Welcome to OHG, I’m so glad you’re here!

Bridget holding a bundle of yarrow

Orchard Hill Gardens was born of a deep desire to shift to a self-sustaining lifestyle while creating a system for the overflow of abundance from the land that we steward. 

A single purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)

My love for plants began in childhood as a love of beauty. It’s nostalgic and filled with memories of spending time with my Grandma, one of my favorite people who I’m lucky to still have in my life. As I’ve grown into my camaraderie with the plant world, I can feel them fill the spaces in me that were perhaps empty before. They have become dear friends, not inanimate objects that happen to come around every spring, but living beings with their own soul and purpose. Just like me. I’ve learned so much from plants in their quiet, gentle way. For example, a little bit of love and care is always rewarded ten-fold. The way we treat others and ourselves comes back to us, always. Abundance is all around.

A harvest of elderflowers from June 2021

 Sharing that abundance has become a key component in the birthing of OHG. Where a bit of love and care is extended, abundance flourishes. Well, love and care has been extended all over this land and the abundance is coming out my ears, and I couldn’t be happier about it. The pieces are in place, and the next step is to introduce myself and hope that  the herbal care I’ve created will find its way into the hands of those that need it.

Bridget standing under Grandma’s willow tree (photo taken by Evelyn)

 Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of working with nature to create a life for myself. The rich smell of dirt and cut roots when I was gardening with my Grandma, the slick feeling of a peeled weeping willow branch between my fingers as I twined the pliable bright white twig into a tiara or bracelet with magical properties. The taste and crunch of the white inner stalk of a cattail growing around my grandparents’ pond in the summertime with my brothers and cousins. Digging for clay veins in the creek by our house where I grew up, surrounded by corn and beans in every direction. 

My daughter playing at the willow tree near my grandparent’s pond where I spent much of my childhood

 When I was young I had no idea what an adult life like that could look like. The older I got, the more settled into life I became, the more I longed for that dream to come true. In 2011 I moved in to my partner’s house on 11 acres of land, with a pond and some rolling hills, some woods and a big flat area surrounding the house. He had done plenty of work to the place, adding buildings for his purposes and making the place quite functional to get around. Soon after I moved in we built a path around the pond so we could go for longer walks. He tilled an area for me to make a veggie garden and I got to work laying a brick pathway and adding compost. After a few years of me struggling to grow in the old greenhouse with dark yellowing panels, he replaced the roof and made it possible for me to start seeds through the winter. My partner and I kept working on projects, creating and adding to the infrastructure for the gardens. We added on to the house, making plans for a child. That helped ease the longing, it felt as though we were moving toward something bigger, though I didn’t have the capacity to imagine it fully quite yet. When we had our daughter in October of 2016, the longing turned into reality. I could see that the life I wanted for myself was one and the same with the childhood I wanted to provide for her. The dream became a co-creation between us and the land.

The two pear trees at OHG produce prolifically every year, each planted by the previous owner

At some point I looked around myself. I saw a yard with garden spaces already established near the house, and plenty of room to spread out in the surrounding yard. The previous owners had the foresight to dig a well and place 5 spigots around the space. There is an old apple, peach and pear orchard still producing lots of fruit despite years of battered branches and even some casualties after the epic derecho that blew through Southern Illinois in May of 2009. There is even an old blueberry bush still growing under some pine trees, making a few blooms every year, waiting to get moved into more sun. Though many places were overgrown with honeysuckle bushes, vines and autumn olive, those same hedges also had many elderberry shrubs growing and producing lots of berries. The place had more than just potential, it was already thriving in many ways. I could see that a guiding hand could do so much for the land. I looked around myself and I saw that I had space to grow. So I got to work.

Unripe blueberries growing at OHG, planted by the previous owner over 30 years ago

Looking back I can see that over the last decade I was already doing it in many ways - cultivating plants, learning to start seeds, learning how to care for the soil, collecting mulch anywhere I could get my hands on it. I developed a deep love and passion for compost and mulch and will talk about it at length with anyone that gives me the chance to. My passions became more targeted, more strategic. The goal became to learn everything I could about herbalism and soil health while also establishing garden spaces post-haste. This meant lots and lots of mulching. Lots of cardboard laid down under wood chips, lots of raking leaves and pitchforking into wheelbarrows and moving heavy things around. It’s work I love to my core, but it is really hard on a person who had not yet learned how to rest. I had a laser focus on what I wanted and I didn’t care that my back ached constantly, that pausing to stretch felt to me like wasting time, that the days when my body shut down and wouldn’t let me work could send me into bouts of self-loathing and depression for days afterward. This mounting unsustainability led me on to another path of self-healing that I knew had to take priority.

Peony blooms drooping to the ground in May at OHG

In the fall and winter of 2020 my goal was to learn how to rest. In fits and starts, I managed to start stretching every day. I stopped drinking alcohol. My food addiction became manageable (this took years for me, and I still struggle, but it is manageable). I learned to listen to what my body was asking for. I learned to breathe. In this way, I slowly became less fearful. I began to trust myself. I learned to feel comfortable in my desires, and accept the discomfort when I didn’t really know what I wanted. I learned that waiting is okay. Waiting is good, even.

I’ve been waiting and waiting for OHG. I’ve been moving pieces around, setting things in motion, a little push here, an encouraging phone call with a friend, another push. As I take stock now, I look around and see that I made the life I dreamed of when I was a kid. I already had it - I just needed to pause and breathe, appreciate and love. To embrace gratitude. 

Now as I work the land I can see the vision clearly. The garden spaces fully formed, brimming with life, the goats, the sheep, the donkey, the dairy cow, the chickens and guineas. The overflowing compost bins and huge piles of mulch waiting to nourish all those plants. My place in a community of care with the people I love.

A pathway in the back of the house at OHG

Every part of OHG is steeped with intention. From the care of the soil where the plant roots make their home, to the timing of harvests, to keeping an eye on plants that are new to me, letting them grow for the season undisturbed so I can learn their ways and allow them to show me how to let their properties shine in an herbal regimen. The decision to only include herbs that I grew on this land in any of the herbal care means that the care I give the land is spread evenly throughout each balm, tincture and scrub. Every smoke bundle carries that love, every oil is infused with it.

My daughter’s small hand touching a cluster of turkey tail mushrooms growing in the backyard

Sometimes we hear people talk about our “happy place”. When I was little, scared of the dark or feeling overwhelmed, I imagined my happy place was a lush garden. I could see myself walking through the garden, running my hands over the plant leaves, letting them tickle my palms and feeling at peace amongst these gentle beings. Nothing could touch me there, I felt protected by a glowing green shield with a capability to duck into the shadows if I felt scared or watched. If I felt safe, I could walk in the open along the prairie in my imagined world, touching the grasses and admiring the sun shining through the colorful flower petals. Through the work of the last ten years or so, the support and help of my partner and daughter, I walk out my back door now and find the same exact garden that I had imagined. I could never ask for more than that, and I am so excited to share it.

Evelyn holds a small harvest of passionflower vine