How to Use Colour Therapy in the Garden

There is no shortage of studies done on the role of how colour can affect our moods and well-being. Colour therapy has been around for a very long time. I’m a colour girl. My job as a decorator/horticulturist is to create palettes that fit every kind of theme for every season of the year. It’s my most favourite thing to do!

My goal in this post is to discuss how your own garden can be a source of holistic therapy through flowers. Of all the things that co-exist with us on our beautiful planet, flowers are without a doubt the most colourful gift our Earth Mother gives us.

WELLNESS IS THE LATEST BUZZWORD IN GARDENING

Aww, wellness. Yes, this is the hottest trend in gardening today. Certainly we are all aware of the benefits of time spent in the garden.

• Fresh air to cleanse our minds
• Excercise for our bodies
• Beneficial organisms in the soil 
• Sunlight to lift our energy
• Organically grown food
• Stress Relief
• Reward from efforts made
• Experiencing/appreciating beauty
• Grounding effects
• Connecting with natures life force

It’s more than just a hobby, it’s a lifestyle. Gardening is ALREADY a practice in wellness the minute your knees hit the ground. The well known garden endearment, ‘garden therapy’ is a common expression of every gardener that was or ever will be.

WHAT IF IT COULD BE MORE?

Flowers have healing powers. They have the ability to lift moods, inspire artistic expression, transcend us through scent and emit energy in the form of colour. 
This is why we use them during times of celebration to express joy like at weddings and anniversaries; and why we also use them during times of mourning to ease the pain.  

I HAVE A CONFESSION.

I am a very ‘woo woo’ gal.
Only my closest friends and family know this about me and I’m finally ready to speak my hearts truth. My sister always tells me that I need a different word for describing my spiritual practice but ‘woo woo’ is something I have always said when I first start opening up to people in an attempt to add humour to something they may not understand.

There are plenty of folks out there that think ‘energy healing’ is just a load of malarkey. It’s easy to shrink back when trying to express something to an individual that is looking at you like you’re one plant short of a flat. 

This is my ‘coming-out’ post. 

After much reflection and meditation, I believe the time is right for me to shine my light and share how to use colour therapy in the garden. I’ve been connecting with the spirit that moves through all things for as long as I can remember.
I have also come to realize that my path to become a horticulturist was no accident. Gardening goes way beyond just a hobby for me. I honestly believe that everything I’ve done up until now was the universe organizing all that I needed to learn and understand so that I could express it in a way that could help all those that have come to read the words on this page right now.

It is also no coincidence that you are here either!

If you have stumbled upon this article, then chances are that you may be ready to move your garden to the next level. This is my first blog post on the topic of what I’ve decided to call Chakra Gardening.  This entire next year of my life will be dedicated to sharing all that I have been downloading from the universe.
I have a lot to share folks and I’m just getting started!

Meditation can be challenging for most people. The time and effort required to quiet the mind so that one can tune into the body and find that inner peace is hard to do in our crazy schedules. Working to balance Chakras while juggling our conscious lives is near impossible most days.

Our garden can be like our own personal Eden, a place where we can go and instantly tune in to the divine energy that is all around us. Creating a space that is a meditation in living colour would allow us to immediately connect with the colour therapy our soul may be craving at that particular moment.

This of course is not limited to big back yards and large garden beds. I will share ideas on how you can accomplish creating your own Chakra Garden of any size, in any space.

Let There Be Light!

Before moving on to specific garden designs and projects that you can do, it is important to understand the power of light. We’ve all come to understand that plants absorb light in order to grow, flower and produce food. But what is light exactly?

Light is colour. In fact, it is a full spectrum of colours. We as humans can only see some of the colours of light, but plants, insects and other animals on this planet can see many more. How do we know these colours exist all around us?

Of all the forms of energy that is around us, light is the only energy we can SEE and this comes to us in the form of colour.

The electromagnetic spectrum lays out the wave lengths of light. They go from the longest wave lengths to the shortest and around the middle of this spectrum is what is referred to as ‘visible light’. Wavelengths in this area are picked up by the human eye.

Different light affects different processes in plants.

• Blue light helps a plant during it’s beginning growth stage. It helps plants develop healthy roots, stems and leaves.
• Purple light is energetic and assists the plants through their vegetative growth process.
• Green light isn’t absorbed by plants as much as other colours of light. As a rule of thumb, the colour that an object appears to be is the colour they do not absorb but rather, they reflect that colour back to us. 
• Yellow light is the least effective for plants, but it is also part of the full spectrum and therefore absorbed by plants as well.
• Red light has long wavelengths and is beneficial during flowering and food production. 

It could be said then, that plants absorb colours and that’s what makes them grow. 

So, if we eat plants to sustain our life force and they grew from absorbing colours….. are you beginning to understand the power of colour therapy now? 

Rainbows, visible light, and Chakra’s…. it’s all connected. Is it at all surprising that the colours of the rainbow are also the same colours in the same order as the sequence of the Chakras? Colour therapy is energy, it powers life on this planet. 

Understanding this basic principle is the first step in creating a colour therapy garden.

• Where are you in your wellness practice right now?
• What Chakra seems to be blocked?
• Could focusing on flower energy and it’s living colour help you open this Chakra? 

If all you have is a few minutes a day to meditate, a way of connecting with spirit may be as simple as just sitting with certain flowers and taking in it’s colour energy.

I’m excited to combine my knowledge of horticulture with my holistic beliefs and to share it with the world. It’s a stepping out of my safe place where I would just write posts about fun DIY’s that I thought people would like. 

The name SOW & DIPITY was born from the word serendipity. This word meant a lot to me back when I decided to start blogging. My journey had taken an unexpected shift and all of my tomorrows were suddenly uncertain, like they ever were in the first place.  

Serendipity- The act of finding something valuable or delightful by chance when you weren’t looking for it. If stumbling on this article was an accidental discovery for you, then I hope it was a pleasant surprise.

The goal of this post was to inspire you to think outside the pot! Open your mind to how you could take your garden to another level of wellness and create a holistic space using flower energy and colour therapy.
I would like to invite you to join me on my journey as I roll out all the exciting ideas I feel I was divinely inspired to share.

You can follow along by signing up for my newsletter below and staying up to date on my Facebook Page. Please feel free to leave a comment or ask me any questions, I would love to hear from you!

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