Benefits

Plants provide aesthetic beauty to our landscape. Did you know they also have health, environmental and economic benefits as well? Here are a few of our favorites:

1. Gardening can burn up to 600 calories per hour. It is an ideal exercise because it combines three types of physical activity: strength, endurance and flexibility.
2. The Massachusetts Environmental Horticulture industry employs over 68,000 people. The industry generates over $2.6 billion in gross income. That supports not only the workers, but other local businesses such as; roadside markets, hardware stores, mass market stores and property maintenance firms.
3. Gardening helps you relax and unwind. A 2011 study in the Journal of Health Psychology showed that gardening was more successful than reading in reducing the amount of cortisol—the primary stress hormone—in your blood.
4. Landscaping can accelerate the sale of your home by as much as six weeks compared to one with little or no landscaping. Homes with large landscaped areas are proven to sell in less time, due to the fact that the home is perceived to be more valuable and desirable to home-buyers.
5. The average well maintained food garden yields a $500 return when considering a typical gardeners investment and the market price of produce.
6. Trees can reduce your home energy costs up to 30%. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that three properly placed shade trees can save an average household between $100 and $250 in heating and cooling energy costs annually.
7. People who garden eat more vegetables. Gardeners are more likely to consume the veggies than non-gardeners. Studies have shown people who have invested time into producing vegetables are more likely to eat them.
8. You can boost the sale of your home by up to 15% by spending as little as 5% of the value of your home on landscaping. That is a net return of 150% or more of the value of the landscaping!
9. Landscaping contributes to the economy of a local community through the employment of contracted services such as landscape design, construction, and maintenance. In turn, these services indirectly impact the economy through secondary consumption of products such as lumber and other building and landscaping supplies.
10. Plants filter dust and other pollutants out of rainwater. Plants benefit from the nutrients in this particulate matter and prevent it from becoming a source of water pollution.