This project explores the growing synergies between gardening and spirituality. While publications abound on classic religious gardens, whether Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Baha’i or Zen, there is a research lacuna when it comes to the realm of popular spiritual gardens. By the latter, I understand garden spaces where the design and cultivation reflect spiritual intentionality. These range from public to private and professional to nonspecialist. The two overarching goals for this study are: one, to contend that there is extensive evidence of a popular spiritual gardening movement in terms of horticultural creation, urban sanctuary projects, paraphernalia, publications, and media sources; two, to relate this phenomenon to global developments in relation to tourism, technology, environmentalism, Covid-19, health/wellness, the democratization of gardening, and declining interest in organized religion.
As a religion scholar and anthropologist, with extensive field experience in Africa, and ardent gardener and garden explorer, I bring the requisite skills for such an interdisciplinary project. My case studies derive primarily from the USA, UK, and South Africa. “Spatiality,” “spirituality,” and “materiality” are core concepts.
Studies abound on therapeutic self-transformation and spiritual growth, so my book project on the perceived agency of garden spaces to connect human/natural/supernatural worlds will constitute a timely contribution.