#GrowSomething Social Media Takeover!

This is no way a sponsored post!
This is just one of those things
I am passionate about.

 I am participating in 
#GrowSomething: It's A Social Media Takeover
 

Why Social Media?

Because it's powerful.
The average Facebook user has 130 friends.
If 500 of us message, we have a reach of 65,000 people.

 The average Twitter user has 126 followers.
If 500 of us tweet, we can reach 63,000 more people.

 If they all retweet and share with their Facebook friends, we've reached 16 million people.
We're two degrees away from 16 million people!
That's better than Kevin Bacon!
We have the power to make our voices heard!

What do we want you to hear?
We want to cultivate
new gardeners.
 #GrowSomething is part of the Grow Initiative,
designed to get the horticulture industry growing again.
 Plants are good for us, for our health,
our spirits and our planet, but not everyone knows it.

I have always been one to
try to frequent the local
family owned garden centers near me.
The big box stores may have better prices
but, my local garden centers have
the knowledge of what grows best in our area
and are able to guide me to
the proper plants for more successful gardens.
They provide classes and the
professionals I can't get at the box hardware stores.


It is no secret I love to garden.
I'm not even sure love is a
strong enough word!
This time of year
there is no where else I want to be than out in my gardens!
Just this past weekend,
even though it was raining off and on
and oh so dreary out
I was still out there,
adding two Knockout rose bushes
to my back garden.

 I have also put dad's birdhouses
on posts and added them to the garden.

Gardening, for me,
is bringing beauty to my little world.
I am always happy to share
what works best for me.

And, gardening is good for my health!
"Gardening is a great way to maintain flexibility and tone muscles," says Melissa Roti,
an assistant professor in the department of
movement science, sport, and leisure studies
at Westfield State College in Westfield, Massachusetts.
Bending to pick flowers or reaching to prune a vine,
for example, can help you stay limber.
Digging, hoeing, and lifting build core body strength,
which protects against back problems and helps prevent falls.

The more you exert yourself, the greater the benefits.
"Household and yard activities increase metabolic rate threefold to fivefold,"
says Steven Blair, a professor of exercise science
at the University of South Carolina
and coauthor of "Active Living Every Day" (Human Kinetics Publishers; 2001).
That's enough to reduce blood pressure and improve cholesterol levels
when a gardener works for at least 30 minutes five days a week.
Tasks that are strenuous enough to leave a gardener feeling slightly winded,
pushing a hand mower or raking, for example,
will improve cardiovascular fitness.
Gardening, like more traditional forms of exercise,
has been shown to lower the risk of heart disease
and help ward off type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes.

 Gardening helps to reduce stress too!
There is no doubt that after
a particularly hard day at work
I can go home and spend a half hour
attacking weeds, instead of a co-worker,
I feel sooo much calmer!

Gardening doesn't have to be expensive either.
Most of my plants can be divided,
giving me free plants to fill in bare spots.
Even my garden decor is thrifty!
All come from clearance racks,
thrift stores, dollar stores,
even, in the case of the cute red chair,
found abandoned on the curb.
It was a very fugly green and
had a broken leg that one of Mr. B's
buddies fixed with a spot weld.
A can of bright red spray paint and
she now offers me a place to
sit and enjoy my flowers.

 Ultimately, what may be best about flexing a green thumb is
that it's such a pleasure it hardly feels like exercise.
"When the first good weather arrives,
the biggest problem we see is people overdoing it," says Sandra Mason,
a horticulture educator at
the University of Illinois Extension in Champaign County.
"Once people get started, they don't want to stop."
(Raising my guilty hand to this!)

 Do you have a whole garden, a penchant for cut flowers
or a single orchid on your windowsill?
Then you, my friend, are a gardener.
Anytime you touch something
produced by Mother Earth
you are contributing to the
#GrowSomething movement.
Now get out there and
help us spread the word!

Click here to see where I may be partying this week.

 Don't forget to come by on Tuesday's
for the link party.