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Ep.13: Growing Roots, Connection, Wholeness and Hope In The Garden with Christie Purifoy
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In this episode of the Backyard Bouquet, we explore the profound impact of gardens on our lives. This episode features published author Christie Purifoy and revolves around how gardens grow roots, connection, wholeness, and hope. Christie shares her journey from a hesitant gardener to a passionate cut flower gardener, emphasizing the transformative power of gardening. Through heartfelt stories and expert advice, Christie eloquently captures the essence of gardening and its ability to foster connections with nature and the human experience.
In this episode, Christie also shares with us her latest book, "Seed Time and Harvest," which delves into the abundant life thriving in our gardens and the profound connections they create. This episode highlights the cyclical nature of gardening, offering insights into finding hope and resilience through the changing seasons. Christie's personal anecdotes, from providing solace during times of grief to witnessing the beauty of nature, underscore the therapeutic and hopeful qualities of gardening.
Join us as we explore the beauty and joy of gardening. The episode serves as a reminder of the transformative power of our gardens in nurturing hope, connection, and beauty in our lives. Tune in to discover how gardens can inspire and uplift the soul.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- 00:10:22 - Hope Gardens Grow Roots, Connection, Wholeness, and Hope
- 00:15:59 - Impact of Flowers on Connection and Joy
- 00:17:46 - Gardening as a Powerful Tool for Connection and Hope
- 00:21:46 - Legacy and Connections Through Gardening
- 00:24:14 - Establishing Roots and Connections in the Garden
- 00:28:01 - Gardening as a Source of Hope in Challenging Times
- 00:32:33 - Writing and Sharing Lessons from the Garden
- 00:40:14 - Christy Purifoy's Book Trilogy and Future Projects
- 00:44:37 - Importance of Paying Attention in Gardening and Writing
- 00:46:06 - This Year's Garden Plans
- 00:49:00 - Balancing Motherhood and Gardening with Children
Learn More About Christie Purifoy:
- https://www.christiepurifoy.com/
- Follow Christie on Instagram
- Christie's New Book: Seedtime & Harvest
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Backyard Bouquet podcast, where stories bloom from local flower fields and home gardens. I'm your host, Jennifer Galitzia of the Flowering Farmhouse.
Purpose and Heart of the Podcast
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm a backyard gardener turned flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon. Join us for heartfelt journeys shared by flower farmers and backyard gardeners. Each episode is like a vibrant garden, cultivating wisdom and joy through flowers. From growing your own backyard garden to supporting your local flower farmer,
00:00:32
Speaker
The backyard bouquet is your fertile ground for heartwarming tales and expert cut flower growing advice. All right flower friends, grab your gardening gloves, garden snips, or your favorite vase because it's time to let your backyard bloom.
00:00:56
Speaker
I am thrilled to welcome today's guest to the podcast.
Meet Kristi Pirafoy
00:01:00
Speaker
Kristi Pirafoy is not only a talented writer, but also a dedicated gardener whose passion for cultivating beauty and wonder shines through in her work. With a PhD in English literature from the University of Chicago and a background in teaching, Kristi brings a unique perspective to her exploration of gardens and literature.
00:01:23
Speaker
Christy's literary contributions include several inspiring garden books, including Garden Maker, Growing a Life of Beauty and Wonder with Flowers, Roots and Sky, A Journey Home in Four Seasons, and Place Maker, Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace. Through her writing, she eloquently captures the essence of gardening and the profound connections between nature and the human experience.
00:01:51
Speaker
At her Victorian farmhouse in southeastern Pennsylvania, Christie's love for gardening blossoms as she tends to her beloved plants and explores the timeless beauty of her surroundings.
Gardening and Personal Growth
00:02:04
Speaker
Today's guest brings a unique perspective that I believe both cut flower gardeners and flower farmers alike will find relatable and inspiring. Being a gardener and or a flower farmer gives us a unique opportunity to connect with nature. And I can't wait to chat with Christine about how gardens grow roots, connection, wholeness, and hope. Please join me in welcoming Christie Pirifoy to the podcast.
00:02:35
Speaker
Thank you so much. What a beautiful introduction. I'm so grateful for that. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm really looking forward to visiting with you about your experience in the garden. And I believe you bring a really unique perspective to the table that will just provide so much inspiration and insight for so many of us. So to get started.
00:03:04
Speaker
Could you share a little bit about your background into gardening? Sure. Well, I think in some ways I'm the least likely gardener. I wasn't big for the outdoors growing up in Texas. I was always inside reading a book. My father was a gardener, so I was exposed to that. He had a beautiful rose garden. I was exposed to the beauty. But I never imagined that I would do anything like that. I wasn't interested in science. I like to be indoors.
00:03:33
Speaker
When I was in graduate school in Chicago, a friend of mine out of the blue just invited me to share a plot in a community garden with her. And I was flabbergasted. I would never have thought of doing that on my own. It was not on my radar at all. But I was pregnant with my first child at the time. And I think there is something about that season of life where all of a sudden the things that our parents did
00:03:57
Speaker
Take on new meaning for us. And so I said yes. And I was terrible. We were all terrible. We mostly grew weeds and were an embarrassment to the whole community garden there on the south side of Chicago. But it was my introduction and it
00:04:13
Speaker
was the thing that hooked me. And so when I left Chicago and had homes of my own, that was something I brought with me. But my journey has really been from starting kind of a typical backyard gardener trying to grow some tomatoes, some lettuces, to being absolutely smitten by flowers. And so it was
00:04:33
Speaker
It was adding a few flowers to the vegetable garden. And then more and more, my vegetable garden was given over to flowers that I realized, oh, for me, this is where it's at, the beauty of flowers. And that is really what changed my life. Flowers really are magical.
00:04:53
Speaker
They are. They are. Yes. And as a writer and someone who loves stories, being able to capture the magic of flowers in my storytelling, in my writing, I hope it just opens a door for more people who might not realize that this could be for them. Because I was once that person who didn't know that
00:05:13
Speaker
gardening would change my life, who had no idea how much it would mean to me. So I feel very passionate about just sharing the magic of it, the romance of it, as well as the realities of it. It's good to know it isn't all that of roses, I guess, that it's hard work too, but it is so worthwhile. So yeah, that's really what I'm trying to do through these books.
00:05:37
Speaker
I love it. Well, I'm going to spill the beans here earlier than I had planned. The reason we're chatting is because you have a brand new book that is, well, it was just released and that book is Seed Time and Harvest and I am fortunate to have an advanced copy of the book and it is amazing. I am cleaning so much from reading it right now and it's so inspiring and just reminds me
00:06:06
Speaker
why I love what I do. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey into writing this book?
Exploring 'Seed Time and Harvest'
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad you said it that way, actually, because the initial sort of working title for myself as I was writing it was Why Gardening Matters. Oh, I love that. I think of it as my quiet manifesto. I just think Gardening Matters so much. And what I was trying to capture in this book through the photographs and through the storytelling and even through the tips, there's some practical tips in there.
00:06:34
Speaker
is this sense of the kind of abundant life that is thriving in a garden, that gardens aren't just the place where we grow plants, they aren't just the place where we harvest flowers, but they are a place where all the
00:06:49
Speaker
the various bits of life in our world are coming together and are being reconciled and connected and that this is something that's happening in us and in our gardens and just this general sense of like overwhelming goodness and abundance and the idea of the garden being the place where those of us who feel fragmented or disconnected or ruthless or wandering or hopeless, I have found in my own life that it is the garden
00:07:17
Speaker
that is the place where these things work themselves out so beautifully. And so yeah, the whole book is just a celebration of that life of the garden. So whereas I tend to focus more on flowers, only on flowers in my other gardening books, this one has flowers, but it's got all the goodness, the insects, the animals, the vegetables, the trees, the herbs, the neighbor children, all of that life, chickens, I could go on and on.
00:07:43
Speaker
All that life that is drawn to a garden was something I wanted to capture and see time and harvest.
00:07:50
Speaker
I love that. Well, I would love to chat with you today if it's okay about your book and some of the topics that you covered in it that really resonated with me and I'm sure will also resonate with our listeners.
Gardening's Role in Connection
00:08:04
Speaker
So on the cover of your book, it says, how gardens grow roots, connection, wholeness, and hope. Let's talk about those roots. What are the roots?
00:08:16
Speaker
metaphorically speaking and also physically speaking that you have experienced in your own garden. Yeah. Well, you know, we live in such a mobile
00:08:26
Speaker
It's such a mobile society. We're moving. Very few of us get to stay in one place for our whole lives. So I've been following online as you've been moving so many of your plants and as you've been in search of a permanent place. So this is just a reality of our modern life. And what I love about gardening, what I love about growing flowers is that even if we move,
00:08:51
Speaker
Gardens help us so quickly to feel rooted in a place. I mean, at the end of the day, gardening, growing flowers is really about our relationship, a very intimate relationship with a place. And so even if we're in a new place or even if we have to pick up and move, growing something immediately connects us to that place. And it helps us to know that place, to pay attention to that place, to be connected to that place. And I can't think of anything else that does that.
00:09:20
Speaker
like gardening, like growing things. And so when I talk about being rooted, it isn't this ideal of never picking up, never uprooting yourself, never having to move, never having to say goodbye, never losing anything.
00:09:35
Speaker
But it is the way a garden heals our experience of moving, heals our experience of dislocation, and helps us again and again to feel rooted right where we are, even if we're renting and we don't own, even if we don't have a backyard. When I was first learning to garden in Chicago, I just had a little balcony outside of our third floor apartment.
00:09:58
Speaker
But I learned to fill that balcony with window boxes full of flowers. And so I was able to put down roots even in that little rental apartment. So I just feel like this is something that many of us gardeners know, but I think the rest of the world needs to know. If you don't feel rooted, if you don't feel like you have a meaningful connection to the place where you are, I really think the answer is to grow something.
00:10:22
Speaker
That's really beautiful. I couldn't agree more. I'm thinking back to the different places I've been in my life and when I felt most connected is certainly when I have that attachment to where I am. And when I think about that, that is, like you said, whether it's growing in a container. When I first moved to Hood River with my husband, we went from a house in Portland, Oregon to a condo and we had a small patio.
00:10:46
Speaker
and I packed that patio full with containers and I grew everything that I could in this shaded little space, but it's what made it feel like home to me and gave me a purpose while I was there.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I know the feeling well. I've moved a lot, and I'm grateful to be more rooted now. But having lived in so many places, I know that gardening is for every place. And there is something about if you're willing to garden, even in a place where you are short term, I have found that you grow roots that actually move with you. So when you then move on to the next place, you are living in a more rooted way because of how you lived in the previous place.
00:11:29
Speaker
So in that sense, maybe we are like plants, like we too can be transplanted, but the roots we grew go with us and change our relationship to every place where we find ourselves.
00:11:45
Speaker
That's really beautiful. I'm thinking about that as I've literally been digging up all of my roots. And by the time this airs, I will be completely out of our old growing space and searching for whatever is next where we get to put our roots down. And it's kind of an exciting thing, actually. I've just finished reading a book called The Gap and the Gain.
00:12:08
Speaker
And it's a mental mind shift book. And it talks about the only way to really measure life is to look backwards, not forwards. And I've been thinking so much because I'm literally digging up hundreds, if not thousands of roots from the ground over the last month. And I'm seeing what was once
00:12:29
Speaker
these several inch long peony roots are now two or three feet and thinking about how much they've grown, but thinking about how much that garden has also helped me grow as well. I'm like the garden was this gift to me that allowed me to grow. So I'm like, if I had to do this all over again, I would 100%
00:12:52
Speaker
go through it, even knowing the heartache of pulling everything out because of the life lessons, the connections
Hope and Resilience in Flowers
00:12:59
Speaker
I've made. Those roots are so deep in me that your book came out at just the right time to speak to me personally because it's so touching and it's such a great analogy. I love that everything we do in the garden is like the stubble story of our life and the roots are such a huge part of that.
00:13:19
Speaker
Oh, it's so true. You put it so well. We grow gardens, but gardens grow us. And if we care for gardens, if we're willing to care for them, they will care for us when we need it. And it's not just a cute saying, like it's real and it's powerful. It's so powerful. It's something that that's part of exactly why I wanted to create this podcast was to inspire more people, whether they have a backyard
00:13:45
Speaker
or they have a flower farm or an open field or just a container on their patio, that that simple process of growing those roots will feed their soul. Yeah, it's true. And it's worth it, as you say. And even knowing what you know now for you to say that it's worth it, that's very powerful.
00:14:03
Speaker
And I feel like for maybe a lot of people who are listening, they may be like I was, especially if they're not considering doing it as a business. It's one thing to consider becoming a flower farmer for your livelihood, but it's another to think of doing it as a hobby or just for the joy of it.
00:14:21
Speaker
And I feel like then it's too easy to make a calculation that says, well, this is self-indulgent or this is wasteful. This isn't practical. I'm not growing food. I mean, sure, there's edible flowers. But let's be honest, it's not a practical way to feed our families necessarily. And so I questioned for a long time, am I crazy to want to do this? Is this wasteful? Is this selfish? And what I have learned is,
00:14:50
Speaker
just absolutely for a million reasons. No, it is not. And so if there's anyone listening thinking that, I have so many stories I could tell of just how life-changing it is and how world-changing it is. You've so exceeded, you are changing the world. You are, you're doing it and filling the world with beauty and that matters. And we need more people doing that for sure.
00:15:14
Speaker
Absolutely. After, I feel like after COVID especially, we have been lacking that connection with other people. Yes. And I feel like flowers gives us that connection, whether it's someone stopping and admiring the flowers growing in your yard or your field or being able to hand off that bouquet from your backyard to someone going through a hard time or just having a baby, the connection and joy.
00:15:42
Speaker
you're able to share with others when you grow those flowers. It's not selfish. It's self-care and it's taking care of yourself and bringing joy. There's a lot more
00:15:57
Speaker
ways you can spend a lot of money on therapy. That's true. And if you do this, you're feeding all these connections in the environment. You're benefiting not just yourself, but as you said, neighbors, other people. I write in the book about how the flower garden in my backyard has become a magnet for all the children in the neighborhood. And as my children grow up and leave home,
00:16:23
Speaker
I hope neighborhood kids will keep coming to my garden and there's these sweet little girls who live next door who for years
00:16:29
Speaker
have come by and said, Ms. Christy, can we visit your butterfly garden? And they call it the butterfly garden just because there are butterflies there. And so just the life that can flourish in a garden is so much bigger than us. And yeah, so when I read about connection, I'm talking about those kinds of connections and connections we have to other people, but also connections between all the life of our ecosystems, the pollinators, the birds, the butterflies.
00:16:58
Speaker
the animals, as well as the people. And we all know that those connections need to be nurtured and need to be cultivated. And to know that even I, I guess I'll put it this way, you know, there's so many problems in our world. And I don't know about you, but I can feel powerless to do anything about them. I can feel like what can I do as one person, but one person can plant
00:17:22
Speaker
flowers, one person can care for bees and birds.
Legacy of Gardening
00:17:26
Speaker
One person can do that and can do it very easily and very simply with a packet of seed, flower seeds. And that to me, I just don't, I can't think of anything else that offers that kind of power to change and affect the world and have so much fun doing it, you know.
00:17:44
Speaker
It's just wild. It's such a gift. It totally is. So you have moved several times and your home where you are currently at in Pennsylvania is a Victorian farmhouse in
00:18:00
Speaker
You have a barn? Is that, you have a black barn? Is that what you call it? We do. Yes. Yes. The black barn. Yeah. Yeah. Our home is, yeah, go ahead. If there, you know, I could tell you more about it, but if there's a particular question, feel free. No, go ahead and tell us about it. And then if you don't answer my question, I'll ask it after. Yeah. Good. Good. So it may sound idyllic, right? You know, Victorian farmhouse, Pennsylvania, and, and it's beautiful. I love it here. This is home and
00:18:26
Speaker
And I do intend for it to go on always being our home. But for those who might be sitting in suburbia, I'll tell you, I'm sitting right in the middle of suburbia too. So yes, I'm in this old farmhouse, but the farm itself was sold off many years ago. And now we have just a couple acres and we're surrounded by a typical suburban builder's neighborhood.
00:18:47
Speaker
So people are often surprised when they first come and they drive down our long driveway and they always say to me, oh, you're right. The neighbors are right here. So in some senses, I live just like many Americans in a very typical neighborhood where, let's be honest, most of the backyards are given over just to lawn grass, not even a lot of trees. And so I do I feel like here in the middle of this neighborhood, maybe I also have a chance to kind of show a different
00:19:16
Speaker
a different way of being in our spaces and what's possible. So I do hope that the seeds I'm sowing here, just beauty and abundance, can maybe even help people dream new dreams for their own little backyard plots. I mean we can do so much with even a little bit of land.
00:19:34
Speaker
I love that. That's so true that you don't have to have a huge space to make a big difference. And you even mentioned the connections. And I was thinking about that as I'm literally digging up all the roots that were planted in our field.
00:19:51
Speaker
that was never ours. So it was leased land that I knew this would someday happen. It just happened sooner than I had hoped it would happen. When I first started using this land, it was a barren old field that years ago had had cattle on it, but nothing had ever really been grown on it other than weeds.
00:20:13
Speaker
And we could barely dig into it when we first started. And three years later, seeing the connection with nature is incredible. And it gives me hope and inspiration that we can redo that again because it is full of microbial life. Every plant that I pull out of the ground is just crawling with worms. And when we started there, I couldn't find the first season there was not a single worm.
00:20:38
Speaker
To be found in that soil. You can hardly break through it now You can just stick your hands into that dirt and it just falls through your hands And it's only three years and then just three years. Yeah
00:20:51
Speaker
So it doesn't take a long time to make a big difference. And granted that three years we brought in beneficials. I did tons of foliar spray. I did not put down any chemicals other than Slugo Plus was the only thing that I used that was not.
00:21:09
Speaker
organic or earth friendly, I've stopped using neem oil to support the bees. At nighttime in the summer, you can hear the frogs and you see the bats flying around. Granted, we do have some really tall evergreen trees right next to the property that helps with the birds and the bees, but the number of, we left our tea posts up all the time. And so the birds would perch on it and just seeing that connection with nature,
00:21:36
Speaker
is really incredible. And you have an older farmhouse, so I imagine that you have quite a connection with nature established at your property. Yeah, it's true. It's interesting to think about legacy in this context because I think, especially if we're growing flowers and if we're growing annual flowers,
00:21:56
Speaker
It can feel as if every year we're starting from scratch or we lose everything that we had. But if we think about it with this perspective of building soil, of supporting the larger ecosystem, that is where I think you start to see some of the legacy that we can leave if we're
00:22:18
Speaker
gardening and growing in this way. So one story I have is that we did some building work not too long ago and had to dig a trench for, I think it was a line tour well or something like that or electrical lines. And the man who was building the
00:22:32
Speaker
digging the trench came to me and he said, I'm assuming this was once an old farm, that those houses that this was the farm. So I said, yes, this was a farm and told him a little bit about it. And he said, I knew as soon as the backhoe, I don't know the terms, whatever little piece of equipment he was using to dig, he's like, I knew as soon as it touched the soil that this had been a farm and that this had been, he said that this had been cared for.
00:22:57
Speaker
He said, if I'm digging a trench in some of these new neighborhoods where things have been all turned over and tops all removed, he said, it is a completely different experience. And that meant so much to me to hear, but I knew that that, especially where he was digging, he wasn't digging in my garden. He was kind of just digging in a spot that I hadn't really touched. So I knew that he was talking about something that had accrued over
00:23:21
Speaker
years and and that you know I could look back at all the the farmers and and gardeners where there's been gardeners in this home too and actually I write about what in seed time I recently found the story of one of the gardeners from the 50s who lived in my house her name was Dorothy and she grew roses and I write a little bit about her and her legacy in the book so just thinking about yes even if the flowers fade at the end of the season even if you're just cutting those bouquets and passing them on
00:23:49
Speaker
Um, it is adding up to something that matters. It's adding up to something good and it's adding up to something that you'll leave behind you. And it's the soil, but it is, it's so much more than that. I love that. That's so beautiful. Can you tell us a little bit more about some of the roots and connections that you are either establishing or discovering at your farm?
00:24:16
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I mean, here's something else about gardens is that they're always changing, you know, and I speak again, not as a flower farmer, but as a gardener, but as someone who is trying to do both, like I try to do ornamental gardening, and I also do some productive gardening, you know, I do want to grow some food, and I want to grow flowers to cut, so I'm trying to do both. And it's always changing, and it can feel sometimes like, like as much as I plant or do
00:24:45
Speaker
I lose, you know, I mean, anyone who grows nose, like so much of what you try doesn't work or things die. Or I can think of, you know, trees I planted, and then we realized, oh, that's the spot where the new little barn needs to go, and then the tree has to get moved or cut down. And it can feel like, wow, is it, is it adding up to anything? So I think writing these stories helped me to realize almost
00:25:09
Speaker
what was happening invisibly, you know, happening to me, happening to my neighbors who come visit here, happening in the community when they realize, hey, there's a garden there and maybe, you know, maybe I can do that too. So that more invisible and tangible fruit or harvest, if we want to
00:25:29
Speaker
talk about it that way. It's just been good for me to pause to reflect on those things. I can share one story specifically, because this was early on in my flower gardening journey right after I had finally made the decision to not only have a big vegetable garden, but to have a kind of dedicated flower garden. And again, I had asked myself over and over, is it worth it? Am I being selfish?
00:25:55
Speaker
We had a really hard situation in my family where one of my sisters was unexpectedly widowed with four children. And it was such a time of just grief and sadness. But almost just months after that experience, she came with her kids. We had lots of room in this old farmhouse. She came and they just lived with us for a month or two just to be, just to rest, just to kind of recover and try to figure out next steps.
00:26:23
Speaker
And the flower garden was then in its second year. So it was still brand new, but it finally looked like a garden. You know, that point where you realize like, oh, I did it. This actually looks and feels like a garden. And that whole month she was here in early summer, we just spent every day sitting out in that garden or I'd go out with my nieces and pick things or we would pick weeds and then feed them to the chickens. And we just lived in this space. And I realized then, oh my goodness, I had no idea.
00:26:53
Speaker
how much we would need it, how much it would comfort us, how much it could be a part of healing, just to be surrounded by beauty at a time when we were grieving and she was grieving and life felt really chaotic. And I kept thinking, it's like,
00:27:13
Speaker
We don't know until we look backwards, right? I think you and I were talking about that earlier, maybe even before we hit record, that we kind of look backwards and we see the meaning. And so I could look back then and say, oh my goodness, I thought this was selfish or I worried it was self-indulgent. And I had no idea how this garden would help.
00:27:33
Speaker
and would make a difference in our lives and in my sister's life and in the life of our family. So that is just one story particular to me that I think just proves we never know. But when we sow beauty into the world, when we sow abundance, when we sow life, it's going to have an impact. It's going to do things that surprise us. And so for me, that
00:27:56
Speaker
Those are the, you know, using these words roots and connection and wholeness. That's really what I'm talking about, trying to get at this bigger picture, this kind of almost this mystery of gardening, this mystery of flowers. I mean, I don't know. I bet a lot of your listeners have people say, well, why don't you grow food? Why don't you grow, you know,
00:28:17
Speaker
corn. Why don't you grow things people need? I mean, I could just hear the voices, right? And I guess I want to say, we just have no idea how much we need beauty and we need
00:28:31
Speaker
the kind of life that flowers bring to the world. We need it so much more than we realize, and other people need it. And it looks like these things, like feeling rooted, feeling more connected, feeling a wholeness in yourself and in the world. And then the final word I explore is hope.
00:28:51
Speaker
We all need we all need hope. But I think gardeners, especially, you know, we're flower farming is difficult work. Our climate is changing and it's chaotic in ways that are really can can can push us to despair, I think. And so it was important to me to really explore all the ways that gardening builds a really resilient hope and a tangible hope. And I don't know, I think you had someone bouquet of flowers like you are handing them hope.
00:29:21
Speaker
really, you know, big, just beautiful bunch of hope. Yeah, it's true in my life. And I know I could see it's true in yours. And I just want more people to experience that. And I want tired gardeners and tired flower farmers to know that their work matters so much. So important. It really does. And sometimes you may never know
00:29:45
Speaker
who you impact. I was really blessed to hear stories about our flower farm before I knew that we weren't going to be able to continue in the same space. We border the field that we've been leasing, so our own house. We're not moving our house, so right now we're just going to
00:30:04
Speaker
simplify this year, really focus in on our Dahlia breeding and maximize our space and put as many roots down here that we can. But we built a low fence between the two properties so that people could see the flowers that we were growing.
00:30:21
Speaker
And it was amazing. I didn't realize until people shared with me that they were altering their daily walks because we are in a suburban setting. I had neighbors that would come and just sit and watch or take pictures of the flowers from the fence line.
00:30:38
Speaker
And unfortunately, because we are a production farm, we're not set up for this beautiful walk through the aisles. I am constantly forgetting shears or there's tripping hazards. So it wasn't where people could come in, but I wanted them to be able to see the beauty.
00:30:57
Speaker
this fall, one of my neighbors shared with me, she said, Jen, isn't it amazing how your flowers have a way of meeting people exactly where they are? And that phrase has really hung on to me this last year and carried me is that flowers really do have this ability to meet us where we're at. And when you were talking about that hope and connection and wholeness and asking
00:31:26
Speaker
Is it worth growing flowers versus vegetables? That answer for me is such an easy yes after watching COVID. When COVID hit, I had just barely started our CSA program and I was wondering, am I gonna be able to sell a single bouquet of flowers? I was able to sell every flower I could get my hands on and I did a contactless drop-off CSA during COVID.
00:31:51
Speaker
And people told me that those flowers gave them hope. There was something, just seeing those flowers, meeting them where they're at, being able to have life inside their house when we weren't able to physically connect with others, was just like,
00:32:08
Speaker
having food, it nourished the soul. It's just like food nourishes our body. The flowers nourish our soul. And you do such an eloquent job of showing that and showcasing that in your books. So this is a really fun conversation that we're having. Let's talk more about that hope. Share any more stories about how flowers have provided hope for you or that you have witnessed.
Cyclical Nature and Renewal
00:32:33
Speaker
Yeah, you know, there's something about the cyclical nature of gardening. And I do live in a, I mean, it's true for anyone who grows. I feel especially, you know, being in Pennsylvania where we still do have four distinct seasons. And so this constant shift through the year and the way that the garden returns year after year after year, and that you're going through this cycle where everything dies, everything falls asleep.
00:33:01
Speaker
Everything goes dormant or or sits at seed and disappears and then comes back and then is renewed and and It's not just a metaphor because there's something about living that cycle year after year that I really think just almost builds in us an expectation that life will return that spring will come and
00:33:22
Speaker
I think it has changed how I live through winter, not just literally. It has changed how I feel about winter literally, but just the winters of life, those seasons that are more hopeless, more gray, harder times of life. It's like gardening has built up this sure sense that winter does not last forever. It never does.
00:33:47
Speaker
and that if we can be patient, if we can endure, if we can continue sowing seeds and believing in beauty and good things, that spring will come again. And this is good news, I think, because it's not something we have to do. It's just something we receive. It's something we just live. It's how the earth, how the world is set up for us.
00:34:07
Speaker
And so I think inevitably it builds this kind of hope. But I will tell you the hardest chapter or the hardest essay for me to write comes at the end of the book. And it's about hope, what do I call it, hope in an age, I'm flipping through the book, hope in an age of climate chaos.
00:34:27
Speaker
I'm someone who loves cold weather, I love winters, I love snow, I don't like change. So the way that the climate in my own garden is changing is hard and I don't like it. And I really struggle to
00:34:42
Speaker
keep a positive attitude or to hold on to hope in the midst of it. Right now, as we record, it's still February, and yet I've got a thunderstorm outside. I don't have snow. I don't have even ice. And so when I got to the end of this book, I knew I have to figure out how do you hold on to hope, or what does it look like to receive hope from gardening?
00:35:05
Speaker
In this context, my garden zone just officially changed from zone six to zone seven. I already knew it was, it was obvious, but it's official now, right?
00:35:18
Speaker
And without giving it away, I'll just say that what I discovered in writing that is that I do feel hopeful because of my garden. I think it means because I have a garden, I don't have to let the headlines or the news be the final word on anything. I can go out in my garden and right now,
00:35:39
Speaker
The hellebores are gorgeous. The snowdrops are stunning. The witch hazels I have look incredible. So beautiful. There's so much beauty out there right now at the end of February. And I'm grateful. And we've had some warm days and I've been able to get out and
00:35:57
Speaker
and actually be in my garden a little bit this month. And every time I realize, you know what, this may be because of a hard reality that I'm grappling with and the whole earth we're grappling with, our changing climate, but today is good. Today, my garden is giving me this gift of flowers and sunshine. And so I receive that and I take hope from that.
00:36:19
Speaker
And so I think if we're going to continue, despite whatever the challenges are, it might be climate change or others of you might just be finding it economic challenges or, you know, just physical challenges. You know, gardening is a physical labor. There's all kinds of things that can that can push us to feel hopeless. But then the garden speaks to that. The garden, you know, has something to offer us beauty and life or like the resiliency of life.
00:36:47
Speaker
even when things are challenging is so, it just inspires so much hope in me. So I just for myself was so glad that I was pushed to have to write myself all the way, you know, ask these hard questions, face my own discouragement and despair and say, I have hope because of my garden and because there is still goodness here and still life and beauty here, no matter what, no matter what, always it comes back.
00:37:13
Speaker
That's beautiful. I always say that I'm hopelessly optimistic. Oh, I love that. And it comes from the garden or from the flower farm. I think every time when I feel like something is hard or it's not going to make it, I think back. And I think about when a plant has been knocked over in our 50 mile per hour winds and a week later, all of a sudden, there's a new sprout coming out of the ground. And there it is. It has that will to survive.
00:37:41
Speaker
And it teaches us that there's always hope, like you said. So that's really beautiful. Is there anything else that you cover in your book that we haven't talked about that you can give a little hint to? Yeah, great question. I will say, I mean, I've talked a lot about just the themes and the stories, but I definitely tried my books to offer tips. I write quite a bit about Native plans and what that looks like for me, not with any agenda or, you know,
00:38:12
Speaker
finger wagging, but again, hopefully in an encouraging, hopeful way. So there's a lot in here about what that can look like for those of us who love flowers and love beauty. I mean, like you, I love my dahlias. I love my zinnias, but I think it's like once you
00:38:34
Speaker
It's like once you enter into one part of gardening, it's just connected and connected and connected to so many other things. I was someone who when I started gardening, would not look twice at an ornamental grass. It just held no appeal to me at all. Now I'm just smitten. Once I got into ornamental grasses, I thought, but you know those sedges, I don't really get why people
00:38:58
Speaker
I don't know about sedges, and this year I'm so excited about Carex, about sedges. I think it's in the book, but I leave our listeners with that, is to let yourself feel the way your passion for one thing can overflow into new interests and new joys.
00:39:17
Speaker
remain sort of faithful to our first loves. For me, it would be roses and dahlias for sure. But it's almost like a mother who has one child and then a second and then a third. It's like your heart grows and you have more love for more babies. And that has definitely been my experience in the garden.
00:39:36
Speaker
Because this isn't my first gardening book. And my first one was all about the roses and all about the dahlias and the individual flowers. And the fact that I've now written one celebrating things like grasses and chickens and bees is just wild to me. But it is, I think it testifies to the way that gardens grow us and fill us with new things. So I just encourage your listeners to let their passions overflow wherever it's taking them. Just follow it.
00:40:06
Speaker
That's beautiful advice. Now, this is your fourth garden book you've written, is that correct? So this is the third. The third? Yeah, this is third. So this is kind of a little trilogy of just beautiful little full color books. I just love how they've been designed with these ribbon bindings. And so the first was Garden Maker, and then A Home in Bloom, and now Sea, Time, and Harvest sort of completes that trilogy.
00:40:30
Speaker
But I also write memoirs, so I have two memoirs that came out before the garden books, in which of course I still write about my gardens, that they aren't this kind of full color with photography. And that's another thing I have loved learning, is taking photos in my garden in order to just capture that beauty. And some people dry their flowers or press them, and I take photographs.
00:40:57
Speaker
I love it. That's what I do. Well, I was a professional photographer for 12 years and just recently officially closed up the photography business so I can be fully present for the flower farm. But that was one thing that I really loved in your book is the abundance of really beautiful detailed photographs that really caught my eye. That's
00:41:20
Speaker
One thing, I was so busy last year that I really didn't have the time to slow down. I have thousands of iPhone pictures, but here I am. Don't we all? Yeah, I was a past professional photographer, and I'm like, I took 400 pictures with my good camera last year, which is nothing. I mean, on a typical wedding day when I would shoot weddings, I would take easily 4,000 photos, so 400s, a drop in a bucket. So this year, my goal is to get more of those. And another thing that
00:41:48
Speaker
has been really on my heart lately and maybe some of our listeners would be curious about this as well. I have started writing down some of my lessons from the garden and just doing a little bit of journaling. Can you share how you got your start into writing these books or any advice that you could give us for someone that wants to just sit down with a pen and paper and take in their lessons and stories from the garden?
00:42:13
Speaker
You know, I love that these days with our online world, it's so accessible. You know, anyone can start writing and start sharing their words with the world. And so it could be on Instagram, you know, starting what is essentially you can start an online, like a garden journal.
00:42:32
Speaker
where you have an image and then you just take some time with that caption. You can go with a sub stack or a blog. And I love that because there's some accountability. So that's really how I got started is with my blog. And there's accountability and there's the immediate feedback when you connect with readers. And then there's just that discipline of just practicing. And so
00:42:56
Speaker
Even though I had a background in literature and writing and reading, I needed that in order to even to figure out actually that I really did want to write about nature and gardens. That wasn't something I necessarily even knew going into it.
00:43:11
Speaker
I think as well it homes our observation. So you know that so much of growing is just slowing down enough to really pay attention to what's happening. You know, big problems start very small. And if you're not paying attention and the same with beauties, you know, they they can we can zip right by them if we're not out there paying attention. So if you're committed to writing, as I have been, then you're committed to paying attention. And essentially, that's all it is, is saying I'm going to pay attention. I'm going to pay attention to my life. I'm going to pay attention to this garden.
00:43:41
Speaker
And then I'm going to write some of that down. You don't have to get fancy. It doesn't take any more skill than that. It is literally just paying attention. And once we pay attention, that too is something that helps us to feel rooted, connected, whole, and full of hope is because we're paying attention to what is actually out there.
Documenting Gardening Experiences
00:44:02
Speaker
That's really it. It's just that exercise of paying attention. And I think even if you don't see yourself as a writer, it is so worth doing. And again, the tools are accessible. Instagram, sub-stack, blogs, you can do it. You know, Facebook posts even, you can begin. And people are hungry for beauty and hungry for
00:44:21
Speaker
for reflections and words on the gardening life as well. So I'm so glad you're going to be doing that. Yes. So what's next for you? Are you going on a book tour? Are you starting on your next book? What is in store?
00:44:36
Speaker
Yeah, I do have some more books in the pipeline, which I'm very excited about. There may even, this is a real sneak peek here that I haven't even talked about. But in a year or so, there is going to be a garden or really a flower garden journal from me.
00:44:57
Speaker
Um, which was so fun to work on because I am, I'm really not a journal keeper. I'm not a planner. Um, and, and so at first I thought, why can't do that? Why would I do a flower garden planner? And there's others on the market, but then I realized, Oh my goodness.
00:45:15
Speaker
Even the non planners like myself, we need books. We need tools to help us dream and help us, you know, envision our gardens and keep a garden record. And so I thought, you know what? I'm going to write the flower garden planner that works for non planners, that works for dreamers, that works for beauty lovers.
00:45:34
Speaker
So I'm so excited that that will be out next year. And in terms of my own garden, oh, I have so many plants. And mostly they involve growing many more dahlias this year. And some of those new florid seeds, well, I mean, she's had them for a while, but I managed to get some of the zinnias especially. So I'm really excited to try out florid special zinnias this summer as well.
00:46:01
Speaker
That's exciting. So are you growing your flowers from seed? Yeah. So I have raised beds, and in my cut garden area, I do grow all of that from seed. I'm lucky in this old house to have a root cellar, and that's where I overwinter my Dahlia tubers. And it is wonderful, because it means that I'm pretty successful at keeping them, even though I am not
00:46:25
Speaker
so skilled. It's not my skill. It is just that wonderful dark humidity that is down in that dirt floor root cellar. So the tubers will come back out. New tubers will join them. And then I haven't started any seeds yet, but I think in the next couple of weeks, the seed starting will begin. I love it because it's like spring comes early. Oh, that's really exciting. So what other flowers are you looking forward to growing?
00:46:51
Speaker
Let's see. I do have some more David Austin roses coming. I'm always a David Austin fan. They don't necessarily love my hot, humid Southeastern PA climate, but I love them. And so even if I have discovered that they don't live forever for me, just our swings in temperature are really hard on them. They're so beautiful, so special. I love the perfume that a few more bare root roses always
00:47:19
Speaker
make their way to me each winter so I'm excited to get those in the ground and you know I'll throw one out for the the food growers as well it's I have moved garden spaces a bit so I haven't had all as many raised beds but I'm hoping to have a big
00:47:37
Speaker
space for growing and raised beds this summer. So I'll be able to do some things like ground cherries again, which I love. I love getting heirloom ground cherry seeds from Seed Savers org and some Japanese sweet potatoes, which are a favorite with our family. They're just the kind of thing you can't really buy at the grocery store, so they're worth planting and they're so delicious. They have a purple skin and a white flesh.
00:48:02
Speaker
So they're nutritious like sweet potatoes, they taste like sweet potatoes, but I think that white color helps the kids think that they're just potatoes. Where do you source those from? Online catalogs, I forget exactly if I got mine from Burpee this year, but they're pretty accessible online and you can literally just Google Japanese sweet potatoes.
00:48:25
Speaker
We had friends who lived in Japan for a number of years, and she was the one who actually introduced me to them. And I thought, oh, there's no way I'll be able to get those. And then I discovered, no, they're pretty accessible online. So you just get the little rooted dried up little potatoes, and it's so easy to grow a crop. So I'm looking forward to having room for that again. I love that. Well, kind of going back to growing roots.
00:48:54
Speaker
You mentioned that you're a mom and you have a couple children. How are you involving your children in the garden? Yeah, that's been such a gift. It's just a garden in and around my kids. So I have one in college, one graduating from high school this year, two still with me at home. And actually, my youngest, my daughter, has some photographic cameos in the book.
00:49:23
Speaker
It's been up and down. So I will say there have been many times where I thought, okay, this isn't how I imagined it. I thought the kids would be more helpful or I thought they would be more interested. And so their interest, you know, it waxes and wanes for sure. But I could look back at my own childhood and know that I too was growing up around my father's garden and I didn't help. I wasn't interested and yet it was doing its work on me.
00:49:47
Speaker
And so I am already seeing as my kids are getting older that they take the beauty of a garden for granted in a way that I love. That I know one day they'll be in their own adult lives, in their own adult homes, and they will want something of what they had when they were kids and they'll learn how to do it. Or they'll do what I did for many years, which is I would call my dad and say, oh, dad.
00:50:10
Speaker
How did you do that? Help me out with this." And I hope they'll do that too. So yeah, I think just to encourage the moms who maybe had a vision or a dream of how it would be and who may be feeling disappointed or like, should I make these kids work in the garden? I just say it is impacting them and it just may not be always so visible.
00:50:30
Speaker
Um, so yeah, my kids, uh, you know, I have one or two that are more helpful than the others. Um, I do pay my sons to help me out, you know, especially now that they're bigger and stronger and I enjoy working with them, but you know, I have to, I have to give them the cash to, to make it worth their while. Um, but just having this place where we can be, um, even if they're just out playing with the dog and I'm weeding, um, it's.
00:50:54
Speaker
it's worth it because we're immersed in beauty together. So I actually sometimes tell my kids like, oh, I can't wait one day to see the garden that you grow. I can't wait to come to your house and help you in your garden.
00:51:08
Speaker
I love that. So your children are older. My daughter is nine. And so we're at that phase where I know she sees what I'm doing. She's not super interested, but yet when it comes to the fragrances, I potted up some daffodils inside the house and I forced them and they're blooming right now.
00:51:27
Speaker
And it's Sir Winston Churchill and they smell amazing. And I watched her the other day. She was eating her food and then she stands up at the table and they're right in the center of the table and she just takes a big whiff of them and closes her eyes. And I was thinking someday she's going to smell daffodils and think back to mom's garden.
00:51:46
Speaker
And at this point, I don't try and force it. I would love to have her more involved, but when she wants to and she's inspired, I'll let her grab scissors and she can harvest a bouquet and we give her a little space in the garden that's her garden. But some of the best things we do are just go around and look at the connections in the garden.
00:52:07
Speaker
we look for the ladybugs and we look for the praying mantis egg sacs and she releases the beneficials with me to do her part in knowing how she is helping the garden grow. But I think as you were talking about all of this, I was in my mind thinking,
00:52:26
Speaker
Our children maybe aren't super excited, but like you said, they're watching and it's like metaphorically, those roots are being planted and they're growing, but just like a plant, those roots grow really slowly. Right. Right. And I just see that happening. And that analogy just came to my mind. So thank you for sharing that. That was a good reminder.
Influence on the Next Generation
00:52:50
Speaker
I could even sort of testify for my own family. So my father was a gardener. He had, he and my mom had four kids, just like I have four. And none of us helped him in the garden. None of us were interested. And he still talks about that. He still will say, none of your kids were interested. None of you helped me out. But all four of us today garden in some way. We all grow things, you know, to different, in different ways, different abilities, different places, but we are all gardeners.
00:53:17
Speaker
And I think that speaks to just the power of being immersed in a garden, even if, as kids, we weren't that interested. I feel like the odds of all four of us doing this, that can't be a coincidence. And I know it's because we grew up in our father's garden.
00:53:34
Speaker
Absolutely. I know my love for gardening stems from my mom's garden and my aunt and uncle, they grew tons of cut flowers. My mom had more of a, she was never a master gardener, but I thought of her garden in that way where it was always perfectly landscaped and
00:53:50
Speaker
beautiful and had lots of color everywhere and she spent tons of time caring for it and nurturing it and I didn't really think of it until I had my own land that I was able to nurture and it just it was rooted in me that I I craved it and so I think that's a beautiful lesson and
00:54:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's like, if we look at it this way, we're satisfying hungers in them that they may not even realize that they have. But when they grow up and leave, they will be hungry for flowers, hungry for beauty, hungry for plants. And they'll know that that is a hunger that can be satisfied because they've seen it. And that will give them confidence. I know it's the only thing that gave me confidence to say yes to my friend when she invited me to garden with her in that community garden. I think otherwise, I just would have assumed, oh, no, I don't know how to do that. No.
00:54:37
Speaker
But I knew, oh, that is a possible thing. Okay. You know, let's see. So I, yeah, so I have hope for my own kids. I love that. That seed once sown has given you all this hope and connection and wholeness in your life that ties right back into your book. So we've talked a lot about your book today. Christie, if people want to now go and get your book, where can they find it?
00:55:04
Speaker
Yeah, well, anywhere books are sold. So of course it's in the usual places like Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com and all those places. So you can find it there. If they want to keep up with me, I've got a website, ChristiPurifoy.com. I'm easy to find. Or if they just want to see my garden, of course I'm on Instagram. And yes, I hope people will find the books. Before I was a gardener, I was a reader and a book lover.
00:55:34
Speaker
And it has been just the privilege of my life to work with a publishing team who creates such beautiful books. So as a writer, I can control that part of it and the photographs, of course, but I can't control cover design and end papers. And yet I'm just blown away with what they've created. I mean, the botanical drawings on the end papers, they're just
00:55:56
Speaker
beautiful objects, the way that a bouquet is a beautiful work of art to behold. So I just am filled with gratitude that I get to share these books with the world. So thank you for inviting me here and helping me to spread the word because we need more flowers and I think we need more beautiful books in this world for sure.
00:56:16
Speaker
I agree. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you today, and I will provide links in today's show notes to your social media website and your book links as well. You also are the host of a podcast. You didn't mention that. Do you want to share a little bit about your podcast?
00:56:34
Speaker
Yeah, so every Wednesday out of the Ordinary podcast, a longtime friend and I, Lisa Jo Baker, we met actually back in Chicago about the time I started gardening. We have both ended up as writers and authors and five years ago.
00:56:49
Speaker
She said, we have such great conversations when we're together. I feel like we should share them with more people. So for five years now, we have been sharing conversations. And it's really just two friends at the table talking about ordinary life and how extraordinary it is, really, that everything good and extraordinary has its roots, quite literally, in just our daily ordinary lives. And so we're just all about celebrating.
00:57:13
Speaker
the goodness of ordinary life. And I'm just talking about everything under the sun. So yeah, you can find out the ordinary podcasts on you know, any of the podcasts, apps and platforms. And it's been really fun these years to share our friendship and our conversations with a whole audience of listeners. And yeah, so that's, that's one more place where where I can be found every Wednesday.
00:57:36
Speaker
I love that. I look forward to checking it out myself. I listen to lots of podcasts in the garden as I'm working out in the field. It's perfect for gardening, isn't it? Yep. Audio books and podcasts just make gardening even that much more fun, I think. It's one of the joys of my time out in the field, for sure. Well, Christy, it's been such a joy to chat with you today. Before we say goodbye, is there any partying advice or last minute advice that you would like to give to our listeners today?
00:58:06
Speaker
Oh, don't give up. Sow those seeds. You know, I definitely end each gardening season with a bit of tiredness and discouragement, but here we are coming around on another spring and everything's going to wake up again. So anyone who's still feeling that tiredness, I just really want to say it is worth it. Keep going and we're cheering for you and we can't wait to see the flowers that you'll grow.
00:58:33
Speaker
I love it. Yes, we are definitely cheering for all of you because the world needs more joy and more hope. So thank you so much for joining us. And maybe the next time you're ready to release your next garden book or your garden journal, we can have you back on the podcast to talk about it. Let's do it. I would love that so much. Thank you. Thank you. You have a wonderful day. We'll talk again soon.
00:59:00
Speaker
Thank you Flower Friends for joining us on another episode of the Backyard Bouquet. I hope you've enjoyed the inspiring stories and valuable gardening insights we've shared today. Whether you're cultivating your own backyard blooms or supporting your local flower farmer, you're contributing to the local flower movement, and we're so happy to have you growing with us.
00:59:21
Speaker
If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers, don't forget to subscribe to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave us a review of this episode. And finally, please share this episode with your garden friends. Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard.