Cultivating Resilience: Dirt Girls Grow Indoors

As the calendar flipped to 2021, it prompted me to rethink the annual habit of making resolutions. On the heels of an unprecedented year, the superficial promises to improve or better ourselves seem much less appropriate this year. Yet, it’s a New Year. Time to turn over a new leaf. For me, this means nurturing a houseplant habit.

As I approach the two-year mark of launching a nonprofit (The School Garden Doctor was awarded 501c3 status on February 11, 2019), I’ve been cautious about how to adapt nascent programs to a virtual format. Sensory experience–a hallmark of science, nutrition, and environmental education–is much harder to accomplish via screen. However, I believe connection and content can overcome the obstacles of remote delivery, so I’m turning over a new leaf.

During the fall semester, I taught an Elementary Science Methods course as part of UC Berkeley’s teacher education program (BE3) (yes, entirely remotely). As part of the course, I invited my adult students to showcase the science in their everyday lives. During one session, two students eagerly showcased their passion for houseplants. They called themselves “two crazy plant ladies” (perhaps after the book by Isabel Serna or the children’s book of the same title by Michael Powell). They made a slideshow including photos of their collections and touted the many benefits of indoor plants.

I had never given much notice to houseplants before, in part, because I prefer to garden outside. The Mediterranean climate of the Napa Valley typically supports year-round outdoor gardening, but the extended fire season and COVID-19 restrictions of 2020 forced me indoors for extended periods of time. Thanks to those “crazy plant ladies,” I’m learning to adapt my gardening practice to houseplants.

Whether or not you really like houseplants, 2020 may have felt a bit ‘crazy’ to you. In fact, our collective mental health has suffered a lot this year. Since March, I’ve been trying to figure out how to connect with the Dirt Girls, a STEM-focused after school garden club. Suddenly, the answer became clear: I could engage them with indoor gardens made from collections of air plants, succulents, ferns, and more!

Dirt Girls Grow Indoors reached a dozen participants, all recruited through my garden and teacher friends and contacts. The remote nature allowed us to engage with students from four different schools: Phillips, Stone Bridge, Browns Valley, and Pueblo Vista. Our weekly sessions focused on plant care, making parallel connections to self-care. For instance, when learning about the epiphytic air plants, we practiced box breathing, a technique for lowering our stress response. Succulents are very resilient plants with specialized adaptations for survival. Ferns invited us to move our bodies in all directions (just like a fiddlehead unfurling).

Dirt Girls Grow Indoors concluded back outside, first with a field trip to Martha Walker Native Habitat Garden and then for three Saturdays in May at Fuller Park.