About

As anyone struggling with depression knows, pulling yourself through every day can be a challenge.

After building up for several years, I hit a tipping point with my depression about two and a half years ago. I took a semester off from my undergrad studies to get a handle on it and learn how to work through it. There were a lot of good tools and strategies I learned from working with a wonderful therapist, and they got me through my senior year.

However, another thing that I think anyone who struggles with depression knows is that once you’ve experienced it, depression never really leaves you. The summer after my senior year, I had a wonderful job teaching STEM summer camps on my campus. I was living with good friends, had an excellent schedule that afforded me plenty of down time, and genuinely enjoyed the work I was doing. In spite of all of this, I felt depression tickling at the back of my mind the whole summer.

I’ve always enjoyed the idea of growing things – feeling the earth in my hands, nurturing seeds and watching them transform into beautiful works of natural art, enjoying the aromas that so many plants produce, and having the satisfaction of using ingredients I grew myself in my food. One day, as I was leaving a Trader Joe’s, I bought a couple of plants to breathe some life into my small room – mint, lavender, and a miniature rose bush. The difference made by having those plants in my room astounded me, and I quickly fell in love with them. Checking on them lifted my spirit before I left for work, and tending to them when I got home re-energized me.

That was about a year ago. Since then, I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can about gardening and make sure to always have at least a few plants. Over the last few months, I’ve felt the depression trying to worm its way back in, and I’ve been pushing back with new plants, both inside and out. I dug up and replanted my family’s front bed, began a project to start a garden in our backyard, and started an herb garden in our kitchen.

This blog will be a place for me to record the growth and progress of my gardens, as well as share my thoughts and experiences with depression and using gardening as a therapeutic tool. While most of this will be written as another component of my therapeutic gardening, I hope these musings are helpful to you too – whether that’s in the form of gardening info, my reflections on how gardening helps me, or just a reminder that while depression is inherently isolating, you are not alone and you can make it through this.