Urban Preserve started the way most gardens do, with a tiny seed - an idea that the joy and healing that is found through gardening is the same energy that drives creativity, growth, and innovation. The work began in 2024, out of a deep desire to get grounded.

After a particularly grueling few years marked by significant personal and professional changes, Jessica had hit a new level of burnout. And so, she started planting flowers. Dahlias, with their dramatic shapes and colors grow well in USDA Zone 9. So do cosmos, zinnias, poppies, and marigolds.

For two years, she planted bulbs and seeds, cared for and grew the flowers, and then every week during the summer picked a bouquet. And then created the joy again - took photos, painted, drew, gave them away - capturing the effort in a single fleeting instant. The full circle of this practice was energizing. It was the creative reset that she needed to move forward with a new perspective. The garden continues to grow.

Plant | to cultivate

To grow with intention. To begin, again, and again. Without a plan. With hope. Sun. Water. Soil. To plant is to have faith. To garden is to live with wild uncertainty. 

Pick | an act of choice

Delicate matter, to pick out only the best. To say yes, that is beauty. All the rest is compost. I want that thing. Just that one thing, out of all the rest. And then, the joy of arranging those choices together.

Recreate | to capture reality

To attempt to recreate that which can not be recreated, but can only be reflected on. To be present. To try to hold onto a thing that can only be remembered. To know that your feeble attempts to capture the light and the color will never really be enough, but that it is simply an act of admiration. 

Practice | the act of learning, again

It brings back full circle, back again to this next season. It is the act of starting a conversation about what in means to work, to grow, to create.