ABSTRACT
Gardeners describe a wide variety of reasons for maintaining gardens, yet, when critically considered, many explanations are incomplete. This chapter presents a psychoanalytic approach to explain the prevalence and perpetuity of gardening in the United States. Drawing on surveys of gardeners in Bloomington, Indiana and interviews with gardeners in the greater Denver, Colorado area, we argue that gardening satisfies a desire within us for an imagined authentic agrarian past. As a visceral practice of authenticity in common response to alienation, it is necessary for personal mental health and well-being. The contemporary city should always incorporate spaces for personal gardens.
