10 handy gardening tips for those with arthritis

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• Vary your activities. Don’t spend an hour and a half doing the same thing. You will only place extra stress on a particular joint. Spend twenty minutes doing one thing like weeding and then switch to watering beds or planting seedlings. After an hour you can start the cycle again.
• Raise your flowerbeds. This will prevent you having to bend down to tend them. Now you can do your gardening while sitting down.
• Put in wide and paved paths. This would mean not having to step on soil in order to work on flowerbeds. If the beds are no wider than a metre and a half, you do much of your gardening from the stability of the garden path. Long handled gardening implements could go a long way to reducing the amount of bending and stretching you have to do.
• Get a comfortable old office chair on wheels. This makes it easy for you to move around in your garden and reduces the number of times you have to get up and down.
• Get help for the heavy jobs. Carrying heavy stuff like huge compost bags should be left to others. There is no point in putting stress on your joints by doing these jobs.
• Get lightweight implements with rubber handles. This will greatly reduce the stress on your joints and muscles, as it reduces the amount of effort required to hold them.
• A little pushcart or trolley is invaluable. This will prevent your having to carry plants, pots and implements around. The help of a young child can be enlisted to push the trolley around.
• Choose plants that do not require daily TLC. If you have arthritis, it is quite possible that there will be periods of time when you will be unable to garden. Choose plants that will thrive in your absence.
• Put in a garden sprinkler system. This need not be expensive and can save you many hours of unnecessary standing.
• Put mulch around plants. Not only will this reduce the amount of watering you have to do, but it will also reduce the amount of weeding required.

Read more:
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Back care for garden lovers

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