I find it really fascinating, just that what you had said that you have survived a brain tumour three times
is that I have had three brain surgeries, and I currently do still have a brain tumour.
Wow. Okay. So I just thought that history and how you have you used that to work on your own healing, I know that insects and bees have become very important to you. And you use those to help in your own healing journey. And I just, I think it would just be so lovely for my audience and the listeners to hear a little bit about sort of, you know, how you came to be in this position where you know, create these lovely magical Gardens is not correct for, for other people and provide a little bit of magic in their lives. I just think it's fascinating. And so lovely. So I just really wanted to chat with you today to see, see what we can come up with and to share your story
with a few more people. Course. So I'll start with this part of the story. So I had two brain surgeries, okay. And then a very bad concussion. And at the time, I was still working in New York City, on Park Avenue in a corporate job as an environmental scientist, mostly doing environmental impact statements for transportation projects. So I built bridges, I worked on subways, I worked on the World Trade Centre site, the rebuilding of that, and it was a very high pressure job. You know, obviously working with my clients were the government, city, the state with federal overviews and Gene permitting and whatnot on some often very tight schedules on. I, during I mean, I found myself on medical leave several times. But how I got into the insect thing and healing as I was on medical leave, and I went to my parents house in Florida, to rest in sunshine, and basically have my mom take care of me because I couldn't take care of myself. And so I was my dad was a gardener. I like his tray was he was a bread manner. He delivered bread to grocery stores, and restaurants and whatnot. But his real passion was gardening. And I was in their back garden. And they had to like big beautiful mango trees with like the most delicious mangoes that you've ever tasted like. Insanely just sweet. And she was fine. Yeah, all that sunshine and fresh, like not shipped, it was just like, right off the tree. And so I was admiring one of the beautiful mangoes that was ripening. And there were some insects on it. I actually didn't know what type of insects they were at the time. I now know that they were a nymph stage of a type of assassin bug that actually it's a beneficent insect. I mean, I've always been connected to God. Yeah, I was just like, God, I don't know what to do. Like, my brain is just, it's be. It's like I'm done. I don't even know like, what is next. And I've looked at the mango again. And these bugs I kid you not. They formed the shape of a smiley face at me. I have a picture. I have to dig it up and start sharing it again. Yeah. And that kind of just like, clicked, something clicked, you know, I was like, whoa. And then I just really got into watching insects. And so that was kind of like the first like, hang in my healing journey and looking at insects was like these insects that were literally smiling at me from this. I mean, it was like, like a yellow orange mango. It was like look like a legitimate like emoji smiley face. I love that. So from there, you know, I went back to New York, and continued working in my corporate job, and then it got to the point where New Yorkers, it was too stimulating for my brain. And really, I was just not healing there. So my husband and I decided to move to Charleston, South Carolina. I went to college here. So we already had a friend base. And I don't know if you've seen pictures of Charleston, South Carolina, but it is a beautiful city. It's a historic city. Most of the buildings are preserved. It's their cobblestone streets. It's it's very beautiful. The it's very famous for a walk along the waterfront and these houses called Rainbow row. So every house is painted a pastel colour, whoo, green and yellow.
Finds idyllic and much slower paced. I would imagine New York City. Yeah, so much slower
paced. And my husband is from the Czech Republic. So it's kind of feels like a European city. It doesn't feel like an American city. Yeah. Really at all. Yeah. And so we moved here and again, continued working, but I just then was what surrounded Anwar with nature. And we we moved, actually, to a waterfront property. We live on a salt marsh. Okay. And I went from Yeah, living with in Queens, New York with a brick wall with graffiti as my view with a back alley with a garbage can and like an homeless people to living on the marsh that backs up against federal property. And they're right now we have Ospreys nesting. We have an alligator.
Wow. Okay.
I have more I have more alligator stories later. But yeah, George Washington, my alligator and river otters, and fish and crabs and all kinds of bird lives. And, and then butterflies, and I just then I got became like, really interested in butterflies. And then it just gotten to the point where I, I really, I could not work anymore because my conditions. And so my corporate job and I part I'll say parted ways. Yes, I guess would be the best term for it.
That must have been scary and liberating at the same time. So frightening because it was you stepping away from something that you'd always known, but then at the same time liberating because you didn't have the wit of that job to to carry anymore.
Was it first? So I'll tell you, I have been with that company for 25 years. Okay. That's a long time. Yes. It's, I mean, I'm 51 it's it was like, like, half of my life. Yeah. It was scary. It was very scary. And financially difficult. Yeah. You know, here in the United States, we don't have national health care. Yeah. We do kind of become slaves to corporate America because they, you know, you get health insurance through your company. Yeah, they generally subsidise it. And then you pay a portion. So without, you know, being jobless, and having to pay, you know, pay full on like $1,000 a month for health care for awful. Yeah. So at first I felt very liberated. I have kind of been in really an identity crisis and depression for the past three years. Because of who I had been, yeah. And who I am now. And so when my job and I parted it was 2020. And it was literally a month before the pandemic hit. Some of my friends had already started getting COVID Nyla I was going back and forth to New York. And then I around that time, I was just it was like, I went in November. I was like, I'm I'm just not going back. And that was kind of good that I did get out of that position before COVID Because I don't Yeah, I don't even know what kind of what even what would have had happened had I? Not less? Absolutely, yeah. So being very connected with my friends in New York, they were hit very hard errors, no food in the grocery stores are very isolated. And my husband and I decided, like, before it hits, you're very quickly, like, we need to make a garden. And so he's a carpenter. And he he built our first garden first iteration of our garden. From there, you know, we started growing most of our own food.
Fabulous. Did you teach yourself how to do that? Did you did you know how to do this? Or did you learn as you rent?
So So from back to back to my dad is she was an avid gardener. Yeah. So yeah, we grew up, you know, we grew up gardening and, and eating food from our garden. Yeah. And my husband's mother loves to garden. She's actually from Slovakia, and comes from a farming family. So we had it in us. Yeah. But you know, being living in New York. There was nowhere to
do it obviously in New York, but now you have the space and this lovely garden that your your husband has built?
Yeah. They're thinking about gardening is that you need pollinators, you you must have insects, you must have bees. Yeah. And butterflies, and hummingbirds to pollinate your food. And if you don't have them, you don't have food. And so we learned pretty early on. Like we were we were getting flowers. And then now you know zucchini, yellow squashes, no food. So then it's COVID Everyone's picking up new hobbies and we're like, let's get these. And so we got two hives of bees. Wow. Okay, we've got them to pollinate our garden. And what the funny thing about our bee is like, they had no interest in our garden at all. So with beekeeping, I learned a lot more about insects. Specifically, reason why we didn't have enough bees pollinate our garden is because of pesticides and herbicides spray. Yeah, the City of Charleston, Charleston County here and many other places in the American South spray for mosquitoes. A truck goes up and now streets and sprays for bugs, NASA pesticides, once a week, at least, there are places here they are. And they also aerial spray, as well. Okay. And so there weren't enough insects. So, you know, they, the chemicals would kill my bees, and they were killing the natural insects that would be pollinating my garden. And so that went on a journey to call the county and tell them to be put on a no spray list. And then the pollinators started coming back.
Yeah, so you manage to raise that with the county and actually have them stop spraying in your area.
They have to turn off the truck at my house and my neighbor's house homes amazing. And they must text me one air gonna spray.
That's so good, though. That's such a powerful stance because obviously, when they're spraying these pesticides, it's damaging. Obviously the insect population your pollination for your your food, but it can't be good for human health either. Have an all loose chemicals in the air and and in the food and in the in the soil and in the water.
Yeah, it all goes back to this book called Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. And she wrote it in the 60s, and it's about how chemicals get into our groundwater. And they get into our rivers and our streams, our water supplies. I mean, people's like pets and children are like living in chemicals. Then you dig a little bit deeper and here in the United States. Our crops are genetically modified and they are modified so that they can withstand the pesticides and herbicides that are massively spraying. That led me to monarch butterflies. On our butterflies are gateway drug. I will say it because we Once you they are really magical. Once you hook up into the monarch world, it's like then
they're so beautiful. They're so stunningly gorgeous.
You're beautiful. And they make a magical migration from into Canada down into three pathways, one being the western United States and California, where they overwinter main population over winters in Mexico. And then we do have populations now due to climate change overwintering here in char, Charleston, Florida, and also the Bahamas, the main population that's moving through the middle of the country is moving through farm country. And previously, they were the milkweed, which is their host planter, A, or they can only breed on that milkweed their caterpillars must have that there. It's an obligate host. So within two years because of the pesticide and herbicide spraying millions and millions and millions of acres of monarch habitat disappear. That's trying to deal with that the monarchs. Yeah. So I just became very interested in in sick, you know, saving them as well, planting milkweed. So, you know, stopping spray, big ways to help.
Absolutely amazing. And so that attracts the monarch send to your to your garden, I would imagine if you're, if you're planting this so then you get your fix. have been able to see them when they come. Yes.
So we have not seen it's been unusually when we're having spring about a month early. I haven't seen any yet. But I have seen other butterflies. Yeah, we have these large yellow butterflies called cloudless sulphurs. Say they're like, six centimetres, okay. wingspan and you're very beautiful. Okay, beautiful. Yeah. I've also here in their seats, like very small, like small brown butterflies that you wouldn't really even air notice unless you're really looking. So
I suppose with the butterflies and you having the spray stopped in your area, or your bees then more interested in your garden I along with the butterflies and you're getting more pollination enabled to grow more.
So we did, we did get beads. And I mean, I'll say the first year. It was more bumblebees, like, I will tell you, my girls, they're trash pandas. They want like clover and dandelion. And like, I see them like in my neighbor's yards, like in the ditch. I mean, they're just like, I don't know what they're even doing. In two years, I've been able to establish a garden where I do not spray at all. So now I have several species of butterflies. I have several species of native bees, wasps, falling flies that are pollinators, hummingbirds. I have lizards and frogs in the garden. And they are they're breeding in the garden and so they they eat the you know, harmful pests in the garden. Yeah, um, I've had a family of friends nest in the garden and they pretty much to stay in there and, and greet me every morning and lovely Cardinals. We have a very special bird here in the Lowcountry called the Painted bunting. If you google this bird, it is really like it. It doesn't even look like it belongs in North America. It looks it looks like it belongs in the tropics. Okay, so this Charleston's about the northern part of its range, and it does winters in the tropics and then comes here in the summers. And the females are all green. And the males, it looked like God just had a paintbrush and had a party like they have like red, purple, green and yellow and orange. And a they're so special. They're also in decline. And they they nest in the salt marsh. They also they nest in the salt marsh and then they They bring their babies into the garden. And it is a pretty protected place. You know, by the summer, when it's like, it's really flourishing, they can kind of hide their yelling like in amongst like okra and tomatoes, and then a feed on all the caterpillars and bogs in there as well. So they kind of teach their young to kind of fly in the garden
must be so lovely to watch. And such. Obviously, this is then part of your hailing because your experience in this beautiful ecosystem that you've created. And that nature has brought back all this lovely colour and species and everything that's there, and it's all working together in perfect harmony. And then you get to watch that, and that must be very healing for you.
It is incredibly healing. So things in the garden that are healing is with my condition. And with a lot of people who are also, her neurodivergent have just had too much with city life being out in the garden like so first, soak soils, soils or living like, there are bacteria. There are some guy in there. Yeah. And so you're putting your hands like in that dirt? Like there's just, I don't know, there's just something healing and magical about like, getting your hands dirty.
Absolutely. Something that not all of us do. And, you know, it's such a grinding and earthing thing, you know that that's part of it's our connection to the planet. It's a connection. Yes.
And that's really what I want to teach people is to be connected with the planet and connected with the earth and connected with the ecosystem. And once you find yourself immersed in it, and becoming one with Mother Nature, I only see like, that's like, just a big part of the healing journey. But it's, it's ultimately where we're supposed to be. Yeah,
absolutely. I think we become so separate. And so disconnected from nature. And we think, I don't know, if a society, city life really just pulls you away from it. And I think even human beings, we seem to think we're above nature, rather than actually intrinsically part of it, that we're actually we need to really embed ourselves in nature, otherwise, we will get sick, we will, you know, we will feel disconnected, we'll feel unfulfilled. And I'm sure that obviously, you would agree that by being part of nature and being immersed in it, it is just the most beautifully healing thing you can do. And so you like tonight, teach other people, you create gardens, help people create gardens, bring this healing. And this is your experience your story, which is so inspiring of how you have find your healing and find your purpose through this medical journey that you've been on on this journey from being in stressful corporate land in New York City to this beautiful garden ecosystem that you've created. Your note taking that learning and passing that to other people. Not right, yes,
that's my, my plan. Fabulous. My plan is to teach other people about the catchweight nature, like even like the small things that you can do for free. Stop the pesticide herbicide use, turning your lights off. Light pollution is very harmful for the environment. It's harmful for insects, it's harmful for migrating birds. And it's I'm going to say it's also harmful for people because we can't see the stars. Yeah,
absolutely. I often say I wish they would just turn the street lights off at a certain time at night. And just let us see the stars. You can't see them. Unless you're precisely can't see them.
Yeah, the light pollution statistics are pretty bad. Yeah, thank you can only see the Milky Way from like 10% of Earth now. Yeah.
That's, that's crazy. And I think, again, we lose that connection as well and to the heavens above and that our place in the universe and our place where we are in space. We kind of we miss that because we're just cocooned and these electric lights. Yeah. So So you've had to make lots of adaptions. But I can say that your face lights up every time you talk about your garden every time you provide your base and the ecosystem you've created. It's just lovely to see you glow when you talk about it. And I can't wait to see at what you do for other people, so this is this is your plan then to take their site to other people and to explain the free things they can do but then also potentially to build a living for yourself a livelihood for yourself where you can help other people create the gardens and create the spaces for hailing. Is that right? Yeah, my
business is like, it's been kind of it's been stalled due to my a lot of health condition is particularly seizures. I plan to roll out garden vision boarding event, which will be free. And then I'll have some, probably classes that I'll be offering beautiful that I can reach more people and working just one to one.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, grip works definitely where it's not. I think people like the fellowship as well of coming together, and actually been able to speak to each other and connect with other human beings as well.
Yeah, post COVID.
Exactly. So.
So another big thing. Part of my world is yes. I have always loved fancy cosplaying, and the Renaissance Festival and you know, movies like The Hobbit? Yeah, me too. Out of the ring. You know, reading CS Lewis, and the Chronicles of Narnia. The magic and the fairy tale and the fantasy, it's fabulous. I love it. Yeah, that's a brilliant way to escape into a role of Tolkien. Yeah. And then, you know, also escaping every summer to Czech and Slovakia where we go to castles and, and gardens as well. So I've kind of like marriage. married my love of gardening with my love of fancy, yay, fairy tale. That is where my company name enchanted dream gardens comes from
beautiful. So enchanted dream gardens that signs beautiful. And I can just when I close my eyes, I just have visions of portals and fairies and just beautiful flowers. And just it's exciting.
Yeah, it's flowers and butterflies and dragonflies and all the things.
Fabulous. Fabulous. And you'll obviously help people create those and help them create the vision for it and let them escape into into fantasy, as well as part of this just to really help them find the magic again.
Yes. Yeah. Find the magic in nature find their own magic. Yeah. I find that like you said the connection between like, the grounding and the heavens. Yeah. Oh,
that signs the signs. Absolutely. Wonderful. I wish you every success with it. Absolutely. Have your website.
I have a website. Yeah. It's enchanted dream. gardens.com. Back home. It is a work in progress.
But a work in progress.
Yes, I have a web designer and she's put up a lot of the lovely pictures from my photo shoots on from my gardens. Oh,
beautiful. Beautiful. And is that the best way for people to get in touch with you then through the website? Or is social media better? Heidi? Social media
is the best right now. Yeah, so probably the best is my Instagram.
What's your Instagram?
She had to drink gardens
and channel during gardens. Love it. Just so right because I'd like to drop the links for your socials and for your website and to the show notes for the podcast if I may, just so that people can go and check out your lovely work and to check out and connect with you. Since I think it would just I think bringing the magic back and letting people connect with nature I think is something that we all really desperately need. And yes, it's just so wonderful that you're you're doing this. I can't wait to see how you develop and how you blossom excuse the pun.
I love the pun. Yeah,
so as you blossom into the enchanted garden world, I can't wait. I can't wait. I think it would just be so beautiful to see. I hope this all works out.
Well thank you so much for having me and for reaching out.
You're most welcome. You're absolutely most welcome. Um, thank you for agreeing to chat to me.
