Healing And Hope In Gardening

Dear Editor,

Thank you so much for taking time to read this in hopes you will publish it in your paper.

This story is about a celebration of life and hope. It is about a garden I started in honor of my family and friends and a way to thank the community for their help with this labor of love.

Thankfulness is so important.

My name is Jennifer Ireland. {{more}}

I was employed by Monadnock Family Services as an In Shape Health Mentor when I started the garden back in 2016.

This meant that I helped consumers of MFS services learn how to eat more healthy foods and be more active. Many mentioned it being expensive to buy healthy food.

This led to me being given the opportunity to take Master Gardener courses from UNH Cooperative extension in order to teach people how to grow their own food. I was helped by Antioch University Community Garden Connections work-study students also. They were amazing!!!

I had a client that I worked with that took the bus and took the opportunity to continue talking about healthy eating while I waited with her for the bus to arrive.

One day while doing this I noticed that there was no landscaping done in the bus turn around area in front of the bus stop.

I had learned how to create a new garden through the UNH classes and thought to myself, I wonder how hard it would be to pull out the weeds in front of the bus stop?

It turned out to be easy and I had lots of perennials at my house that I thought would look nice in this area.

The flowers were also the favorite color (yellow)of a friend of mine that had passed away recently, Mary Jacobs, so I thought it would be nice to plant them to honor her memory.

So I started doing just that. Pulling out weeds and planting perennials.

The more I did the more I wanted to do because it started looking nicer and others who walked by the area were encouraged and mentioned that it gave them hope.

It gave me hope too and helped with the grieving process and healing.

Soon other gardeners, Y volunteers, Y members, Y staff and community members started offering me gardening tools, plants, advice and help weeding and planting.

I have been very gratefull to receive all of this help.

The next year I had another friend pass away and was even more determined to continue to expand the garden area in front of the Y bus stop.

My friend Pamela Blood had been a long time volunteer at the Community Kitchen in Keene. She had been fighting cancer for many years before it finally took her life in Dec. 2018.

Pam’s favorite color was purple so I started planting some cute purple and yellow Johnny jump ups to honor both Mary and Pam.

They were quick to help me fill in the garden area as well as a donation of Iris and some other perennials from an aquacise instructor at the Y and some orange daylilies, pink phlox and purple bearded iris from Y members as well as more perennials from the community members who would stop and talk to me while I worked on the garden including Feverfew, Pineapple Sage and perennial Brown-eyed Susans.

My mother, who was a great gardening inspiration for me, passed away January of this year.

I do a lot of weeding in her honor and planted a beautiful miniature purple Butterly Bush and Echinacea plants in her honor as well.

She always shared her perennials with her neighborhood and the Tiverton Yacht Club in Tiverton R.I.

Always willing to weed and offer gardening advice.

I have done a lot of gardening at the Keene Family YMCA. One year in honor of my dad who passed away in 2015 and other veterans on Memorial Day and for first responders a few years ago on Sept.11th.

• Much thanks to Agway of Keene for donating some mint, echinacea and Thyme that year.
• I had hoped to be able to encourage others to garden with me before Memorial Day and Sept.11th on an annual basis.
• I would really like to have help creating a rain/pollinator garden in another area to the left of where I have been gardening. That area is a tougher spot to garden in due to a lot of tall grass in that location but possible with help.
• I would love to create an edible landscape there for members of the Y and community to enjoy.
• I already have a blueberry bush I could move there that I bought from Runnings where I used to work and am thankful for a donation of Forsythia from a coworker from the Runnings seasonal dept. also.

It has been so encouraging and uplifting to me to receive such generosity from so many people especially this year.

I received help from the Community Kitchen taking care of a Rosemary plant (plant of remembrance) that needs inside care over the winter.

I have received encouragement and education from the Antioch Community Garden Connections over the years and donations from Bonnie Plants through Home Depot of Keene Charitable donation dept.

The garden affords a place to be able to be at a safe distance but still be able to see and talk to people.

Young and old, two-legged and four-legged have all been an encouragement to me.

People I know and have just met have made my day countless times.

It is nice to know we are not alone in all of the difficulties we have been facing recently.

It is comforting to know there is a place we can go to find peace, joy and comfort and come to find beauty.

I have even had surprise wildflowers come up which I credit to help from above.

One year I met a woman on Earth day in Winchester,nh who donated some daylilies and iris. The purple iris smell like grapes…so fun. She was also a Y member.

You never know where or when you might meet people who can help you.

It is also encouraging to know that we can all make a difference and help each other.

Please contact me if you would like to help.

jenniferireland1117@gmail.com.

Whether people walk, run, bicycle or drive by I hope they come and enjoy the garden.

I will continue to decorate the garden for the holidays this year to honor my friend Pam, as my friend Pam loved to decorate at the Community Kitchen, her walker and herself for every holiday.

She was a great love in the Keene Community.

I hope to continue to share love and joy with others as she, my mother, father, Mary, Pam and other friends and family members always did.

I really believe we are all family we just might not know each other yet.

What better way to meet than in or surrounded by a garden.

As Is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson to be a success is to “leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition.”

In this case I believe the garden has helped to redeem a social condition.

I would also like to thank CNS Wholesalers for letting me utilize this space,The Sustainability Project, The Keene Family YMCA, Maple Hill Nursery, Monadnock Family Services, More Than A Thrift Store, Salvation Army, Runnings Hinsdale nh, The Community Kitchen Keene, Keene Highway Dept., Keene Parks and Rec., Cindy Puza, Dan, Sam, Rachel, Jess, Wayne, Jocelyn, Julie, Theresa, Suzanne Brouillette, Tammy, Sue Durling, Peter, Cindy, Karen, Johanna and all my friends and family and all who have passed by the Y or sent me emails to offer support, donate time and/or perennials to the cause.

Thank you and may you be exceedingly abundantly blessed this season!!! 🙂

Grace and peace,

Jennifer Ireland