The Healing Effects of Nature in Heidi and The Secret Garden
By Teagan ONeil | On June 30, 2025 | Comments (0)
Johanna Spyri and Frances Hodgson Burnett illustrate the effects of nature on well-being through the symbolism and imagery of nature in their novels, Heidi and The Secret Garden. In both of these beloved classic novels, the authors show how the characters’ interactions with nature sets them on transformative journeys that help heal physical ailments and mental distress.
Spyri’s Heidi (1881) follows a young girl who has lost her parents and is taken to the Swiss Alps to stay with her grandfather. Mary Bernath, literature professor at Bloomsburg State University, writes that “Heidi’s home in the Alps is an idyllic place, far from the modern world and its concerns.”
After a short time, she is sent to the city of Frankfurt to be a companion to Klara, a slightly older girl who is unable to walk. While in Frankfurt, Heidi falls ill and yearns to return to the natural world of the Alps.
Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911) shares with Heidi a theme of nature playing a role in healing various physical and psychological ailments. It has “remained a timeless classic for its themes of friendship and the power of nature to heal the body and spirit,” according to Literary Ladies Guide.
The Secret Garden’s Mary is an orphan, like Heidi. She loses her parents to a cholera epidemic in colonial India and must return to England to stay with a remote uncle at his estate. There, Mary unlocks a neglected garden, and as she “cares for the plants in the garden with the help of her cousin Colin Craven, its restorative powers help her overcome her grief.” (Garden Museum).
Each protagonist goes through a unique journey. Heidi withers in Frankfurt and thrives in the Alps. Mary’s discovery of the garden in the heart of her uncle’s estate helps her find peace and health through the environment. When discussing these characters’ journeys, Nava Atlas stated that “they had to develop a determined spirit, overcome obstacles, and gain a sense of independence.”
Both stories contain the trope in which an invalid returns to health by strengthening their relationship with nature.
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Klara visits Heidi — illustration by Jessie Wilcox Smith
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Animal Symbolism in Heidi & The Secret Garden
Johanna Spyri uses goats to symbolize a relationship with nature and to suggest that the interaction can uplift mental well-being. In Frankfurt, Heidi was “under the constant scolding of the housekeeper, who would not let her cry, the child was repressing her homesickness and unhappiness, and she began walking in her sleep.”
When she is able to return to the Alps from Frankfurt, she’s ecstatic to see her friends and grandfather. When Peter arrives with the goats, “Heidi was delighted to see them all again. She put her arm around one and patted another. The animals pushed her this way and that with their affectionate nudgings.” While Heidi is delighted to be reunited with her human and animal friends, the goats’ affection demonstrates a symbiotic relationship. Heidi’s excitement at the reunion greatly contrasts with her depressed state in Frankfurt.
Burnett uses a robin to symbolize Mary’s relationship with nature. In The Secret Garden, the robin has a more discreet role but still provides emotional support to Mary. When she sees this robin while outside playing, it becomes a kind of a companion to her. Seeing the robin again reminds her “of the first time she had seen him. He had been swinging on a treetop then and she had been standing in the orchard.
Emma House, curator of The Secret Garden exhibit at the Garden Museum, commented that “the robin has sort of a practical use because he helps find the key and the opening to the garden … by using the robin to find the garden, she is keeping the garden in the children’s world.”
The robin has a less direct presence in Mary’s life, since she sees it from afar, whereas Heidi interacts directly with the goats. In both novels, the animals help the characters heal from past experiences. In Heidi’s case, the goats provide excitement and joy after her homesick and miserable stay in Frankfurt. For Mary, the robin is familiar and safe, leading her to a world where she can heal from her traumas.
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Plant Symbolism in Heidi & The Secret Garden
Spyri uses plants, especially flowers, to symbolize nature’s ability to assist healing. After Heidi’s return, Klara visits her in the Alps for few weeks; during this time, Klara learns to walk. The girls explain “how Klara’s desire to see the flowers had induced her to take the first walk, and so by degrees one thing had led to another.”
Here, the flowers that inspired Klara to walk are symbolic of her growing connection with nature. This journey happens by small degrees over an extended period, demonstrating a relationship with natural world that’s most effective over time, rather than a one-time cure.
In The Secret Garden, Colin, who is unable to walk, goes through a transformation that can be compared with Klara’s. Shortly before learning to walk, Colin is in the garden, planting a rose. His “thin white hands shook a little and Colin’s flush grew deeper as he set the rose in the moulds and held it while old Ben made firm the earth.”
After spending time in the garden, the rose acts as a symbol of Colin’s newfound relationship with the natural world, and enjoying its benefits. At first he can barely leave his bed; then he is able to spend time in the garden, and is finally being able to stand and walk.
While Klara and Colin are in different environments, they undergo similar transformations. Richard Almond, a professor at Stanford College of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, states that “Klara’s recovery is like Colin’s … where multiple influences, including that of nature, contribute to the overcoming of developmental blocks.”
In her analysis of The Secret Garden, Janet Grafton, English professor at Vancouver Island University, states that “Burnett’s belief in the connection between environment and health are inherent and implacable.”
This is represented in both novels through the children’s journey in nature, where they are compelled to eventually take, their first steps. Atlas stated in our interview that “The wonders of the natural world in both books offer a promise of health, strength, and happiness.”
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Heidi and Peter — illustration by Jessie Wilcox Smith
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Change Symbolism
Spyri uses flowers as a symbol to display the negative effects of separation from the natural world. Upon finding some beautiful flowers in the mountains, Heidi puts them in her apron to bring home: “But the poor flowers, how changed they were! Heidi hardly knew them again. They looked like dry bits of hay, not a single little flower cup stood open.
“Oh grandfather, what’s the matter with them?” exclaimed Heidi in shocked surprise, “They were not like that this morning, why do they look like that now?”
“They like to stand out there in the sun and not to be shut up in an apron,” said her grandfather.
Burnett similarly uses the garden’s change and growth as a symbol the characters’ journeys. When Mary first finds the secret garden, “There were neither leaves nor roses on them now, and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive, but their thin gray or brown branches and sprays looked like a hazy mantel spreading over everything.”
The garden is in a state of disarray, like Mary’s own state as she copes with the loss of her parents. As she works in the garden, she and the plants grow and heal together.
Initially, “the neglected garden represented lost hopes, secrets, and life in decline,” said Atlas, but it slowly became stronger under Mary’s care. On the other hand, the lively flowers shriveled away when Heidi removed them from their natural surroundings. The authors create change in the plants to reflect the characters’ journeys from illness and health.
Conclusion
In their classic novels, Frances Burnett and Johanna Spyri convey the intricate relationship between humans and nature. As modern technology develops, it becomes increasingly challenging to stay in touch with nature. It has been interesting to ponder how the humans relationship with nature changed since Heidi and The Secret Garden were written.
Now, more than ever, it is important to stay connected nature, as so eloquently conveyed by Johanna Spyri and Frances Burnett in their timeless tales.
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Further reading and sources
Almond, Barbara, and Richard Almond. “Heidi (Johanna Spyri): The Innocence of the Child as a Therapeutic Force.” Children’s Literature Review, edited by Tom Burns, vol. 115, Gale, 2006.
Atlas, Nava. “Heidi by Johanna Spyri (1881).” Literary Ladies Guide, 22 May 2024
Bernath, Mary G. Heidi. Children’s Literature Review, edited by Tom Burns, vol. 115, Gale, 2006. Gale Literature Resource Center; originally published in Beacham’s Guide to Literature for Young Adults, edited by Kirk H. Beetz and Suzanne Niemeyer, vol. 2, Beacham Publishing, 1990. Accessed 18 April 2024.
Burnett, Frances. The Secret Garden (originally published in 1911) London, Puffin Classics edition, 2015.
Children’s Literature Review. “Heidi.” Children’s Literature Review, edited by Tom Burns, vol. 115, Gale, 2006. Gale Literature Resource Center
Garden Museum. “The Secret Garden.” Garden Museum, 24 Aug. 2022
Grafton, Janet. “Girls and Green Space: Sickness to Health Narratives in Children’s Literature.” Children’s Literature Review, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 215, Gale, 2017. Gale Literature Resource Center. Originally published in Knowing Their Place? Identity and Space in Children’s Literature, edited by Terri Doughty and Dawn Thompson, Cambridge Scholars, 2011
Nejade, Rachel M et al. “What is the impact of nature on human health? A scoping review of the literature.” Journal of global health vol. 12 04099. 16 Dec. 2022,
Silver, Anna Krugovoy. Wuthering Heights and The Secret Garden: A response to Susan E. James.” Connotations, vol. 12, no. 2-3, May 2002, pp. 194+. Gale Literature Resource Center
Spyri, Johanna. Heidi (originally published in 1881). London, Arcturus Publishing Limited 26/27 Bickels Yard edition, 2019.
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