The UK is a nation of gardeners. An HTA survey found that 42% of adults tend to garden in their spare time. There are also many people across the nation with some form of arthritis. Estimates put this at around 10 million, according to Thrive.
Gardening is a great exercise for managing joint pain and arthritis. It helps keep joints flexible; maintain range of motion, and keep your joints moving. This helps prevent muscles from weakening and becoming stiff.
Protecting your joints when you’re gardening
Gardening can be great for your physical and mental health. However, some heavy and repetitive tasks in the garden can be difficult if you have joint pain or arthritis.
The best approach, in this case, is little and often. Switching between different tasks will give your joints a rest.
- Change tasks often to reduce the strain: don’t stay longer than 20 minutes doing the same task, or even lower if you need to
- Take frequent breaks, it’s a better approach to do little and often
- Spread the weight of items that you need to carry.
- Pay attention to your posture when lifting heavier things.
- Purchase gardening supplies in lightweight quantities.
- Use long-handled tools so you can stand instead of stooping while gardening.
- Get a grip! Choose a good pair of gloves and tools with a rubber handle. Easy-to-grip hand tools and large handles make using tools a lot more comfortable.
- Optimize your gardening tasks by planning ahead. If you have a big yard or have stairs, for example, plan your tasks to avoid too many journeys.
- Ask for help. If some tasks are too heavy, get help only for them and work on the smaller ones. Recognizing your limitations is important to avoid injuries and to allow you to do what you love!
Stretch and Warm Up to Avoid Joint Pain When Gardening
Before you get out of your garden hoe and start working, stop what you are doing and stretch. Warm up your joints, to loosen them up. When you are gardening, you are probably using muscles you normally aren’t using that much. This means you may feel more pain in your joints if you avoid warming up.
Use Joint-Protecting Gear
You can wear protective gear that will provide support for your joints. Knee pads and cushions are a favorite among people who have issues with their joints, but still want to garden. The soft cushions will support your knees when you have to get down to the ground and pull out some weeds, or when you want to plant some seedlings. You can use a knee cushion for another purpose, which is sitting down, allowing for it to be even more useful than you thought it could be.
Investing in some good tools can make a huge difference:
A ratchet pruner takes less effort to cut through twigs.
A two-handed lopper will give good leverage without much effort.
English trimming shears can be used for light trimming after the flowering of heathers and lavender.
A border spade is lighter and easier to handle than a digging spade.
This trowel eliminates strain on the hand and wrists making repetitive action possible.
A garden weeder to keep the hand and wrist in a natural stress-free angle to help eliminate strains.
You can find these and a variety of tools designed to decrease the stress on your body at the Arthr online store.
A garden wagon to carry the weight and keep the gardening tools conveniently accessible when working in the yard:
This is from Amazon UK and you can check it out here.
A garden wagon + seat:
This one is a garden cart plus a seat. The combination of garden cart and seat makes gardening easier as it rotates 360º. You can get more information here.
A garden stool + kneeler:
A multi-purpose garden stool and kneeler is perfect for tending to flower beds or herbaceous borders, then flip it over to sit comfortably whilst pruning bushes.
You can get more information about this portable garden kneeler here.
The Thrive website put together a guide for tools and equipment for those with arthritis, click here to check all the tools and their respective functions.
Make Sure You Have a Good Posture
Take a look at your posture when gardening. Are you allowing your largest and strongest joints to do most of the work? If not, you should shift to doing so.
For example, if you are normally using your fingers to lift things, use your palms instead, or even your forearms. You can also keep things closer to your body when carrying them, which places less strain and tension on your arms. Whenever you can, stand up straight when you are gardening, and make sure to frequently change your positions to not become too stiff.
Give Yourself Rest Breaks
We can stress this enough! You will need to take frequent rest breaks if you want to give your joints an easier time while gardening. This could also be an exercise in being in the present moment. Look around and enjoy the environment around you. Have an enjoyable drink or refreshment. When you give yourself rest breaks, you are preventing fatigue from even creeping in.
Plan your garden
Now that you know more about the tools and the best practices for gardening with joint pain or arthritis, you can move forward and plan your garden accordingly.
The size, location, type of plants, budget, and the time to maintain, they are all key factors that need to be taken into consideration, especially if you suffer from joint pain or arthritis.
Be realistic, think about the time you usually spend away from home, on a holiday, if you need hospital treatments, or even if you don’t feel well and are not up to gardening for a while. All of these need to be taken into consideration and there are plants for all types of gardeners. Remember, the goal here is to have fun!
The Royal Horticultural Society has put together a guide to help plan your garden and choose the plants according to your space and goal, it’s definitely worth a visit here.
If you don’t have a backyard or prefer to cultivate indoor gardening, know that it brings you many of the benefits of outdoor gardening, except you don’t have to be concerned about the weather or wearing down your joints too much.
Ok, now let’s move to the garden layout. If you already have a garden but the layout is not the best for your condition, consider adjusting it so in the long term you can manage most of your gardening jobs yourself and safely.
Paths and beds
Uneven ground is dangerous, so when planning the garden layout ideally there should be firm paths alongside the beds. The beds should be narrow enough so you can reach the middle and back without stretching.
If you have difficulties bending or are going to work from a wheelchair, consider a raised bed.
When your garden beds are raised, you also make it easier to plant, weed, and fertilize anything in your garden. You can either stand or sit on a chair. When you plan the raised beds, make them have a height close to where your hips are. Also, you will want to ensure you can get to any part of the raised bed from either side of it. This will help you avoid over-extending your legs and keep your joints from succumbing to any additional pain.
If you choose to do your garden on containers, pots, and vases, think about where you are going to place them carefully, to avoid needing to move them around when they are heavier. Use a high table to do the initial work, even if you need to use your dinner or kitchen table, just cover it with some plastic towel, an old blanket, or cardboard to protect it.
Have a Seat
Sitting in a chair or on a stool will greatly help you from feeling any physical pain while gardening. You could also use a garden caddy on wheels to stow away your gardening tools, which your back will thank you for! Sitting while gardening is going to make a big difference, so consider getting something that you will not mind getting a little dirty while you garden. See the examples we listed above.
Preparing the soil
The quality of the soil is a big influence on the success of your garden. Make sure to adapt the type of soil according to the type of plant. Consult your local store, garden, or professional for more information before buying it. Also bear in mind that the type of soil might require different tools to handle it. Make sure you choose it wisely.
Weeding
This is all gardener’s nightmare! But if you suffer from joint pain or arthritis, this can be a real issue. You can reduce the number of weeds you have to deal with by covering the soil with a 5 cm (2 inch) layer of shredded bark.
In the alternative, you can choose to use black polythene and cover it with a layer of gravel to hold it down and decorate it. Then you just need to cut slits into the sheet and plant through the holes.
Weeding by hand is not recommended, especially if you can’t easily reach down to ground level. The movement is repetitive and can cause some joint discomfort. Try a weed puller instead and take breaks.
Planting out
As for now you already thought about the type of plants you want according to your condition.
To avoid bending you can dig a hole using a long-handled trowel, put the plant on the blade, and lower it into the soil. You can sit down to do this task, if necessary. Pot-grown plants are the most suitable for this method.
Now, enjoy your garden! Plan your week and don’t forget to spread the tasks to avoid doing them for too long without a break.
Respect the pain
It can be tempting to persevere through symptoms, but it’s important to listen to your body and stop when necessary. It’s better to take a rest and pace yourself rather than face an injury or setback that could keep you away from your garden even longer.
Take a Joint Pain Supplement
Most people bend and kneel quite a bit while gardening, which leads to aching backs, knees, and ankles. You can take preventative measures by taking a supplement designed for reducing joint pain. If you are already feeling achy joints, you should definitely take a supplement for effective relief.
A great all-natural joint supplement is JointFuel360, it will help alleviate the joint pain that comes all too often with physical activities such as gardening. The combination of anti-inflammatories like black pepper extract and turmeric, as well as antioxidants like resveratrol, helps to ensure that you can enjoy your gardening while feeling great.
Besides all of the tips to garden with ease mentioned above, this should be a part of your daily health regimen.
