How to Find the Hygge in the Garden

There is hygge in your garden. You may not realize it, but it’s there.

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I have a love/hate relationship with self-improvement. I’m always curious to try whatever’s the latest way to find my best self, rethink my mindset or optimize my day/week/month/life with a handy printable checklist.

But my follow through is not the best. Now this is likely due to my tendency to go “all in” and I end up crashing and burning. I start out strong and change way too many things at once– which means it’s highly likely that I will not see any real change at all.

I was reading what felt like the 10,000th post last month about finding happiness and the ever elusive work-life balance when I first encountered the term hygge (pronounced hoo-ga).

My reaction?

I thought to myself “YES!!  I already do this!” Then I bought the book because maybe the answer I was looking for could be found in doing more of the things I was already doing.

Could it be that simple? Yes.

I devoured my copy of “The Little Book of Hygge” as soon as it arrived in its smiling Amazon package. Author Meik Wiking is CEO of the Happiness Institute. It’s his job to figure out where the happiest people live worldwide and research the reasons why. Denmark, his home country, consistently ranks as one of the happiest countries in the world.

But why? There are certainly lots of reasons people should be unhappy there. They have long cold dreary winters, some of the highest taxes in the world, and all the other ills of busy modern life.

Meik Wiking argues the nebulous factor called hygge is the key to happiness that modern happiness researchers have overlooked. For people of Denmark, hygge is as critical as food, water and shelter. This term translates from a Norwegian word for “well-being” and it defies a simple definition.

It’s cozy.

It’s togetherness.

It’s intimacy.

It’s solitude.

It’s life’s simple pleasures.

It’s all of the above.

It was a Friday when my book arrived. Before I cracked open my copy of the book, I texted my neighbor the message “Patio or pond tonight?” It was our usual end of the week ritual, to get our families together and decompress– outdoors in the summer.

Little did I know our little ritual is exactly the heart of hygge– cozy comfort with people you can just be yourself with. This is what Meik Wiking feels is the key to why Denmark is always so happy.

So much of what’s written about hygge details indoor atmosphere. But it’s not a big stretch to bring hygge outside to the garden. In fact, my neighbors and I were very hyggelig (the adjective form of hygge) without even knowing it!

Find the Hygge in Your Garden

Togetherness— My text exchange with my neighbor is not unsual. We joke about being each other’s chosen family rather than the one we were born into. Bringing our families together is our break from the rest of the world’s drama. Just being together is enough. No competition or feeling inadequate allowed.

“Come as You Are” Casual— It doesn’t matter if your garden is weeded, or if you are a head to toe mess of sweat and dirt. One of my fondest hyggelig memories is a couple years after we had moved in, it was that first really warm, shorts-wearing, sweat-inducing weekend after a long winter. We were gung-ho gardening that day. Hard core. Chatting with a couple of our new neighbors, we realized none of us had eaten dinner. Someone suggested pizza, which we quickly ordered and we gathered for cold beer, pizza, and laughter. We were big sweaty messes but no one cared. It was wonderful.

Food—  Think simple meals, and yummy treats. You’re not trying to impress anyone. Some of our best hyggelig meals have been a product of me and my neighbor texting a string of “I’ve got x” and “I’ve got y”. Before you know it we’ve got a meal cobbled together.

The smell of someone firing up their grill is complete and total hygge. And of course I’m assuming you’re eating outside.

Don’t forget the joy of cooking together either– there’s huge hygge potential there, particularly if it doesn’t work out exactly like you intended. One night we attempted to make homemade pizza on the grill. The picture for the recipe showed a pizza cooking happily on the grate. I think we missed a step somewhere because the crust sagged and dropped right through the grill onto the coals and burned up before our eyes. After we got done laughing we called and ordered a pizza. We laugh about it to this day. And I found a pan for cooking pizza on the grill.

Light–The Danish most associate candles with hygge. It’s the soothing, glowing light– no blazing bright flashlights or lanterns please. Candles and if you’re lucky, a fire pit, are natural additions to your outdoor space. While it’s not authentic hygge, we have used some solar lights and battery-operated candles in our outdoor space, especially with kids running around.

Music— There are so many ways to bring music out to the garden. I remember one night my neighbor’s kids played their band instruments for an impromptu concert and it was pure hygge.

But you don’t need to know how to play an instrument to bring hyggelig music to the garden. Some people have outdoor speakers wired into the exterior of their house, but it doesn’t need to be that extravagant. If you don’t already have one, invest in a good quality speaker for your smartphone and stream your favorite online music source. Sit back and soak up the hygge.

Cozy— Day or night think where you tend to sit in your yard. Do you have a designated seating area? Is it comfortable? I’ve been in gardens with cute little café table and chair sets that are the cutest thing you’ve ever seen– until you try to sit down and find they’re the most uncomfortable chairs known to man.

We used to have a standard table and chairs near our koi pond and while it worked, there was something missing. Upgrading to an outdoor couch and coffee table set made it feel like a completely different space. As a result, we spend a lot more time there. There’s something way more intimate, cozy and hyggelig about a lower profile couch and table versus a higher table and chairs.

 

 

Surrounded by Nature—  The best hyggelig garden spots are surrounded by nature, not perched on the outskirts of it.

When we built our koi pond a few years ago, I’ll always remember the first evening that the pond was up and running. As soon as we fired up the pumps and got water flowing there was a steady stream of neighborhood kids lined up to check it out.

We didn’t have any sort of real seating area near it. So my neighbor’s son and I took some fold-up camping chairs and perched them on some rocks at the edge of the pond and soaked in the scenery. The gurgle of the waterfall in the pond, the dark sky bright with stars, the koi swimming past the underwater lights in the pond were all so peaceful and pure hygge. In hindsight we’re lucky we didn’t fall in, but it was one of those moments when it felt like all was right with the world.

Even if you don’t have enough room for a traditional water garden, there are several options available for patio-sized water gardens. We have been very happy using the Aquascape company’s products for our water garden for almost ten years now. They make several great patio gardens like the one below.

Hyggekrog (nook)— Every garden has a hyggekrog somewhere, a cozy nook where you could put a comfy chair and curl up with a good book or just sit back and soak up nature. Not all garden hygge has to happen in the company of others.

 

We just identified  a spot in our yard that’s the perfect spot for a chair or a bench. It wasn’t there years ago. The trees and shrubs have grown up enough to define the space. It sounds crazy but my husband showed me the spot recently and it’s like the garden is telling us to put a chair there. It’s that obvious. Or maybe it’s our souls telling us we need to take a break.

 

Presence— “The Little Book of Hygge” mentions the importance of presence repeatedly; especially in regards to everyone’s tendency to be glued to our phones even in the midst of social gatherings. This is a tough one for many people; I think we’ve become a nation of addicts where checking phones is concerned.

Being out in nature in our gardens is a great opportunity to practice being more present. Mindfulness is one of the buzzwords out there, and step one is to just put down technology and notice what’s around you. My son’s obsession with what he calls “sunflowers” has helped me be more mindful. What better place to do that than the garden?

Pictures— One reason to let a bit of technology into your hyggelig gatherings in the garden is sharing pictures and videos. Sometimes we look at old pictures of our landscape and remember when we planted this or that or built a particular landscape feature. Or half-killed ourselves trying to move a pile of rocks or mulch.

But it’s not all about the garden. Stories lead to more stories and somewhere along the line we’re watching stupid YouTube videos or challenging each other to name some song from high school, laughing harder than we have all week and whatever we were worried about before is a distant memory.

It’s tempting to just dismiss hygge as some sort of woo-woo new-age hippie crap. But the idea has been around for centuries. And Denmark has been identified as one of the happiest countries repeatedly. It’s not a fluke in statistics.

And my love/hate relationship with self-improvement? I remember years ago, a dear friend snatched a book out of my hands one day (something or other about “reinventing yourself”) and demanded to know “Why are you reading this? Don’t you know you are beautiful the way you are? You don’t need to be anyone but YOU!” This moment kept coming to mind as I read about hygge. Maybe we just need to do more of the things we know offer that cozy, content, hygge feeling. No changes necessary. Happiness has been at our fingertips all along.

If you liked this post, please subscribe to Grounded and Growing today and receive your copy of “15 Tips to Become a '15 Minute Gardener'” so you can spend less time working ON your garden and more time enjoying being IN your garden.! It’s absolutely free. When you join the Grounded and Growing community, you’ll finally take the garden off your “To-Do” list and allow yourself time to enjoy your garden and savor the peace and serenity there. I tell subscribers about new posts as soon as I hit ‘publish’ and send weekly-ish updates on what’s going on in my garden– good, bad AND ugly.

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