Creating Garden Spaces for Black Women

Sunday's Inspiration: Every Sunday, Meet the Visionaries who are inspiring our community.

Rachel Weill Photographer

Meet Leslie Bennett 

I believe in the healing power of gardens. Creating places of respite and beauty that benefit Black communities is crucial. Feeding the soul helps to feed the fight for justice.

After a challenging year, families needs time for healing. For residents of Oakland, CA, the garden spaces created by Leslie Bennett provide a respite and a place of healing  Leslie Bennett is a landscape designer and writer who creates gardens that help to nourish and tell the story of who we are. She created  the Black Sanctuary Gardens Project, a series of garden spaces created for Black women and Black communities in and around Oakland.  As the founder and owner of Pine House Edible Gardens, a landscape design/build firm, Leslie creates aesthetic edible gardens and productive outdoor spaces. Her work entails creating culturally grounded gardens that provide as much visual inspiration as they do organic harvests of food, flowers and medicinal herbs. 

We have known the healing properties of nature for centuries. Most of us are just a generation or two away from the land. We ate from the land, made medicine for healing, and often tried to give back with respect and gratitude. Today we are trying to bring back that sense of wholeness as we reintroduce organic food, herbal remedies and forest bathing into our urban environment. Leslie first experienced the way gardens improve a persons well being ...in a gardening class on an organic farm.  

As she explains in an article in Martha Stewart Magazine, "They're spaces where we can explore who we are and where we come from with plants that make us happy, that are culturally meaningful, and that we can use everyday." In Oakland she has created her own garden retreat plush with fruits and plants that remind her of her Jamaican and English heritage. "It's the happiest place in my life." Now she plans to share her joy and expertise with her community.  The more I can create spaces that are safe, supportive, and restorative for Black women and their communities, the more likely I am to see a future that includes happy, rested, joyful Black people," she explains, "This is the world that I want to see so I'm dedicating myself to building it."

Leslie is the co-author of The Beautiful Edible Garden (Ten Speed Press, 2013)
For more information about Leslie Bennett's work visit http://pinehouseediblegardens.com/about

http://pinehouseediblegardens.com/black-sanctuary-gardens

Photographs: Rachel Weill