I have read in several different places that gardening is a great alternative approach to help manage AD/HD.

After living on apartments for the past five years I am so happy to have a house with an actual yard. I must admit that I really do enjoy gardeing and feel great after working in the yard.

The one think that I find frustrating it the ammount of leaves in my yard. I think it's been quite a few years since the leaves were raked and removed.

ok who esle but an ADDer would not only break a pitch fork while gardening but keep using it and break off a second prong?

LMBO Tara,

You do that too..tee hee.

I garden all the time, and yes it does help my ADD. I also grow all my own herbs. Mainly because it is so hard to find fresh ones around here, and I love to cook..which also helps my ADD. I also craft. I think because all of this is a structured task and can be carried over to other things in our lives is why this helps so much.

Happy Gardening :)

Huggz

Gardening helps. I used to work on my balcony and it was often the only thing that could relax me.

Oh, I absolutely love to dig in the dirt! I love to plant seeds and watch them grow. Living in a house as a single woman is expensive, but I love being able to have an "ongoing yard experiment." Only thing is I hate those darn weeds!! Nothing like the satisfaction of seeing a freshly mowed lawn.... :)

I agree; gardening is a very therapeutic option for us ADDers. :D

I love gardening too! I have actually started a lot of my own plants from seed.

The worst thing is trying to get your lawn estabilshed when you move into new construction. I was so frustrated with that :mad: But now I finally have grass, so that part is over. ;)

I suppose there is an upside to it though - none of the trees in my yard are old enough to produce huge piles of leaves. There is no need to rake in my yard! :D

I love gardens and plants- but I'm the worst caretaker of them. I'm not starting on gardening my lawn til this summer, but the indoor plants I have I really struggle with. I've even killed a spider plant. I can never seem to remember when I last watered them, and can't keep up with a chart that keeps track of that (and have trouble remembering to feel the soil too see if it's too dry). My yellow rose plant just died too! I don't know if I over watered it or under watered it. And my house isn't well lit with natural light (medium to low). Every time I look at plants in a shop with my boyfriend, he'll ask; "looking for more victims?" Any suggestions; it sounds like you people have green thumbs!

Even indoor plants can help. My plants have an attitude; they stand there at the door tapping their feet when I don't water them.

Subtle, my plants enjoy music and also being talked to. (Bonus: unlike the stressful folk in your life, they don't talk back.)

I have also put their watering and liquid nitrogen feeding schedule in my Palm Pilot so I don't forget to care for them. I do it in the morning on the weekend; then it's not something else I end up forgetting.

Hey, Tara --

Have there been any articles on WHY gardening is good for us ADDers? Is it 'cuz it's relaxing?

Gardening is my life. It's funny with the farmer/hunter theory but what do is wild gardens using all native plants so I don't have to water the damn things. It's very rewarding to work with nature in a stewardship kind of way and I find that more meaningful that it's creating habitat for birds & butterflies & putting things back to the way they are meant to be.

Again with a contradiction: I love city living but I also enjoy the wilderness, it's the suburbs that I can't stand. So I've found myself a way to have wilderness in the city and it 's the perfect arrangement.

I am obsessed with weed pulling lately I can't manage to get to the car with out pulling a few.
I am trying to have a real lawn in the front, just grass. Because I have a hybrid grass that dosen't grow very fast. So I end up just mowing weeds. So I must weed.
I feel good weeding.

Paul, I am a jungle woman at heart. But I need the work advantages of the town/city. I need the green to stay centered.

I have a big yard. almost 1 1/2 acre.

Weeding is a good thing.

Egads 1-1/2 acres... our lot is 25x100 ft plus I've taken over the back half of the neighbor's double lot. Maybe think about taking out some of that boring lawn & putting in a native butterfly meadow!

I have a forest on about 1/2 acre, and The back and front have tons of trees so I only am trying to have a nice lawn on the front center of the house which is about 80 x60 or so, and there are a lot of trees and some plants. I like the forest it is cedar. That was my main attraction in getting this place.

We do a lot of gardening . I find gardening to be relaxing. i like working with the soil, the smell of fresh good dirt, the sun, the fresh air. it's great! We live in a 150year old farmhouse and have great soil - 1 1/2 feet of top soil - and lots of sun in the summer.

We have a good size vegetable garden 30x60 that we grow all sorts of veggies, sunflowers etc. . . in. the veggie garden is right in back of the pool, so when the kids are swiiming, I can weed and trim til i get too hot, then go take a dip in the pool and come back to the garden to do more weeding.

we have just put in a perennial bed - i can't wait for the flowers! It's right in the front of the house and really makes the front lawn look so much better than it ever has looked.

As fr the leaves - I don't like raking. the only time we rake the leaves in when we aren raking them into big piles for the kids to jump into them. We have a riding lawnmower with baggers so we just vacuum up the leaves and add them to the compost pile.

For some off the wall reason I have become very territorial with our garden this year. I don't say anything but I really hate it when Doug is even near my garden and he's the one who taught me how to keep my plant's alive longer than a week. I just want to scream at him and I think he know's it but won't say anything until I lose it. I think it may be that I've lost control of other aspect's in my life so I have to control something why not the stupid garden?!!!! Who know's. I just wish he would quit pressing his luck...lol...he look's at me with a go ahead make my day look as he's pulling weed's and I have to about bite my tongue off. He's naughty that's all I have to say. lol

Your a riot Futs! I know how you feel though, I have been like that over a garden. I was once called a controll freak by a girlfriend who moved in and had some ideas for MY garden and began to impliment them, she didn't even ask. She didn't understand, it was MY GARDEN!!! Hee Hee, I just had to let that out!

MINE MINE MINE he can buy his own land lol No honestly he does a better job then I do. I think it all comes down to the part of the flower garden he's messing in is what I planted and kept alive by MYSELF and now he want's to mess around in there and make cutting's off of MY plants. We're married right? what's his is mine and what's mine is his...But, I have the most stupidest childish feeling's towards MY plants--NO TOUCHING.

You girls are hilarious. You sound like my mom. She gave a weeding tutorial before she would let any of us NEAR either the flowers or the vegetables.

I want to know why anybody would actually plant bamboo in their yard...my yard is covered with the stuff...it's almost as bad as the dandilions...

EEEk Tara from what I hear you have your work cut out for you.

Y'all (that means everyone to whom I speak to those up north) might be interested in this:

http://www.herl.uiuc.edu/kids.html

Scroll down for documents with details.

This is about a study that showed that kids with ADD who spent time in natural settings experienced relief from their ADD symptoms.

Gardening doesn't help us. Nobody remembers what was planted where, nobody wants to weed, nobody wants to water, etc. Too boring. But let those zucchini pop out, and it's a stampede to see who picks them. My wife wants to raise animals like chickens or something as well, but I can't get her to understand that I don't want to be the only one taking care of them, killing them, and shoveling chickendoot, because that's EXACTLY what will happen.

HINT!!! NOTHING is more disgusting then raising chickens IMHO tried it once will never ever ever ever ever ever do it again.

My kids enjoy gardening as do my husband and I. My husband and I grow the vegtables plus some flowers it cuts cost on the food bill that's a good motivator for me I'm alway's looking for ways to keep more of my money in my pocket. My children have their own little gardens that they pick their flowers and such. Dakota chose strawberries and other type fruit, Lexi prefers flowers. Only once has Lexi refused to take care of her plot but after having daddy mow it down last year she is much more attentive this year.

"Ya'll" is something I don't need explained lol

hi, ya'll. You no I was always the one who would go and work in the yard growing up, I have been a lover of nature since I can remember, and love to base my art from it, I have tree limbs I've saved, I like to put to use parts of trees plants etc. I have all these wonderful things I want to create from nature, and I wish I owned my own piece of land so I can start to build my dream garden home. I want my home and garden to literally flow in to each other. And wish I could just work my land make it look beautiful everywhere you look. Planed out to the teee..... The first books I use to go to the libary to check out were on trees, landscapeing etc. Have read and read listen to every bit of good info I could get. Lived on my mom's land with her in beautiful N.C. on a dead end dirt road, 4 achers. I threw my back out one time picking a green tomato for my Grandma, and the doc. said not that, what were you doing about a week ago. TILLIN' about a 60ft. ditch my brother dug from the well to the house. Done what he needed to do and never fixed the mess. I spent hours in the yard makeing it look pretty. Plant flower seeds I'd by from Park seed, and I grew up in Cleveland shoveling snow. My mom was no gardner she liked plants,she just didn't know what to do with them. I wanted to make them grow so I read everything about it I can get my hands on. Had some great gardens there by the barn. When I left I have only rented. I still have my plants, I did a lot of container planting. and I have killed spider plants too, till I learned to do nothing but mist them babies in the winter. I love plants I can bring in and out of the house. I get the most enjoyment creating beauty and life. being part of Mother Earth's receptors. Enough of my lingering on the wrap around porch. I have to tell you about something that transpired today. I recently have put my things in storage and have only one bamboo plant with me at the time. I have been needing to get out from under the rent thing . So I can save for my piece of land one day. He has been my best freind for 4 yrs. and have had an instant connection with and a knowing that I am supposed to be here right now. He holds me down if you know what I mean. For every flighty hair on my body, he can think of a reason not too. He drives me nuts though. OKAY now for years I have been telling him he needed to dig up the hosta's in the beds on either side of his front porch, he does not even like to get his hands dirty. thats why he works on pc's. I was telling him what I wanted to do outside for our Christmas tree. you see he is the worst pack rat I've ever seen, So I noticed the coolest tree in his grandma's back yard. I'm not sure what it is. It doesn't have any leaves on it and it's real sparce. Has the most perfect structure and size. I want to pot it and use it as a Christmas tree in the front yard since we haven't the space in the house. Then after Cristmas I can put it back in its home. I just fell in love with that tree. I want a cool leaf less tree in my house some day. and a bird living in it.lol So in telling him this you see I brought up splitting the hostas while I was at it.( I really had plans on redoing the beds. They haven't been took care of for 10 yrs or better.) He refuses and I best not touch his plants. I was furious, ya'll you just don't know how much I miss gardening and wanted to make these beds look nice. and help them hostas breethe a little better. He thinks because a dog dug up one of them plants and liked to of killed it. I can't be diggin' up his plants. They can't handle it. I can't stand when I know what I am saying on a subject and the other person doesn't and they will not listen. will ya'll ladies help me out. I do read forum threads out load to him sometimes, I already told him I was talking about him.LOL I am the one who cuts the grass and racks the leaves here and his grand parents next door, I don't know if he ever has in 12 yrs of living here. Could care less about yard work. Men! LOL, naw really please help me convince him this is a good thing for those plants. and I better not touch his plants. I'm doing my tree though by God.