Healing and hope

If our monthly columnist Leslie F. Halleck’s “Edible Insights” column is routine reading for you (like it is for me), this month you’ll soon learn is Women’s History Month.

Every year, the folks who manage the messaging around Women’s History Month come up with a theme. This year’s theme is “Women Providing Healing, Promoting Hope.”

Is that a direct shout out to horticulture? It sure seems like it could be …

The plants you all grow, ship and sell provide direct healing to those that receive them — whether they know they need to be healed, or not. Reducing stress — a key benefit of getting outside and digging around in the dirt (or filling up a greenhouse with happy young plants) during a global pandemic is incredibly beneficial to society.

And they can also provide hope, believe it or not.

I can’t tell you how many times during the last two springs — the first one spent in nearly complete social isolation due to COVID restrictions — I’ve walked into the container garden that I pour my heart and soul into every spring feeling pessimistic, negative or just downright exhausted by it all.

And then I see those soon-to-bear-fruit plants, all happily swaying in the spring breeze and soaking up all those rays, and those feelings melt away.

Healing and hope, indeed.

So, just as Leslie issued a challenge at the end of her piece this month, I too will challenge you to dig into the history of women in horticulture.

Having done so, you might just feel a little bit better than you did before.