Garden for Life

From award-winning writer and photographer Rhonda Fleming Hayes comes the perfect guide to help you evaluate, redesign, and right-size your garden space as you age to make gardening easier, more sustainable, and perpetually fun!

In Garden for Life, Rhonda Fleming Hayes brings a lifetime of gardening experience, research-based advice, and collective wisdom to older gardeners who are looking for inspiration and practical strategies. This delightful comprehensive guide suggests ways to downsize or redesign an existing garden, presents new techniques and tools to make gardening less strenuous, and highlights plants that “multitask” to make a garden more sustainable—for both the gardener and the environment. It also advises on how and when to ask for help to lighten the load so we can focus on the life-enhancing aspects of time in the garden. 

Garden for Life reminds us of the many proven health benefits of gardening. Gardening is a simple way to answer the human need to connect with nature, a craving called biophilia. It offers a low-intensity workout with a variety of natural movement, provides a sense of purpose while nurturing a meditative state that decreases stress, fosters improved nutrition and better brain health, and grows social connection and community. In short, gardening is excellent for health and longevity!

And if that is not motivation enough, Garden for Life also features “gardener spotlights”—short profiles of inspiring gardeners and their gardens across the country. The book concludes with a call to action, highlighting the many ways that older gardeners can cultivate the next generation of joyful, ecologically friendly gardeners in their communities.