# What a Garden Gives Back > Estimate what a home garden gives back: home value, food, exercise, less stress and rain kept on site. Research-backed figures for Southwest Michigan. What a garden gives back ## A garden pays you back, in more ways than money Home value, food from your own beds, time outdoors, less stress and rain soaked into your own ground. See what a garden could give back to you, with the research behind every number. ![A sunlit garden of mixed perennials edged with stone](https://healingearthdesignbysarah.com/rails/active_storage/blobs/redirect/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MjQsInB1ciI6ImJsb2JfaWQifX0=--5982c1a8264108092fac59001ae4d2e1460e3f52/IMG_7280.webp) Calculate yours [#garden-value](https://healingearthdesignbysarah.com#garden-value) Book a consultation [#contact](https://healingearthdesignbysarah.com#contact) Garden calculator ## What could your garden give back? Put in your own yard. The estimate uses conservative figures from published research and grows as the garden fills in. Switch between money, health, mind and earth. Money ## A garden adds value you can see Buyers notice a well-planted yard, landscaping tends to pay back what it costs, and food beds put produce on the table. - 5–11% — higher value buyers put on a well-landscaped home than the same home with no landscape. — - 100% — of the cost of a landscape upgrade that Realtors estimate is recovered when a home sells. — - $1 — of produce a square foot: about half a pound of vegetables at $2 a pound, in a typical food garden. — - 30% — or more of household water goes outdoors, mostly to keep lawns green. — Buyers' estimates run ahead of sale prices, so the calculator uses 1–3% for home value, and never more than the garden cost. Health & mind ## Time in the garden is good for you Digging, planting and weeding count as exercise, and gardening has been shown to bring stress down. - 150 min — a week of moderate activity is what adults are advised to get; active gardening counts. — - 3.8 METs — for moderate-effort gardening: the same moderate band as brisk walking. — - 30 min — of gardening after a stressful task lowered cortisol more than 30 minutes of reading, and mood fully recovered. — - 24% → 53% — of residents with healthy daily cortisol patterns, after plants were added to their bare front gardens. — Across 22 studies, gardening was linked to less depression and anxiety and more life satisfaction (Soga, Gaston & Yamaura, Preventive Medicine Reports, 2017). Earth ## And it gives back to the land Native plantings feed birds and pollinators, and rain gardens keep rain where it falls. - 623 gal — of water fall on every 1,000 square feet of roof in an inch of rain. — - 96–100% — of rain and snowmelt events held and soaked in by rain gardens over four years. — - 70% — native plants or more: the share a yard needs for chickadees to raise enough young to sustain their numbers. — Questions ## About the garden calculator - Where do the numbers come from? — From published research and public data: home value studies, the Compendium of Physical Activities, federal activity guidelines, NOAA rainfall for Kalamazoo and USGS rain garden research. Each one is linked on this page, and the calculator scales them down for a single home garden. - Will a garden really raise my home's value? — Buyers say a well-landscaped home is worth 5–11% more, and Realtors estimate a landscape upgrade recovers about what it costs. Sale prices move less than buyers' estimates, so the calculator assumes 1–3%, and never more than the garden cost. - Does gardening count as exercise? — Active gardening, like digging, planting and weeding, is moderate activity. The calculator counts half of your garden time as active, against the 150 minutes a week adults are advised to get. - Do I need a rain garden to count the rain? — Yes. Put in the roof area that would drain to one, and the calculator estimates what a well-sized rain garden would soak into your ground each year, using Kalamazoo's average rainfall. ## Let's plan a garden that gives back --- Source: https://healingearthdesignbysarah.com/garden-value Updated: 2026-10-12