Jane's Hope Healing Garden

“What exactly is a healing garden?” you may be wondering. Let me tell you my story and how my healing garden came to be and I’ll let you decide what exactly it is!

I have always loved gardening and being outside. I grew up in rural Maryland, the middle daughter of a father who had grown up growing and foraging much of his family’s food and a mother who grew up in Baltimore but wished to be a country girl. My family always had a garden and raised goats and rabbits in addition to their three children and various dogs and cats over the years. One of the memories that stands out to me the most is how my mother, Jane, would tell people, “Between the kids and the rabbits, I can never harvest enough green beans to make them for dinner.” She always said this with a smile on her face–she loved that we ate freely from her garden!

When I had my first space of my own, a townhouse in Halethorpe, MD, I immediately worked to convert much of the small yard to garden space. I crammed so many plants into that tiny space! It was such a joy to have my very own space in which to create beauty and deliciousness. One of my favorite memories from that time is growing over 200 tomato plants from seed. I had never started things from seed by myself and I think I bought two packets of tomato seeds from the Home Depot. I reasoned that I wasn’t sure how many seeds to expect to actually germinate, so I planted them all. Then when most (if not all) of them germinated, I figured that I didn’t know how many small sprouts would continue to live. This reasoning got me to the point where I had transplanted tiny seedlings into individual pots–some peat pots, many yogurt pots, anything I could find! I had tomato plants by every window and door which were letting in light. And these guys were my babies! When I finally realized they were ALL going to survive, I worked hard to find them good homes.

Ever since that first garden of my own in 2005, I have kept a garden of some sort. During the years my kids were small, I was blessed with a garden full of strawberries that my landlord had tended, so it didn’t require much attention, but after we moved into our current space in Laurel, MD, I have gradually expanded each year to take over more lawn with gardens!

In 2019, my mother died. It was unexpected and one of the hardest things I’ve ever walked through. If I hadn’t had my garden, I’m not sure I would have made it. I spent many hours that spring gardening through my grief. Something about having my hands dirty and working to create something beautiful was balm to my soul. 

That same spring, as my sister and I sorted through some things in my parents’ house, we came across a box of zinnia seeds that my mom hadn’t planted. My sister ended up scattering them in an empty bed at my dad’s house and we got to enjoy them during the growing season. The day after Christmas that year, we worked on cleaning out my parents’ barn so that my dad would be able to sell the house and I noticed all the zinnia flower heads. I collected them all and put them into paper bags to grow the following year. The spring of 2020 was an eventful spring for most everyone on the planet, so you may remember that more people than ever were out walking. That spring, I took the seed heads and crumbled them around the perimeter of the garden. I ended up with gorgeous zinnias that year! I enjoyed them, but what happened that I didn’t expect was that I enjoyed watching other people stop to enjoy them! Our property is a corner lot and the garden area that was already established when we moved in is right against the road, which dead-ends for cars just feet from the end of my garden. It turns into a walking path, which connects the two sides of the neighborhood, for just a few hundred feet. It is the ideal spot to share the beauty of a garden, as I discovered in 2020! I would peer out my window, watching people stop to admire, smell*, and photograph my zinnias and something inside me came alive. I loved being able to share what I had created with others!

That summer, my sister sent me a post about a flower farm local to her that was being sold. Something really stirred inside me. As silly as it may sound, I hadn’t even realized that a flower farm was a thing. I guess I hadn’t even thought about where commercial flowers came from and that they had to be grown somewhere. This idea kind of percolated inside me for months until I realized that I didn’t necessarily want to have a typical flower farm where I was taking flowers somewhere to sell or even a typical pick-your-own where people came regularly to pick bouquets for themselves. What I really wanted was a space where people could come and experience the healing I had experienced; where they could find peace, hope, and healing by time spent in the garden; where people from the community could come and sit awhile if they wanted, surrounded by beauty; where they could get their hands dirty helping me to dig and plant; where someone could come to cut flowers to bring some local beauty into their home. 

I fully believe that we are better together and that when we join our hearts and efforts, we can make the world a more beautiful place and bring hope and healing to all.

Would you like to join on this healing journey? 

*People smelling the zinnias is somewhat funny because they don’t have much of a scent.