always butt heads, and she was the mediator between us. With her gone I didn’t care about anything,

I went to class, but I wasn’t present. I decided to just stop. All of a sudden I began feeling unprovoked anger, especially towards my mother. It got to the point my mother suggested I get help and figure out what was wrong with me.

So I did. Back in 2019, I was diagnosed with Major Depression and Borderline Bipolarism. The funny thing about it is that the psychologist also told me that from the way I answered the answers on the test they gave me, I have been harboring a lot of anger, and probably my grandmother’s passing is what triggered the borderline Bipolarism, but the depression had always been there. That is a whole other story.

When I finally understood how I felt and what I was feeling, I tried without medication, and yes it was hard. Still, I managed to do it, even though it took me to go through a pandemic to put things into perspective and to listen to my mother every once and a while. It was like a thunderbolt had hit me; figuratively, I thought I heard my grandma tell me to pick myself up and not let my disability cripple me. It was like somehow a new life was breathed into me. Even though I did begin to get better it was still a struggle.

There were times my depression would sneak up on me and take me out, for instance back in April, I was so down, that I didn’t even call out of work for a whole week. My job would call me and I wouldn’t pick up, I just stared at my phone wishing I would just disappear. I was so out of it, that I didn’t even get out of bed. My mom would yell at me to get up or call my job, but it was like she was just like the adults in Peanuts. All I heard was a cacophony of muted trombone sounds. After that week, I went back to work and explained to my managers about my condition and they understood. They just wished I called and informed them, but at the time that was far from thought.

Now, I have my ups and downs, but I muffle the sounds of depression, but sometimes can’t muffle the screaming of Bipolarism. I keep them out of my head by either writing, listening to music, watching videos on YouTube, or watching shows and movies on Netflix or Hulu. Even though there are times they do not work; I always force myself to try to hold my emotional baggage back, because I know my grandmother would never like me to suffer. It has been a more tolerable life so far. My favorite things to do to get my mind off of thinking negative thoughts that lead to the darkened door of my heart is that I watch Karen getting instant Justice videos on a channel called Top10 Central, I watch shorts, watch other channels like All Def Digital, Chiseled Adonis, and Aba and Preach. If I am not up to watching anything on YouTube, I watch movies and shows either new ones or ones from my childhood; if I didn’t want to view those I watched Korean movies and shows.

Even though she is gone, I still have good memories of the both of us just sitting and just talking/ We never had a subject, but it was good. I always keep that with me. Yes, there are days I just want to cry when I think of her, but I remember her words to me in her last days, “Even though I am gone, just know you can always speak to me.” I never wanted to believe that, but as I progressively started to get better, I started feeling as though it was those words, and our memories together that started helping me. Even though I probably will always have Major Depression with Borderline Bipolarism, I now understand what she meant. At times I catch myself speaking to her, when I am in a rut. Even if I do not get a response from her, I believe that she heard me and is always looking out for me.

With my Savior being gone, I had to learn the hard way; how to pick myself up because she couldn’t do it anymore. I had to learn that even though she is gone, she will never be gone, because there is a little bit of herself in me, like my stubbornness, my need to always improve myself, and to be brutally honest.