Hi.

It's me.

Jessica Marnan, I'm back.

We haven't done a podcast in a very long time. And that's because I went back to school.

I became a horticultural therapy practitioner. I'll talk about that in a second. I found that a new

company called Basker, where I help people use gardening and nature for mental, emotional, physical,

social well-being. And as much as I'm obsessed with nature, I'm equally obsessed with watching TV in bed. So each week, I'm going to merge

those two worlds together. And my guest and I are going to talk about nature, how it can impact

you, how it can make us feel better. That's the outside part.

And then our current inside obsession from beauty trends, food trends, books that we're loving,

shows that we're watching. And since this is our very first episode, I wanted to share a tiny bit,

this isn't going to be long, about what horticultural therapy is, because I have

legit meant one person who knew what it was when I told them that this is what I was doing.

So horticultural therapy is the practice of using plants via gardening, art, and cooking to help people with their well-being.

And like I said, no one's heard of it before, but the profession was actually established during World War I, helping soldiers that were coming home from war who were struggling with trauma.

And since that time, it's practiced formally in hospitals, prisons, schools, mental health facilities.

The stats and the research on how it is really impacting people in these spaces is just remarkable.

And when I was in school for horticultural therapy, I was thinking, why is this just in these institutionalized clinical settings when this could be a modality that could help everyone. So I launched

a company called Basker where I use horticultural therapy practices to help people, people needing

to reduce stress, anxiety, women going through menopause, chronic illness, or just being a woman

living today, and people who just want to connect more deeply to

themselves and others. And while it's not talk therapy, the thing that I like so much about it

...