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Down and Dirty: Are Corporate Gardens the Next Big Thing?

Aug 16, 2010; 11:06 AM ET

Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, argues that today's children suffer from "nature deficit disorder." He cites studies showing that time spent in natural settings significantly reduces the occurrence of attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder in children, and helps to alleviate stress and protect children's psychological well-being. His movement, Leave No Child Inside, seeks to reconnect children with nature by encouraging them to play outdoors. Though Louv focuses his theory solely on youth, plenty of adults suffer from nature deficit disorder, too. We spend most of our time in office buildings and cars, isolated from the changing seasons and organic life around us. In order to combat this trend, some companies and their employees have sown corporate gardens to break up the workday with much-needed doses of sunshine and soil.

Rethinking the Office Environment

Kim Severson, of the New York Times, profiled the emerging trend in corporate gardens at major companies like PepsiCo, Google, Yahoo, Aveda, Kohl's, Best Buy, Intel, Toyota, and Target, among others. As CEOs have less to spend on customary employee benefits, like health care, pensions, and holiday bonuses, onsite organic gardens are a creative workplace incentive. "It's almost as if they are saying, 'Yeah, we couldn't give you a pay increase and yeah, times are tough, but this is something we can do to help improve the quality of your life,' Severson quotes Bruce Butterfield, the research director for the nonprofit National Gardening Association, as saying.

Corporate gardens may not be a surprising addition to younger companies like Yahoo and Google, who have developed a reputation for having unique office environments. (At Google's Silicon Valley headquarters in California, employees enjoy such amenities as onsite haircuts and massages, gym workouts and exercise classes, and lessons in Mandarin and Japanese, to name just a few.) But even traditional companies (without the greenest of reputations), such as Intel and PepsiCo, have adopted the practice as a way to prevent employee burnout.

Stress Relief That's Dirt Cheap

Heading outdoors to dig in the soil for even an hour each day significantly improves physical and mental health. Horticultural therapy, according to Dianne Murphy-Rogers of Helium.com, an online gardening resource, helps to combat mental illnesses like depression, as well as serious physical ailments like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and osteoporosis.

Molly Mann for DivineCaroline.com

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