So they will never be lost and their teachers are always remembered.
The opportunity to cherish plants and share that joy with others is becoming increasingly rare in formal and informal educational spaces. I was lucky enough that my then-rural Utah high school offered CTE classes, Agricultural Science classes, AP science classes and a Zoology/Botany class. That is changing as fewer classes nationally and worldwide focus on plants. My alma mater, Utah Valley University, is one of the few universities in the US that educates future botanists.
Knowing and ‘seeing’ plants has saved my life, metaphorically and literally, more than once. Without plant knowledge, my safety would have been at risk. Through plants, we can know where to find water, food, shelter, emotional and spiritual safety. This takes many forms, but building relationships with plants leads to a greater understanding of the world around us. When you take the time to see and recognize the smallest members of life, you begin to appreciate the world differently.
Taking the time to teach the children in your life about plants develops their senses and builds a life-long thirst for knowledge that can’t be quenched. You can start by telling your child a story about some of the plants in your community:
- Who planted the tulips on your street?
- Why did your grandma plant that tree?
- Who taught you how to garden?
- Why did your relatives always keep sagebrush on the dashboard of their cars?
- What is your favorite plant (flower, tree, etc) and why?
- Did you ever go to a community tree planting? What was that like?
- What smells from plants feel like home to you?
- What does that plant feel like?
- What happens when you touch that plant’s flowers?
I love a story, so I’ll tell you a few of mine.
I have moved so many times in my life that I’ve lost count of the homes I’ve had, but I’ve always had plants to provide insight into where I was, where I am going, what time of year I was in and build relationships around me.
In each place I’ve lived, I had friends parents, ‘adoptive’ and biological relatives and many other community members have deep care for my well-being. All had one thing in common: they taught me about plants. It was rarely formal; it was usually going for a walk on the way to the library, church or an event. Or for the sake of getting fresh air.
When I was around 8, one of my friend’s parent’s taught me how to harvest berries in Nussloch: “The ones low to the ground are for the foxes and the tallest ones are for the birds. We can eat the ones in the middle, but we need to take only the smallest amount we need so other people can eat them too.”
When I was a toddler, my paternal grandmother, Barbara, shared her love of roses with me and my mother. It was a source of joy for their relationship. My grandmother taught me the parts of the roses before we moved away, ‘Here’s the petal, here’s the thorns, when you miss me take a big whiff of one and know I’ll be with you.’ I still take big whiffs of roses any time I see one.
She got me into community plantings. I can’t remember if it was when I was in Germany or Spanish Fork, but we had a small flat of purple pansies to plant and I didn’t know how to. She showed me how to break apart the roots so that they could thrive and not keep growing in a circle. After the planting, every time we walked by, I could see the ones we planted because they were brighter than the rest. She loved blackberry shakes from Barry’s, an alligator jaw or a bearclaw, and a Pepsi.
My Ma Jewel and Opa were outdoorsy people and taught generations of our family how to ‘be’ outdoors. I met them in person when I was around 13 after moving back to Utah. They had a beautiful yard filled with fruit trees and vegetables as their landscaping. I remember feeling at home because I recognized the rhubarb in their yard. I hadn’t seen it since I moved away from Germany a few years earlier.
Their son, Paul, is my maternal grandfather. He taught me how to love the desert and to how find water by following the cottonwoods. He told me about Big Tree, a national champion white fir, up Loafer Canyon, “Get up there to visit before you get too big to put your arms around it.”
I got to visit Big Tree in high school as a field trip in one of my science classes before it died in the Pole Creek Fire. One of my favorite traditions that I learned from my science teacher was to eat sardines when you climb a mountain or visit a big tree.
One of my paternal aunts had my botany undergraduate professor as a public school teacher and was thrilled to find out I was also taught by her during my studies.
There are many, many people who have taught me. Some I haven’t mentioned to maintain their privacy, others I may not remember or know their names, but they gave me a rich gift of knowing plants and providing the tools for me to teach others.
Abbott Botanical Assessments, LLC 