Let Me Reintroduce Myself
The Leafy Lady returns with new stories, new inspiration, and a ribbon of care stretching from the land, right back into the home.
My name is Jillian MacPhee, and my story with plants began long before I ever styled a dracaena in a dim‐lit corner or placed a philodendron on a shelf.
I was raised on a family farm between Gibbons and Redwater, where my days were spent playing outdoors, running through the fields, and helping in the garden alongside cousins and family. Those early years taught me to appreciate fresh food, flowers, nature, and the feeling of being connected to land and to one another. That love for outdoor growing eventually spilled indoors.
As a child, during winter visits, I would notice the greenery inside my grandparents’ homes — plants that breathed life into the room when everything outside was frozen and still.
My love for indoor plants began in those homes. At Granny Rowswell’s, I would sit in the living room and observe the Benjamina fig tree filling the east window with its dainty variegated leaves as we ate rice pudding.
At Granny Serink’s, the little orange tree — grown from a seed — was nurtured in the warm beams of sunlight that spilled across the kitchen as we pinched perogies. Those plants weren’t just decorations; they breathed life into the room and opened my eyes to the possibilities of growing plants.
That feeling stayed with me — fast forward to twenty years old.
I drove my little grey pickup along the country highway toward St. Albert, taking the curving gravel road that followed the Sturgeon River. The sun was coming up, music playing, a chill in the air. I’d pull into the lot at Holes Greenhouse, hop out, and make my way to the small square perennial area. Bob Stadnyk would greet me with a big smile, and I’d poke at Jan to get a laugh. Soon the rest of the perennial crew would trickle in with their own smiles, and together we’d ease into the rhythm of the morning. Those moments shaped me.
Now at 51, I can see how those early morning drives and loving homes quietly set the course for everything that followed.
I’ve spent twenty years working in greenhouses and a decade in floral design and home décor, learning how plants grow outdoors and how they live with us indoors. Outdoor gardening teaches us how we are connected to nature; indoor gardening teaches us how to observe the beauty of plants like they are living art.
For three years, while creating Garden Stories, I’ve visited gardeners, growers, farmers, designers, naturalists, and stewards of the land — trying to understand what ties all these stories together. What brings people to gardening, farming, conservation? Is it childhood memories? Comfort? Healing? A need to reconnect with nature?
Across horticulture, agriculture, landscaping, naturalism, and history, I found the link.
Care.
Lois E. Hole once said, “Caring is the soul of gardening.” And after three years of walking this land, her words ring true — care is the thread sewn through every story.
I began imagining these stories as a ribbon stretched across the land — running from formal gardens to wild habitats, from backyard plots to orchards and wheatfields. And today, I want to bring that ribbon indoors. Because indoor gardening isn’t separate from outdoor gardening —it’s a continuation of the same care, the same curiosity, the same desire to shape a space with something living.
That’s how The Leafy Lady began — as a way to share the joy of bringing nature inside, creating corners of calm, and letting plants become part of our homes just as they’ve always been part of our landscapes.
This is my story.
This is GardenStories.ca
This is @theleafyladyyeg.
A ribbon of care — stretched from the land, right into the home.