The first Saturday in May is World Naked Gardening Day. It falls on May 5, 2018, and if you’re thinking of celebrating, make sure you consider these words of wisdom.
According to Wikipedia, World Naked Gardening Day (WNGD) was introduced in 2005 as a nudist movement to discourage body shaming and encourage acceptance of all forms of the human body.
But you might argue that naked gardening has been ‘a thing’ since the garden of Eden.
“Perhaps indeed he or she to whom the free exhilarating ecstasy of nakedness in Nature has never been eligible (and how many thousands there are!) has not really known what purity is— nor what faith or art or health really is.”
–Walt Whitman, Specimen Days
Today World Naked Gardening Day is celebrated by light-hearted and fun-loving gardeners around the world.
If you enjoy this humorous take on WNGD, then you’re sure to like my tongue-in-cheek post about why gardening is sexy,
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Do a search for #worldnakedgardeningday on any social network, you’re sure to find plenty of people sharing images of their adventures on WNGD.
I’ll admit I was nervous to look up pictures of how others had celebrated Naked Gardening Day, but most gardeners were really quite classy about it and I got a good laugh.
While many gardeners opted to cover their goodies with some form of foliage, others were more creative. And it made me think about some of the things I would definitely NOT do on WNGD.
1. Plant roses
While WNGD is a great day to do some planting, stay away from thorny bushes like roses and bougainvillea.
Instead choose something more appropriate like Peter Pepper, Teton de Venus tomato, and German Johnson tomato.
2. Re-pot your cacti
Of all the things I can think of to do on WNGD, working with spiny succulents doesn’t make it on the list. I’m not really sure what this girl is thinking. That looks like a very dangerous situation to me!
3. Go to the community garden
While I’m all for being unashamed of the naked body, I don’t really want to see what everyone looks like naked. For that reason, I recommend against gardening at the community garden on May 5th.
And for the sake of your neighbors, perhaps avoid trimming the low hedges in your front yard…
5. Fire up the weed wacker
In fact, I would think twice about using any power tools while partaking in World Naked Gardening Day.
6. Get on a tractor with this guy
Even his wife is regretting the decision…
6.Forget to put on sunblock
If you’re going to bare all to the sun, make sure you’re wearing sunblock! And you don’t want to be asking just any random person to help you with your back.
For this reason, I think Naked Gardening Day is best celebrated with that special someone. Even if you never make it out to the garden…
7. Garden with your pigs
I don’t generally garden with pigs, but if I did, I certainly wouldn’t do it on WNGD.
Now here are some tips for trimming your bushes on WNGD:
I think celebrating WNGD is a fabulous idea! In fact, I may call the sitter and make it a date night.
How will you be celebrating World Naked Gardening Day?
MICHAEL PERRY says
Hey Guys!
Love this guide- and I am so ready for WNGD!
Mr Plant Geek
Amy says
you clearly find nudity alternately titillating and disgusting. it’s neither. get over yourself. though a community garden in your average town without other naked gardeners would be a little odd, even on this day, why would you couch your objection in “i don’t want to see your nakedness”? if you don’t want to, then YOU stay home. don’t advise other people that you don’t want to see that so others should probably not go there? that is either illogical or badly written. again–nudity is no big deal. get. over.yourself.
Laura says
Hi Amy, I’m sorry my article upset you so much. I knew that that idea of naked gardening might seem inappropriate to some, but it never occurred to me that anyone would take this article so seriously.
I didn’t mean to shame anyone for being naked. I simply said I would stay away from the community garden because I would not be comfortable around a whole lot of naked people … and maybe don’t bend over a whole lot if you’re outdoors in the nude. There’s some good logic there if you think about it.
I hope you can reread the article and try to let it just be funny because laughing is so much more pleasant than getting mad over a silly article about totally buck naked people doing ridiculous things.
Happy Naked Gardening Day 🙂