Horticulture For Healing

01/03/2023

We are very proud to be featured in the Horticultural Therapy Institute 's recent newsletter! Click the link to read Horticulture For Healing's program profile!

https://www.htinstitute.org/2022-fall-newsletter/ -profile

HTI Director's Note Program Profile: Plant Care is Self-Care Horticulture for Healing Tips for Practice & Faculty Profile: Pam Catlin: A Professional with Heart, Soul & Passion HTI Kudos

08/30/2022

Horticulture For Healing Friends! I’m excited to announce Horticulture For Healing relocated to Miami and we have re-activated our work in Florida!

❤️‍🩹 Thank you for your support and following us in 2020 & 2021. We are thrilled to be back in Florida to provide plants, plant-related activities and self care resources for people who are in a time of relocation, recovery and healing while in residential treatment, survivor homes and transitional housing residencies throughout Florida.

Can’t wait to share with you all the beautiful partnerships we will have this year!

🌿 Please check out H4H’s august 2022 Newsletter on our website and subscribe if you haven't already!

If you have a few moments to share this post or newsletter please help support & spread the word! 🌿❤️‍🩹✊🏽

07/28/2021

A powerful success story ! 💥💪🏾🌿

One of Horticulture For Healing’s intentions with our Plant Care is Self Care program is:

en re-entering society participants will be able to take their radical self care tools out into the world. These can be used as support in times of stress, strong emotional ups and downs, and navigating self care in recovery.

Last week I received a call from a woman that was in one of our partner treatment programs. She recently graduated from the 12 month program and was on a bus headed to Miami to enter into a transition home.

She wanted to tell me that she was only able to bring a certain amount of belongings including her Rabbit’s Foot Fern.

“Working with the plants that you brought to the center helped me so much while I was there.

Women were coming to me with their plants asking for assistance on watering, proper light, and where to keep them.

Through what I learned in your program I was able to help their plants live too.

I want to have a green space in my new room and through you I am now able to do that. I can take care of plants!”.

🌿

✊🏾

♥️

Another benefit to being a participant of Plant Care is Self Care:

She is now able to use Horticulture For Healing as a reference on employment applications. Reliable references can be something that one lacks upon reentering society when trying to find employment.

Our Plant Care Is Self Care Kits and workshops are designed to encourage and inspire healing individuals, allowing themselves permission to take pleasure in life within them and around them regardless of their life background, lived experiences, and the disadvantages created by oppressive societal norms.

It is essential we provide all marginalized people the tools necessary to counteract the stress and anxiety produced from their adversity when in a time of recovery and healing. 🌱 💚 💪🏾

07/13/2021

Horticulture For Healing’s latest newsletter and blog post just published !

If you haven’t signed up to receive our monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) newsletters you can do so by clicking on this link!

https://mailchi.mp/9651a541fc82/horticulture-for-healings-various-good-news-11196048

Filled with up-to-date information on Horticulture For Healing’s transition to a new city and community, photos and ways to connect.

July’s newsletter features my latest blog post : Connections Through Radical Self Care. I am honoured to highlight the work of an inspiring woman, Sufiyah Asia Yasmine, Earth Saylove

This blog post tells the story of how Earth Saylove and H4H founder Joanna met through their radical self care practice which led to a beautiful opportunity for collaboration and support.

Earth Saylove produces and hosts The Jazz Flower which airs on Fridays 6-8 EST on Maine Public

🎶🎧🎵🌱🌿🌷

06/17/2021

As Horticulture For Healing works to secure our roots in a new community - we are holding a once a month virtual discussion workshop with our latest partner Selah Freedom.

On Friday June 4th I held our introduction workshop. I met with Selah clients who received their Plant Care Is Self Care kits back in April.

🌿🤎

We discussed how caring for our plants in turn helps us care for our selves:

🌿Caring for another living thing is a positive intention that keeps us grounded in the present.

🌿 We discussed how plants just like people can move, be uprooted and transplanted into a new environment...However we both need stability and a healthy environment to really thrive... we don’t want to put ourselves in risky or unsafe places.

“I used to constantly find myself in unsafe environments surrounded by people I couldn’t trust. Normal for me equaled confusion and chaos. I was constantly at risk of getting hurt. I didn’t know I had in me the ability to create a healthy sacred space”.

🌿 We want to cultivate (build and create) a healthy and stable home life no matter where we might currently find ourselves in life. We can do this through the practice of caring for a plant.

Through creating stability and practicing self care, eventually growth can at times become easy and natural.

🌿 💪🏾🌷

05/27/2021

Previously announced in our monthly newsletters:

Horticulture For Healing is scaling up to a national level! 🌿 🎊 🙌🏾

Over the past few months we’ve been notifying partners and supporters that Horticulture For Healing is moving to Portland Oregon on May 1st 2021.

Throughout March and April we successfully finished workshop commitments while opening a door to continue remote partnership with our current residential homes and centers, creating a truly sustainable organization.

This means we will keep working with our existing recovery center partners in Florida!

We continue to receive amazing encouragement, love and support as Horticulture For Healing grows and expands making this move across the country.

Your support has helped Horticulture for Healing reach a huge milestone in April : *our fifth partnership* creating a truly inclusive and diverse community.

This wouldn't be possible without you.

Since our first partnership in August 2020 Horticulture For Healing has impacted 260+ individuals in residential treatment, transition centers and survivor homes. Our Care Kits and workshops continue to grow, change and improve to positively impact those who participate.

We are looking forward to learning how we can best support recovering people in our new community! I can’t wait to share with you what unfolds as we uproot and transplant🌱

If you haven't signed up for our monthly newsletter you can do so on our website! Thank you!! https://horticultureforhealing.org

04/20/2021

Over the last month Horticulture For Healing has been busy! We've been prepping Plant Care Is Self Care kits!

Now care kit distribution time is here again ! Last week we repotted 100 Rabbit’s Foot Ferns for our upcoming giving initiative!

Recipients include our newest partnership: Selah Freedom

The 100 Plant Care Is Self Care kits also go towards maintaining our current partnerships at two women’s residential substance use treatment centers. 🌱💓

Horticulture For Healing continues working towards dismantling systems that keep so many people oppressed and vulnerable to unnecessary grief and struggle by providing creative and empowering self care resources for individuals to perceive their beauty and value while gaining self confidence, autonomy and strength in solidarity one plant at a time. 💪🏾🌷

If you have a few moments and can support Horticulture For Healing please share this post, our page or our website today! Your support and spreading the word is essential to us becoming a strong social justice organization!

03/29/2021

Plant Care Is Self Care Zine Issue 4 just published!

In this issue Horticulture For Healing provides a brief introduction to feminism including ways we can practice in our daily lives. Feminism is not a rule book, it is a discussion, conversation and a process. It begin when one starts to practice thinking critically about the world around them, questioning why society is the way it is.

Issue 4 is a bridge into our intersectional feminism zine.

Looking through an intersectional feminist lens, we see how different communities are battling various, interconnected issues, all at once. Standing in solidarity with one another, questioning power structures, and speaking out against the root causes of inequalities are critical actions for building a future that leaves no one behind.

If you are interested in obtaining copies of our zines, creative healing tools, or collaborating with H4H on a creative project please message Joanna or email at [email protected]

03/17/2021

Recently, our first partner STEPS Inc provided us with an amazing opportunity to come full circle with Horticulture For Healing’s mission!

On March 3rd we implemented part of our original garden plan! (photos)

* Residents at steps, a volunteer and H4H founder Joanna planted a bunch of *native* Florida plants (emphasis on native for essential pollinators🐝🦋) in their available garden space . 


* This opens up space for H4H to hold outside workshops while providing green space for residents to get some garden therapy between group sessions.


* That day we were able to not only plant gardens with residents but held a Plant Care Is Self Care workshop too, bringing us full circle.


* Since October 2020 H4H has impacted 75 trans/cis women at STEPS Inc through our in person Plant Care Is Self Care workshops.


🌱Horticulture For Healing strives to provide creative resources for people treated as insignificant or in the peripheral of a patriarchal society due to substance use, life hardships, racism and gender inequality. Our workshops create a safe space to overcome the shame that comes from oppressive societal norms.

🌱If you are interested in supporting us and if you haven't done so already, please pass along this post, our website or our page. Spreading the word is essential to our success as a social justice organization! Thank you !!💓

03/05/2021

We qualified for our second grant from See Beautiful to fund our next initiative to provide 100 Plant Care Is Self Care Kits complemented by our virtual workshops!

Our partnership with See Beautiful will continue to enable Horticulture For Healing’s growth, expansion and program success. We appreciate See Beautiful’s mission which recognizes the importance of education, empowerment, and strategic giving to create true beauty in our world.

Thank you See Beautiful for believing in Horticulture for Healing’s mission! This grant award gives H4H the power to create beauty everyday. We are committed to “focusing our time on making this world a more inclusive, equitable, just, and anti-racist filled place.”

I am so grateful for the SeeBeautiful community this means more to our organization than words can express!

If you haven’t done so please follow us, share this post or sign up for our monthly email update to keep up with our latest partnerships and Plant Care Is Self Care Kit distribution and workshops.

02/24/2021

Another Plant Care Is Self Care workshop success announcement!

On Thursday 2/18 Horticulture For Healing met with Pace Center for Girls, Collier at Immokalee (grades 6-12) for our second Plant Care Is Self Care workshop.

(Photos : H4H’s plants , slide from workshop, program director Joanna with her workshop plants)

We discussed what self care means to us, the similarities of caring for a plant and yourself, building a daily self care routine and how we practice self care. I introduced to feminism which will step us into our third workshop.

How do you practice self care?

My plants are at their best when I keep them on a watering and sun schedule, and it turns out that I feel best when I maintain a self-care schedule.

My schedule usually consists of showering regularly, sitting in silence a few minutes a day, being patient with ALL of my moods and emotions, eating three meals a day, drinking water, journaling, exercising and sleeping.

Sounds simple but it can be challenging to stay consistent. Having a plant that needs a care routine can help reinforce our self care routines too.

Self care is a feminist action. Through learning that self care is my human right and beginning to practice this in my everyday life; I experience the power of choice, autonomy, gain self confidence, value, and strength.