When regenerative garden designer and author Matthieu Mehuys speaks about soil, he does so with a kind of reverence. His journey began on a Belgian family farm where, as a child, he planted radishes and discovered “the magic of a tiny seed becoming something magnificent.” That early fascination grew into a lifelong inquiry into how humans can live in balance with nature — and how we might redesign our food systems, our gardens, and even our cities to regenerate rather than deplete.
In this week’s Changemaker Q&A podcast, Mehuys reflects on how his work bridges design, ecology, and personal transformation. After studying garden design and landscape architecture, he left behind a conventional career to travel, study permaculture, and learn from communities in the Amazon rainforest. Those experiences, he says, reshaped his understanding of “what it means to live in harmony with the earth.”
From the Green Revolution to Regeneration
Much of Mehuys’s work focuses on helping people understand the difference between conventional and regenerative farming. Industrial agriculture, he explains, evolved from the Green Revolution of the mid-20th century — when chemical fertilizers and pesticides, many derived from wartime technologies, were adopted to boost yields and eradicate hunger. While those methods fed millions, they also degraded soils and created dependency on chemical inputs.
Research from the FAO shows that one-third of the world’s soil is now moderately to highly degraded, threatening food security and biodiversity. “It’s a dead-end street,” Mehuys says in the episode. “Each year farmers add a little more nitrogen, a little more pesticide, just to get the same yield.”
By contrast, regenerative farming restores soil health through methods such as crop rotation, cover cropping, composting, and reducing chemical inputs — all of which help sequester carbon and retain water. Studies from the Rodale Institute suggest that scaling up such practices could draw down billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year.
Gardening as Connection
But regeneration isn’t only about large-scale agriculture. Mehuys argues that home gardens can be powerful sites of transformation. “Even the smallest act of planting, nurturing, or restoring has the power to ripple outward into wider change,” he tells me.
The science backs him up: contact with soil microbes has been shown to improve mental health and immunity. A 2020 review in Scientific Reports found that time spent gardening significantly reduces stress and anxiety. Japan’s practice of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing — now prescribed by doctors to treat burnout — reflects the same idea: that nature is not a luxury but a medicine.
Lessons from Living Systems
In his book 12 Universal Laws of Nature, Mehuys translates ecological principles into practical design tools. One of those principles is the “law of frequency,” the idea that every living thing emits energy that can influence its surroundings. “Healthy plants vibrate at a higher frequency and attract pollinators,” he explains. “It’s the same with humans — when we work from gratitude and joy, we create better outcomes.”
That insight resonates beyond gardening. Whether in policy, education, or community development, Mehuys suggests that regeneration begins with mindset: choosing cooperation over competition, abundance over scarcity. “If we act from fear or burnout,” he says, “we’ll only reproduce the same patterns that created the problems in the first place.”
Where to Begin
For those ready to start, Mehuys’s advice is simple: start small, and start where you are. “Even if you’re renting, whatever you plant — flowers, herbs, vegetables — you’re leaving the soil richer for whoever comes next.” Annual flowers like nasturtiums or marigolds, he adds, can reseed themselves year after year, creating low-maintenance, living ecosystems.
Ultimately, designing sustainable gardens and farms isn’t just about growing food — it’s about cultivating a renewed relationship with the earth. As Mehuys puts it, “When we care for the soil, we care for ourselves.”
