[00:00:00] Deanna Kitchen: welcome back to the podcast. I am so glad you're here with us today. I know today's conversation is just gonna be, uh, a place of encouragement and just a really cool opportunity for learning more about how our gardens can serve us as a tool in self-care and wellness.
[00:00:18] Deanna Kitchen: I am thrilled to welcome Elizabeth Brown today. Elizabeth is the author of "The Beginner's Cut Flower Garden," and is also a therapeutic horticulturist, so I'm really excited to dig in and learn more about this role, especially today, and get to dive into all things flowers and wellness and connection, and how they all go together so beautifully.
[00:00:42] Deanna Kitchen: Elizabeth, welcome. Thank you for being here with us today.
[00:00:45] Elizabeth Brown: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here and talk with you. , I'm sure you know, you didn't mention in the beginning, but I was a Growing Kindness ambassador, and that was so important to my early journey in growing flowers. , Going through that program and learning to grow dahlias really built my confidence and helped me to realize how much I loved growing and gifting flowers.
[00:01:11] Elizabeth Brown: So I have you to thank for that, and the program, so that's wonderful.
[00:01:15] Deanna Kitchen: Oh my goodness, that's incredible that tie back, and thank you for sharing that with us all. And one of those things like, yeah, I, I remember that that's kind of where our stories, our paths first crossed and we were connected. So that was way back in '21, '22?
[00:01:30] Elizabeth Brown: I think so. I think it was kind of right after everyone was sort of poking their heads out from the pandemic, but it was still happening. So i- it was a really sort of, as we all remember, up and down time. and so for me, growing flowers was really helpful during that process, which I think is how truly I stumbled upon Growing Kindness because we were all just at home, right?
[00:01:57] Elizabeth Brown: I was at home sort of like, "What do I do with my children? What do I do with my spare time?" Um, and, uh, I think probably through social media I found out about it and thought, "Oh, this, this, I really wanna do this." I had gotten back into gardening and tending some of the perennials that were long neglected in my yard.
[00:02:16] Elizabeth Brown: Um, but I really didn't know much about seasonal cut flowers. And so that, uh... the classes that I took through the program really gave me the confidence to go out and try growing things.
[00:02:27] Deanna Kitchen: That's amazing. I guess I didn't fully realize that your flower-growing journey began with Growing Kindness. So that really... You've made tremendous growth in... I mean, that was only what? Like four, four or five years ago. That's incredible. So really, I mean, I was gonna ask you kind of what was happening in your life when you first started growing flowers, but this was it.
[00:02:50] Deanna Kitchen: You were in the thick of the pandemic, figuring out what mothering and as home educating your children looked like in that time, figuring out what self-care looked like in that time. That's really incredible that the beginning of your story starts there. I love that.
[00:03:06] Elizabeth Brown: It, it was... You know, it started really small, and so I think when I talk to people about growing cut flowers, that's one of the things that I say is that in a really small bed, you can grow so many flowers of certain types that we call cut-and-come-again blooms, like dahlias being, of course, a great one for it.
[00:03:26] Elizabeth Brown: Um, so you don't have to start by tearing up your whole backyard, and I, I definitely did not. I started with tiny raised bed, then long rows. And then to add to the conversation, what sort of happened was I ended up suddenly losing my father during the period of growing flowers in the pandemic. And I just-- I would jokingly call my garden my grief garden, and I just started growing flowers and kept my head in the soil, and it was sort of the space I went to privately mourn, um, and remind myself of the beauty in the world and the beauty of the community I lived in.
[00:04:08] Elizabeth Brown: And so a lot of the first flowers we gifted were for people in our community who had, you know, been help to my dad along the years and, and our family, 'cause we grow up in a very small-knit community that I live in now with my own family. So anyone who has lived in a small, tight-knit town, I'm sure that resonates with you, that, that you know everyone, right?
[00:04:30] Elizabeth Brown: You know the postman, you know all the teachers, you know all the doctors, you know all, all the people in town. Um, and so the garden became a space for me to really celebrate the beauty of community and, uh, all the people who I had grown up with throughout the years, um, who had been a great support to me.
[00:04:49] Elizabeth Brown: So that was sort of the real feel-good message behind the garden. But then the other thing that happened was people started noticing I was growing cut flowers and, uh, we live in a very seasonal town in Maine that hosts a lot of weddings. So all of a sudden, these really wonderful local florists started, um, reaching out to me saying, "Hey, I noticed you were growing X dahlia, and I need this color," or, "Would you be interested in growing this?"
[00:05:19] Elizabeth Brown: And so pretty quickly, I was able to create a direct channel to florists who are looking for certain types of flowers that, um, I was willing to grow or trial and that they found would be reliable, uh, because they knew where I lived. They could just knock on my door and say, "Hey, can I pick five of the Cornell Bronze dahlias while you're eating dinner?"
[00:05:42] Elizabeth Brown: "Sure. Here's some snips." So it became a very sort of community-oriented, um, enormous cut flower garden, I would say.
[00:05:51] Deanna Kitchen: Amazing. Okay, so just from the gardener perspective now, I'm sure, I'm sure I'm not the only one dying to hear. Tell us more about what your garden looks like now, you know, having started with a single raised bed, what, you know, six-- Is it really? In some ways, isn't that a time warp? Like when we think, "Oh, COVID was six years ago," which it feels like yesterday and forever ago in the same breath.
[00:06:16] Elizabeth Brown: agree.
[00:06:17] Deanna Kitchen: Yeah. So that's, that's quite a journey. I'd love to hear more about what your garden looks like now.
[00:06:23] Elizabeth Brown: Yeah. So I-- we live, um, in, like I said, a really small town in coastal Maine, and I live in an old farmhouse, uh, which I think is part of why things are so successful, 'cause the soil here has to be great. And, uh, the plot of land is all aligned perfectly with the sun. So I definitely had some help in that regard with just the landscape.
[00:06:46] Elizabeth Brown: Um, we have a perennial garden. I've always been a gardener, I would say. Ever since I was a kid, we had flowers and veggies and all sorts of things. Uh, so it started with tending to the perennial garden, throwing in a few seeds, seeing what might be able to work as cut flowers, and then that feeling of, "Well, I wanna cut some things, but I wanna keep some things here."
[00:07:09] Elizabeth Brown: So creating designated beds as cut flowers. And so now what that looks like is we have sort of our family garden, which is the perennial garden right off the kitchen. And if ever I try to cut flowers from there, my husband's usually knocking at the window like, "No, this is not
[00:07:26] Deanna Kitchen: Leave those ones alone.
[00:07:28] Elizabeth Brown: is the family garden." Uh, and then beyond that, um, I have probably 20 rows of three by anywhere from 15 to 20 where I grow cut flowers there. Um, some of the beds last year, about a quarter of them, over the past two years, I've been turning over to more native flowers and kind of experimenting with what would work well as a native plant that would be good as a cut flower.
[00:07:59] Elizabeth Brown: Um, and no shocker, a lot of them do because they are hardy blooms that have wonderful, uh, vase life. So a lot of the garden is experimenting. And this year, as I've shifted more toward writing and promoting the book, I'm sticking with cla- the classics, right? Like cosmos, zinnias, dahlias, things that are super easy to grow.
[00:08:22] Elizabeth Brown: Um, and also still experimenting with different types of perennials. So something that kind of keeps my mind interested in the big science experiment that is the garden.
[00:08:33] Deanna Kitchen: I love that we all bring our personalities into the garden, right? I think that there, there are those, um, of us who are, you know, that kind of type B, like, "Let's just throw some things in the ground and then move them around and see what happens." And the, the joy of waiting to see what's gonna come, you know, is, is so rewarding.
[00:08:54] Deanna Kitchen: And then there's those of us that bring, like, a type A personality. We're like, "I-- This is a great big science experiment. It brings me tremendous joy, you know, to watch cause and effect and see what the data, you know, looks like, and tr-trial things and experiment." And it's so lovely that gardening welcomes us all into that space and fulfills, um, meets that need in us all where-wherever it is that we're coming to gardening from.
[00:09:22] Elizabeth Brown: Yeah, that's such a good point. And I always think too, as far as, you know, type of personality, but you're-- like you're saying, but also your general interests. So if you are someone who's interested in experimenting for scientific purposes, it can, it can be an incubator for that. Or if you're someone who's a creative and you wanna grow flowers for natural dyes or drying, or you're intrigued by flowers for teas or medicinal or edible, any sort of interest you have can be held in a garden.
[00:09:54] Elizabeth Brown: And so being-- A lot of what I talk to folks about is finding what garden works for them, um, finding what brings them joy in their day-to-day life. Of course, we can all look at what other people are growing, and that's really helpful. But sort of figuring out how is my garden going to nourish me and my creativity and my interests, and by extension, my family and my community?
[00:10:20] Elizabeth Brown: All those are really big questions that make a garden uniquely yours when you answer them.
[00:10:26] Deanna Kitchen: I love that so much. I think that in-- it's beautiful and inspiring to see how much attention has come back to growing cut flowers and how many resources there are, and how many thousands of people there are out there doing it in their own way and sharing that story on social media. And in the same breath, I think it creates a unspoken, um, sense of expectation of this is the way to do it, or this is the way-- this is what success looks like in gardening.
[00:10:58] Deanna Kitchen: And I love th-those questions that you ask because I think we can really quickly get down a rabbit trail of comparison or expectation, either put- that we're putting on ourselves so that we maybe feel from others about what our g-garden could or should be. And in that process, it ceases to be what we actually started it for in the beginning or what we need most from it.
[00:11:25] Elizabeth Brown: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, yeah, you're right. And I-- this reminds me, I had a friend recently who we had befriended each other on social media. She loved gardening as well, so the first time she came over to my garden She sort of said later, "Oh, I was so relieved that you had weeds and that you were sort of walking around saying, 'This didn't take, and I thought this would do better, but meh.'"
[00:11:47] Elizabeth Brown: You know, she said, "From the images on social media, it seemed like your garden was gonna be so perfect and curated," and it, it isn't. It can be. Certain times of day, you know, or a w- a given week in the season when I've weeded and the sunlight is hitting it just right, it's stunning. But there are many times I walk out there and think, "What is happening out here?"
[00:12:10] Elizabeth Brown: But, but it's more to me, gardening is more an act of actually physically being out there in the soil versus what you produce. Um, it, it's the act of returning to the earth and slowing down and pausing and taking that moment, that beat for yourself to take a deep breath and be outdoors. That's the, the magic of gardening, I think.
[00:12:33] Deanna Kitchen: Absolutely. Well, that leads me to asking, 'cause I'm dying to know more about your work as a therapeutic horticulturist. Um, what-- uh, obviously what a journey, you know, you've been on, and it's brought you to this and to becoming an author now and inspiring, encouraging others in being able to go-- get out and grow cut flowers.
[00:12:55] Deanna Kitchen: Can you share more about, um, the-- what, what a therapeutic hor-horticulturist does and how you came to that
[00:13:08] Elizabeth Brown: therapeutic horticulture is something that I think we intrinsically all understand. We all know we feel better in the garden, and beyond that, there's plenty of scientific studies that show it's better for you. Um, that's why they have gardens in hospitals.
[00:13:23] Elizabeth Brown: There was actually a really wonderful study done on nurses during the COVID pandemic where they had some nurses just take their regular snack break or breaks within the hospital, and then others who took those breaks sort of out in a, in a green space. And you know, of course tho- we know, right? The nurses who took, uh, the breaks in the green space, their stress levels were more reduced.
[00:13:45] Elizabeth Brown: So we seem to understand that being in the garden and being green, green spaces is good for our health, and that at least in the United States, it's not something that's very often integrated into either how we design our own home garden or different treatment modalities for people. Um, my background is in healthcare.
[00:14:07] Elizabeth Brown: I'm an audiologist, so I work with patients who have hearing loss. Uh, and so my mind is always leaning toward this really science-based, but why, and where's the data to prove it? And I think my own personal experience as someone who has dealt with anxiety and depression most of my life, I couldn't wrap my head around why during the absolute sadness and chaos of the pandemic
[00:14:33] Deanna Kitchen: role in your life? Mm-hmm.
[00:14:33] Elizabeth Brown: Why I was feeling okay, and the only thing I could point to was the amount of time I was spending in the garden.
[00:14:40] Elizabeth Brown: Because besides that, nothing ha- had really changed, you know? Um, I had my same therapist. I was doing all these same wellness things. I was meditating still. I, I was doing all these different things that I had always done, but suddenly I felt markedly better, and it became really obvious to me it was because of the time I spent in the garden.
[00:15:01] Elizabeth Brown: And when I began researching it, I found out, yeah, there's all this science to prove it. And that's when I learned about, you know, the thera- therapeutic uses of horticulture. So there are sort of two avenues of studies in the US. One is therapeutic horticulture, and to be completely confusing, the other one is horticulture therapy.
[00:15:21] Elizabeth Brown: And the latter is very much more clinical in nature. And so what I mean by that is someone with horticulture therapy has a little bit more training. They do usually a year of sort of guided, um, uh, hours overseen. And then oftentimes these are people like physical therapists or people who work within hospital settings who are working this into a clinical plan for an individual patient where it's a measurable clinical thing.
[00:15:51] Elizabeth Brown: Therapeutic horticulture, I would say, is a little more freewheeling in that you still have to go through training, so I did that at the University of North Carolina. It was a two-year program. But it's more meant to impact bigger, broader groups of people and be more group-focused versus individually patient goal-focused.
[00:16:11] Elizabeth Brown: So that might look like going into a senior center and sitting with people and helping them make pressed flowers cards. It might look like going into a school and helping them design a sensory garden and leading children in meditation, where you're not singling out individual people, but you have this general goal for the betterment of a, of a group.
[00:16:38] Elizabeth Brown: Um, and so that was something that I really liked the idea of because I wanted to mostly learn how this could impact the home gardener. If we approached your garden by looking at it as a spot for healing, how would we change what we're planting in our garden? What if I sat down and asked you, you know, "What's your day-to-day life like?
[00:17:00] Elizabeth Brown: Are you... What would you like to see changed? Are you someone who's stressed? What if we put things in the garden that smell really nice?" And what if we have that conversation where there's all sorts of different herbs in front of you, and you put your nose to them, and we kinda measure, how does that feel while you're experiencing the smell of lavender?
[00:17:18] Elizabeth Brown: And would growing that and cutting it and bringing it into your home be really meaningful to you? So those are the ways I see it interacting in my practice as a gardener and planning gardens with folks. Sort of looking at the garden beyond, "Oh, this is a pretty cosmo and it'll look lovely in a vase," and more about the overall general wellbeing that you can derive from a garden.
[00:17:42] Deanna Kitchen: I feel like I have, I, I have tears in my eyes right now, and I think it's just because, um, I feel like you just named really kind of at the heart of what Growing Kindness was always... You know, we don't, we don't, I have never put the word, you know, um, therapeutic horticulture on it, but really that was always our hope is that we could help people by getting them out into the garden.
[00:18:03] Deanna Kitchen: And then the second layer of helping people to, uh, build connections for themselves, but also strengthen their communities by giving flowers. But personally for me, I wish, I wish I could have had your voice In, in your book and your, your wisdom. In my life, I would say it would probably been about 16 years ago, because I knew that gardening was something that was nourishing me, but I felt this tremendous amount of pressure that it needed to produce, it needed to earn money.
[00:18:40] Deanna Kitchen: Um, a-and maybe on a deeper level, like I needed to prove myself, um, like I'm good at this. Um, and, and m-maybe, maybe it's just me, maybe just my personality and that I felt that kind of external pressure of, you know, like if you really, if you're really doing something worthwhile and you're really good at it, you know, you can turn it into a business.
[00:19:08] Deanna Kitchen: When really what my heart needed all along was that my garden could be a place for healing and rest and nurturing myself, and then being a tool that I could use to nurture others. And I, I, I think there's such beautiful work, um, and opportunity for so many for their garden to become, you know, a sustainable, uh, profitable business.
[00:19:39] Deanna Kitchen: And in the same breath, I guess I wish I could go back and give myself that gift to say, "It's okay. It's enough for it to be just for you and just to share." It doesn't have to be a place where you go to hustle. It can be a place where you go to heal. And I, I love that there is this actual formal title and role and mission around that work that you're doing to help people be able to step out of percei- whether it's self-imposed or, you know, culturally imposed, like pressure for the garden to become something more than what you just need it to be for yourself.
[00:20:28] Elizabeth Brown: Yeah, that completely resonates with me as well. I don't think you're unique the way you described that, and I don't know why. I've thought about this from a million different angles You know, people say this a lot about a, a certain age group that everyone's taking their, uh, uh, side hobby and making it a hustle instead of just enjoying it.
[00:20:49] Elizabeth Brown: I don't know why I felt sort of inclined to do the same thing, because it started from a place of, "I wanna share these blooms with everyone." But then it also was sort of this perspective of, "If I'm spending so much time out here, I better have something to show for it." I d- and I don't know why. I d- I don't know why.
[00:21:10] Elizabeth Brown: Maybe because, you know, I'm a mother, and it felt indulgent in some ways to just be out there and feel so good. And why, why does that feel like there has to be some end result? Can't just being out there be the thing? I-- So I think that's what I really like about this idea of therapeutic horticulture. One of the things is, you know, constantly figuring out what's a realistic goal for somebody.
[00:21:39] Elizabeth Brown: You know, what are the tools we can give to somebody if they, um, you know, have difficulty reaching their arms or moving or something as simple as they don't have a lot of time, but they really wanna garden. Then just a pot with a few flowers in it is plenty, and there's nothing to feel bad about. You can be a gardener with one pot.
[00:22:03] Elizabeth Brown: There-- It doesn't have to be rows and rows of blooms. Uh, I always say too, you can just have the heart of a gardener. You can appreciate the natural world and love looking at gardens and experiencing flowers and perhaps not even having a garden yourself. Uh, so there's so many ways to be a gardener, and I'm glad you brought up this whole thing because I felt it so deeply of, "If I'm gonna have this garden, if I'm gonna spend so much time out there, I better have something to show for what I've done."
[00:22:35] Deanna Kitchen: Yeah. Yeah. For me, it's, it's just wild to have this conversation because that was very much-- I look back and I think in some ways, you know how they say that you create things that are the, the solution to the problem that you have, or they're the thing that you wish somebody would have given you. And I, I wish when I was, you know, just really digging into gardening and I, and at home with my two little boys at that point, um, I wished Growing Kindness had existed.
[00:23:05] Deanna Kitchen: Like, I just, I wanted, I wanted to feel this sense of purpose with what I was doing. Like, I wanted my garden to have purpose and be important. And almost in a way, like you said, it's almost like I couldn't just justify that, like, this is my time, this is my space, and just for the fact that it makes me really happy, that's enough.
[00:23:25] Deanna Kitchen: But, but I wanted it to have purpose beyond even that. Um, and I wish, I wish I would have had Growing Kindness at that point to say that you can use your garden as this really important, meaningful tool in helping others and helping yourself. Um, but I think there is that sense that may- maybe as, as moms and as women, this, like, feeling of like, I can't take away from, you know, like, my family's income by investing, you know, like, it feels like an extravagant expense, you know, to buy seeds or buy tuber-- Well, tubers are always an extravagant expense.
[00:24:06] Deanna Kitchen: But, but, you know, just it, it felt maybe indulgent instead of it felt- Um, justif- justified and important and meaningful. And I d- I don't, I feel like I don't have maybe the words to have the answer for that yet, but just maybe if someone's listening today and sitting in this conversation for themselves as well, knowing that they aren't the only ones trying to kind of needle apart those threads of why, why we do what we do and, and what we want our gardens to be for us and, and what they become, and then how do we bring that back to the place of it being a place of healing.
[00:24:41] Deanna Kitchen: And I think the most, um, kind of eye-opening moment for me, I was talking with, um, someone who is a very avid gardener, and she had been through some significant, um, losses, and she said, "The garden is the place where I go to heal." And this was several years into me, um, you know, my garden becoming like a si- a side hustle.
[00:25:06] Deanna Kitchen: And I just remember it was kind of a mic drop moment for me because I realized my garden is a place where I go to hustle now, and I wanted that back. And so for me, that looked like stepping back from the business model I was in and actually kind of shifting away from that. Not to say that that's the answer for, you know, p- perhaps anybody else, but for me it was.
[00:25:29] Deanna Kitchen: Like, I needed to go back to the garden being the place where I could use that for my own rest and healing and calm and quiet, and not feeling like it was just like one more thing to have to perform in and to improve in. Um, yeah.
[00:25:48] Elizabeth Brown: Completely. Yeah. And, and that's how the garden started for me too. It was this place, I almost think You know, especially with both of us understanding this as we were both mothers with young children at the time, it was a spot I could trick myself into self-care that everything else felt like, you know, something else, like a yoga class.
[00:26:08] Elizabeth Brown: I, I know this sounds silly, but like the idea of like, okay, on a Saturday morning, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna leave my family, I'm gonna be away for an hour and a half. I completely understood it was important for me because I felt good after and, and it made me a better mom. But something about, oh, I'm just going out into the garden and feeling like I was beautifying the home or growing flowers for so-and-so's birthday, or...
[00:26:34] Elizabeth Brown: It was almost like I tricked myself into thinking it wasn't truly self-care, even though it was. You
[00:26:40] Deanna Kitchen: It's like that was the permission slip that we needed to give ourselves that you can do this. It's okay. I love that so
[00:26:47] Elizabeth Brown: I remember probably, you know, what a really interesting thing for me would be when the kids started waking up and running out into the garden to meet me in the morning, and what a better head space I was in if I had spent a half hour or 45 minutes quiet in the day getting my strength and my, you know, sipping my coffee slowly.
[00:27:13] Elizabeth Brown: And I thought how magical for them as well that they'll remember summer mornings waking up and running out barefoot into the garden. So it benefited all of us, definitely. Uh, and again, it, it, those were the years I was, you know, for a few years I was growing lots and lots of flowers and doing CSAs and selling them to florists directly.
[00:27:36] Elizabeth Brown: Uh, and so it was still fun, but there was definitely the pressure of, oh gosh, are these lisianthus gonna open for that wedding, and, and things like that. So that's part of why I've stepped back a little from that production as well, for the same reasons you're talking, that I enjoy experimenting with flowers, explaining to people how I've grown them, and showing them the magic and simplicity of creating a home garden for beauty's sake, uh, and, and how easy it can be.
[00:28:05] Deanna Kitchen: Absolutely. And I think I just wanna hit on what you shared about that, that piece of when we take care of ourselves, it puts us in a place to be better able to take care of those around us. And I think that is one of the most beautiful and impactful things that happens in the process and act of gardening, is we've gone out and, and filled our own cup, and then we can pour out to others.
[00:28:28] Deanna Kitchen: And I think that growing flowers is such a even more, um, impactful way to put that into practice because that going out and nurturing the garden, then we're re-rewarded with these beautiful blooms that then we can actually tangibly, you know, use as a tool to reach out and care for others. And so I guess maybe, maybe, uh, this conversation as-- I love that the way our conversations just unfold as they're supposed to, 'cause I think really these topics are something that we don't really talk about enough, um, and are so important.
[00:29:00] Deanna Kitchen: But that that piece of that taking care of ourselves enables us to take better care of others. It's not a self-indulgence, you know. It really is so important, and I just think that work that you're doing as a therapeutic horticulturist to help peop- bring people back, you know, to those key questions about why they're gardening and what they need their garden to be, can have such a, create such a powerful shift in how we move forward in our gardens.
[00:29:30] Deanna Kitchen: So it's really interesting and, and empowering to get to hear about that.
[00:29:36] Elizabeth Brown: and I, I think a lot of people are afraid to garden if they hadn't, haven't in a while. Um, and many of the cut flowers that we talk about are pretty easy to grow. And if you buy a packet of seeds and you put four seeds in a pot and they don't germinate, just put four more in. You know? It, it is a really affordable and stress-free way to start versus, you know, sometimes you buy a perennial or a shrub, and those can be quite expensive.
[00:30:07] Elizabeth Brown: And that was sort of how I started with annuals because I thought, "Okay, if this all goes horribly wrong, it's been my time and maybe $20." You know? Uh, and, and so I think if anyone is listening and they haven't gardened, they just love the idea of gardening, know that, you know, zinnias, cosmos, dahlias, again, these are, like, the three big heavy hitters that are pretty easy to grow in any climate and very forgiving.
[00:30:33] Elizabeth Brown: And that the m- the trick to gardening, I always think, is just observing what's in front of you, which again, is really, uh, beneficial to your mental health. If you take the time every morning to step outside, take a deep breath of fresh air, and observe your plants, uh, it really settles you, and you begin to know them and take better care of them.
[00:30:55] Elizabeth Brown: They become your little children. I have conversations with my flowers all the time.
[00:30:59] Deanna Kitchen: Isn't it so beautiful though? Because I think sometimes we think, "I don't need one more thing to take care of." You know, I think that's why I hear people say like, "I don't want a houseplant. Like, I don't need one more thing to take care of." And yet, the beauty of it is, is that taking care of it takes care of ourselves.
[00:31:15] Deanna Kitchen: Like, it gives back so much more. And I think that's why it's just such a powerful tool for our own wellbeing. I would love to hear more, you know, the work that you're doing now is helping people be able to create gardens that meet them, um, where they are and where they want to be. Uh, what's your advice for someone, uh, aside from get a pot and put a few seeds in and just go for it, what other advice would you have for someone who's listening who may be either considering starting their first garden or is in those first years where things are just, there's so much trial and error?
[00:31:51] Deanna Kitchen: What are some of the mistakes that you see beginning gardeners make that you would love to keep them from?
[00:31:59] Elizabeth Brown: So, uh, I think a few things. I really, in a big portion of the beginning of my book, is finding inspiration for your garden, creating a garden that is really unique to you and heart-centric to you. And that might look like finding a flower that reminds you of someone, or finding a flower that when you smell it, you think of a particular time or a happy occasion.
[00:32:27] Elizabeth Brown: Um, looking at works of art you enjoy and pulling out colors that speak to you, or closing your eyes and thinking of your grandmother's garden and what was she growing. Creating a list of those flowers and letting that inspire and excite you, and not get so held or bogged down by, "How am I gonna plant it?
[00:32:48] Elizabeth Brown: Do I have sun? Do I have shade?" All those really sort of unromantic elements of gardening, um, that can sort of make you lose your steam. Really sort of soak into the ac- the inspirational beauty of a garden. And then I think the hardest part if you've never gardened before, narrow down your list just to five flowers.
[00:33:10] Elizabeth Brown: Probably y- if I was going to go back in time, I'd probably pick three, truly. Because by looking and observing those flowers up close, like I mentioned before, by taking the time every morning, pressing your thumb into the soil, seeing if it's too dry or too moist, or rubbing your fingers along the leaves and seeing if they're wilting at all, you will, within a season, become an expert on that flower, and you will grow it beautifully for decades to come.
[00:33:38] Elizabeth Brown: But the number one mistake I made was going into a greenhouse without a plan, filling up my cart with a million things that looked pretty, getting home and saying, "Oh no, where do I plant this all?" Then, you know, looking around and saying, "Oh, I forgot to finish planting those." Then it's sitting out in this black, you know, container waiting to be planted, and me feeling guilty, and then getting so overwhelmed and saying, "I don't have time for any of this."
[00:34:04] Elizabeth Brown: So I think sometimes especially, we, we sort of go overboard the first few years And get really excited about all different types of flowers and probably buy too much and cut too much off, you know, put too much on our plate. So really being honest with yourself about what would make you happy to see in your garden, uh, focusing on three to five flowers and being realistic too about the time you have.
[00:34:33] Elizabeth Brown: It's okay if you only have five minutes a day to tend to a garden. Th- that'll work. But maybe don't go beyond a couple of pots on your doorstep. Or if you have more like a half hour every day, you know, a raised three by six bed. If you have hours and hours to give, maybe dip in a little bit more than that.
[00:34:50] Elizabeth Brown: But just be really realistic with yourself about where you can start, and don't feel bad that that's where you can start, because just beginning is, is an amazing step.
[00:35:00] Deanna Kitchen: I love that advice so much. I, I know that I share this quote probably ad nauseam. I honestly don't know if there's been an episode yet where I haven't shared it, but I just think it's so applicable. But Arthur Ashe said, "Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can." And I think so many times we take things that are joyful and life-giving, and we turn them into something that actually is just, it's draining and overwhelming because we, we jump in in a way that requires so much more than we actually have to give, whether that's time or resources.
[00:35:39] Deanna Kitchen: And there's all the benefits, like you said, all the benefits of gardening are ours, even from a single flower pot. And even all the joy of giving flowers are ours and accessible. You can give one single, you know, bloom at a time and just Give single stems all season long and get to enter into that joy and connection that happens in giving flowers, and it's joyful instead of overwhelming.
[00:36:04] Deanna Kitchen: So I really, really love... Again, where-- I need, I needed your, I needed your book 20 years ago, um, because I think we tend to, you know, look around and look at all these people who are doing this really well, but they may be doing it in a different way. And, you know, we'll hear all the advice and, and wisdom about, you know, grow X amount of focal flowers and X amount of filler flowers and, and grow this and grow that.
[00:36:31] Deanna Kitchen: And that's great if your intention is that you need to produce X amount of bouquets for a market. But if your garden just needs to be the space where you're finding joy, start with three to five. Like, it's so simple, and I think it can profoundly change people's experience, especially if they haven't gardened yet, that it keeps it joyful and not overwhelming to just start so simply.
[00:36:55] Deanna Kitchen: So thank you for that advice. I hope that lots of people hearing this today, that saves them from maybe some of, um, the overwhelm that you and I both had to experience as, as growing gardeners ourselves.
[00:37:08] Elizabeth Brown: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the same with even m- more experienced gardeners who are maybe looking to add more native plants, right? Like, we all know native plants are better for the, the planet. We know that. Uh, but it can be really overwhelming if you look at your garden and think, "Is this a native? Is this a cultivar?
[00:37:26] Elizabeth Brown: What, what's happening? When it..." Same thing. Just pick one plant. Just find, research one truly native plant and just start there. And then who knows? Maybe in five years you'll have this incredible, completely only native plant garden. But I think same thing, the more pressure we put on ourselves for our garden to be a certain way, which obviously is so reflective of sometimes how we can treat ourselves and, uh, uh, in the, in our day-to-day life.
[00:37:55] Elizabeth Brown: Like, let it be this place to just be so easy on yourself. And the magic is that Mother Nature will just take care of the rest, and you can just kick your feet up and smell the flowers, quite literally.
[00:38:08] Deanna Kitchen: Yes, yes. Amen to that. Oh my goodness, yes, 100%. I-- like I said, this is the conversation that I wish, um, would've been in the world for me even 20 years ago, and I hope that it's a help to someone who may be in these beginning stages as well. So, hang on, I'm gonna pause for a second. I could honestly just...
[00:38:27] Deanna Kitchen: This is-- I did not anticipate our conversation going this way, but this
[00:38:32] Elizabeth Brown: feel like I did
[00:38:33] Deanna Kitchen: like,
[00:38:34] Elizabeth Brown: you've...
[00:38:34] Deanna Kitchen: I, maybe I needed this personally for me to just know, like, so many of us, I think, sit in that place where we put so much pressure on
[00:38:43] Elizabeth Brown: Oh, yeah.
[00:38:43] Deanna Kitchen: the gard- like, we've gotta perform, you know? It's gotta be another thing that we do well instead of just letting it be, you know?
[00:38:51] Deanna Kitchen: What a, what a lesson to us.
[00:38:53] Elizabeth Brown: Yeah, and maybe it won't go well, and that's okay, right? Because I always think in other parts of your life, like, you know, especially with parenting, we want to do our best with that all the time, and that is a huge stress. If I make a big parenting mistake, that weighs heavily on me, and everyone does.
[00:39:15] Elizabeth Brown: If I make a mistake and my scabiosa don't come up, uh, it's not that big of a deal.
[00:39:20] Deanna Kitchen: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:23] Elizabeth Brown: It, it, the, how beautiful a garden can be even when you make really poor mistakes, it, that, that is always magic to me as well.
[00:39:34] Deanna Kitchen: Ah, yeah, I cannot agree more. Um, okay, I'm like, shoot, looking at the time. I guess we probably have to start kind of like winding down, but I wanna make sure that we really gave people, um... Yeah, we talked about...
[00:39:52] Deanna Kitchen: Sorry, just taking a minute. Um, well, I, I, I would love, Elizabeth, um, to help people get to connect with the work that you are doing and the wisdom that you have shared, um, in, in your book. How, how are the way-- Or like I said, no words today. Great that I'm podcasting. Um, I would love for people to get to continue to hear your voice and hear this perspective.
[00:40:23] Deanna Kitchen: I think it's so important in the gardening world right now. What are the ways that people can continue learning from you or dig in even to some of the wisdom that you've shared in your book?
[00:40:35] Elizabeth Brown: So obviously you could get a copy of the book, which is sold wherever books are sold, and it is called "The Beginner's Cut Flower Garden" by me, Elizabeth Brown, um, published through the wonderful Timber Press. Um, so I always like to plug local bookstores because local-- I, I like local flowers, I like local food, I like local shopping. Of course, you can buy the book online, and that's very easy. But also, if you have a local bookstore, oftentimes they will order it, special order it for you really quickly. So you can buy it wherever books are sold. Um, and through that, part of the reason I created that book was based on the conversation we're having right now, that so many books I was reading were so heavily based on production, and for me, lost that magical, spiritual, healing feeling in a garden.
[00:41:24] Elizabeth Brown: So I was looking for the balance of how to grow flowers, but also how to really sink into how good it made me feel. And so that's where the book comes from. Um, and also I have a website, foxglovefarmhouse.com. On there, I have a video series which, um, is a lot of me just walking through my garden and going through how to start seeds, what are good flowers, um, how to put irrigation in.
[00:41:50] Elizabeth Brown: Sort of a lot of, um, visual-heavy things that I go over in the book. And the reason I did that is people learn all different ways. So some people learn best by physically seeing how I'm moving with my hands on things or planting things, whereas other people really like the tactile holding a book and having pages.
[00:42:08] Elizabeth Brown: So I have it in so many different ways because I fully, wholeheartedly believe the world needs more gardeners, and that anyone can grow flowers. And so you just have to start simply.
[00:42:21] Deanna Kitchen: Mm-hmm. Awesome. Um, oh, sorry. I'm really rusty today. Well, Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing all that information about how we can get in touch with you. We will also include it in the show notes below, so it makes it really easy for people to get connected with you and the work that you're doing, just helping bring us back to our why and helping bring us back to the tools that our gardens can be for healing ourselves.
[00:42:50] Deanna Kitchen: And then, and then in that and through that, being able to show up in a healthy and whole way for the people around us, and be able to give back in our communities even then through our gardens, so.
[00:43:04] Elizabeth Brown: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:43:07] Deanna Kitchen: Yep, absolutely. Okay, one thing I forgot to prep you on is that the last, the final question we do, we just kinda leave it, um, hanging. The goal anyways. Uh, this whole like the producing a podcast thing is so-- It's such a work in progress, and I keep, again, just like our garden, you know, we plant our garden, we're like, "Oh, that didn't work.
[00:43:24] Deanna Kitchen: I'll try again next time." Just trying to come at it with self-compassion for myself of like, "Hey, you've never done a podcast before." Like, we'll figure it out as we go.
[00:43:32] Elizabeth Brown: Oh, you're doing great. I feel like the whole thing with a podcast is to just be relatable, and you do that so naturally.
[00:43:38] Deanna Kitchen: Oh,
[00:43:39] Elizabeth Brown: so many people-- You, you're a good listener, and you're relatable to people, and I feel like that's the whole thing, you know?
[00:43:45] Deanna Kitchen: Thank you. I think I, I think I really, I, like, really needed this talk today. Thank you. Um, so to bring it all to a close, one of the things I've been trying to do is I love, I love leaving the podcast with you being the speaker, you know, 'cause really this is about your, your story, um, and your insight and wisdom.
[00:44:04] Deanna Kitchen: Um, and then also we do a really-- I think it just feels uplifting and encouraging to kind of we end on the same question every time. And when we time it right, it, we overlay it with this really, I don't know, I feel like it's very uplifting, encouraging kind of music kind of coming in the outro. Um, and so I won't like say a goodbye or anything, but we'll just kinda...
[00:44:25] Deanna Kitchen: I'll lead you into that question, and we'll leave on that question. So Elizabeth, thank you so much for being here with us today and reminding us all of the powerful tool that we have right outside our backdoors to help us be healthier and more whole and more able to, to take care of those, uh, who are around us.
[00:44:47] Deanna Kitchen: As we close the podcast today, um, I would love to hear from you: What is one small act of kindness that someone once shared with you that stays with you still today?
[00:45:00] Elizabeth Brown: Oh, that's such a great question. Um, you know, I think I'd have to say that, like so many of us, the moment you said that, I thought of my grandmother who had this Really beautiful garden. And not only did she grow flowers, but she painted from it. And, um, I had two incredible grandmothers actually, and both of them at various times, you know, brought me into their garden and showed me their craft, whether it be painting or gardening.
[00:45:32] Elizabeth Brown: And I always think of them when I'm gardening because they were mothers. They, they were humble people. They were beautiful souls, and their hearts just lit up in the garden. And when I'm in the garden, I feel that I'm with them. And so I'm grateful that they showed me this path all those years
[00:45:52] Deanna Kitchen: Okay, now I'm a little teary-eyed again because what, how full circle is this? How full circle that
[00:45:59] Elizabeth Brown: I
[00:45:59] Deanna Kitchen: now that this is the work that you're doing is
[00:46:02] Elizabeth Brown: Yeah, I was just
[00:46:03] Deanna Kitchen: you're doing this on a huge scale.
[00:46:05] Elizabeth Brown: Like, this is one of my grandmother's painting, but I have a painting that my grandmother did of me where I'm holding all these flowers and I'm wearing this floppy hat, and I'm in her garden, and I do think it is very full scale. I'm so grateful to them for being amazing women, which, you know, who ma- raised wonderful people, and then that lineage just goes on.
[00:46:26] Elizabeth Brown: So I feel very lucky.
[00:46:28] Deanna Kitchen: Yeah, for sure. I think sometimes, I don't know, maybe you feel this too, I think sometimes as a mom, uh, yeah, again, that pressure of like, I, I've gotta get this right. Uh, but also like I, I wanna lead my kids. I wanna leave them this legacy of like this is what it looks like, you know, to be kind, but to be gentle, but be strong, you know, all these things.
[00:46:52] Deanna Kitchen: And yet in the same breath when we think about the people who are that to us, they just did it in the most everyday, quiet, ordinary ways, right? Like Those, those-- That is where they led us. That is where their impact was, and I think that's such a powerful reminder to me to think about that and consider that too, that it really is as a mother, you know, in those mother, grandmother, auntie, neighbor, you know.
[00:47:20] Deanna Kitchen: Like, I wanna s- I wanna someday be the neighbor lady where, like, all the little kids come over and play in my garden, you know?
[00:47:26] Elizabeth Brown: Y- yes. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be any grand gesture. I mean, parenting is so hard now, all the expectations they put on us, and it's like, what are you... I mean, I remember feeling so loved when my mom made pot roast to like you know? It doesn't have to be anything out of the ordinary to be really good at these things.
[00:47:47] Elizabeth Brown: Yeah. How old are your kids now?
[00:47:50] Deanna Kitchen: big... My, my s- actually, on my way here, my, um, son just texted me. He just got hired for his first, like, real job. He graduates from high school in three, less than three weeks, and is off into the working world, which is just, like, I can't, I can't wrap my head around it. Um, and it's exciting, and it's hard, too.
[00:48:11] Deanna Kitchen: Like, there's this part, um, where just so much of parenting, you, this mourning that you're walking beside them becoming their own human being. And this, this season and this year particularly, I think is just they're stretching and growing and changing in so many ways. And it's not always easy and cookie cutter and fit in a box.
[00:48:34] Deanna Kitchen: Um, you know, they, that can be messy growth for them as well. But, um, yeah, so 18. Just turn... It's, it's a huge year for us as a family, 'cause my oldest is gra- our oldest is graduating, and then our middle just turned 16, got his driver's license. So, whole new season of life. I mean, it really does change when they start driving.
[00:48:55] Deanna Kitchen: I, I wish I would have known that more. I think we think, like, "Oh, I've got 18 years," but, like, I feel like it's more like, no, you've got 16, and then you've got this, like, two-year kind of like weaning period, um, where they're more and more independent and their, their own person. And then my littlest turns 13 on Sunday.
[00:49:15] Deanna Kitchen: So, I mean, it's a, it's a big milestone year. But remind me, your kiddos' ages?
[00:49:20] Elizabeth Brown: 14 and 12, so I'm a little behind you, but feeling in a similar way, like it's a different style of parenting. I was saying to someone recently, like in many ways I feel 90% off
