Leaf Your Troubles Behind: How to Destress and Grow Happiness Through Plants

Novelist and horticulturist Hugg (The Forgetting Flower) suggests ways to relieve stress through greenery in this encouraging guide. As she writes, gardening helped her get through her husband’s cancer treatment as well as the early days of the Covid pandemic. She lays out an eight-part plan that includes learning for fun (the act of which can lower stress levels, Hugg suggests), “experiencing plants through the senses,” “idle play,” caring for a plant, finding like-minded people, “recognizing what we’ve grown,” and heading outside to exercise. She peppers in lots of anecdotes, as when she recounts how looking at a butterfly bush relieved some work-related anxiety, and suggests easy practices such as picturing a “happy plant place” and seeing one’s “planty friends” as “more than just a green structure in the background of your life.” Hugg’s ideas are easy to implement, and she’s realistic in admitting that her approach isn’t a cure-all; “it can at least,” she writes, “help you find some respite from the stress of the day.” Burned-out readers will find this a balm. (July)