The Joy Patch

2025 Joy Patch

Plants and nature have always been a big part of who I am. My home is always full of houseplants and I dabbled outdoors, but my love of gardening didn’t take off until the summer of 2020. With the pandemic and no place to go, I turned to gardening to fill the void. It became my third place, the best kind of third place for an introvert, no peopling! I didn’t and still don’t completely know what I’m doing. I do know I feel better when I’m in the dirt; my mind can decompress and my body moves. So I keep going back.

I started planting a few perennials and built a raised garden bed to grow vegetables. The next year I expanded the raised beds. I experimented with a variety of vegetables and some cut flowers. In 2021 I discovered dahlias and experimented with even more cut flowers. Fast forward to 2025 and most of the vegetables are gone. I focused on the dahlia patch, zinnias and cosmos.

Something else started to happen with those dahlias; I started to randomly give them away. I had so many, and hated to see them go to waste. Every time I gifted them to someone I was surprised by their reaction… they’d be taken off guard and completely in the moment with the flowers. Whatever had been weighing on their minds was replaced with the beauty of that flower in that moment. I started thinking about those as moments of instant joy and hence the Joy Patch was born.

So here I am, with no real plan other than to continue the mental and physical health benefits of being in the garden and to continue sparking joy in others.