The Silence of The Roots Garden
Volunteer
The Silence of the Roots Garden thrives through mindful service. Every hand that waters, weeds, or harvests helps sustain a living source of nourishment for our sangha, neighbors, and friends. Volunteering here is more than garden work — it is a practice of presence, care, and connection.
Put your hands in the soil.
Everyday Care
- Water plants during dry spells.
Pull weeds and keep garden beds tidy. - Weed the rock path to keep the main walkway clear and safe.
- Add mulch to protect soil and roots Compost help: add approved scraps to the compost trash can and give it a turn/mix to keep it balanced.
Seasonal Support
Structural Support
Help build self-watering raised beds to help maintain soil moisture.
Rainwater Catchment System
Installing rain barrels connected to gutters or simple collection points provides a sustainable water sour.
Help Us Cultivate the Circle of Care Apothecary
Your care helps us transform what grows in The Silence of the Roots Garden into shared wellness for the community. The Circle of Care apothecary offers herbal remedies and wellness kits at a sliding-scale, community-sustaining cost, ensuring that healing and well-being remain accessible to all.
Ways you can Help
- Harvest & Preserve Medicine: Help dry herbs, prepare tinctures, and create herbal blends.
- Blend & Create: Assist in blending herbal teas, tinctures, and salves that nourish body and spirit.
- Maintain the Apothecary: Help keep the space organized, labeled, and ready for community use.
- Donate Supplies: Contribute jars, bottles, droppers, oils, and other materials for medicine-making.
- Support the Fund: Help us sustain free and sliding-scale offerings through financial contributions.
Seeds of Support
- For those who may not be able to join with their hands, there are still many ways to nourish this space.
- The garden is sustained by offerings of:
Offering tools and supplies such as gloves, trowels, watering cans, or wheelbarrows. - Donating compost, organic soil, mulch, seeds, or seedlings Contributing building materials like raised beds, trellises, or shade cloth.
- Giving through dana acts of generosity.
Help Us Grow Our Greenhouse
To expand the life of The Silence of the Roots Garden and sustain the Circle of Care Apothecary, we are raising funds to build a high-quality greenhouse. This space will allow us to grow herbs and plants year-round, extend our offerings, and cultivate seedlings that nourish both body and spirit.
A greenhouse will protect delicate herbs through New Orleans’ changing seasons, increase our growing capacity, and provide a living classroom for community members to learn and participate in mindful gardening.
Ways You Can Help:
- Contribute to the Greenhouse Fund: Every donation supports materials, construction, and setup.
- Sponsor Materials: Panels, frames, doors, shelving, and ventilation systems — your contribution ensures lasting quality.
- Offer Skills: Help us design, build, or assemble the structure when the time comes.
- Spread the Word: Share our campaign to help us reach our goal and bring this vision to life.
Together, we can create a greenhouse that grows medicine, knowledge, and community — season after season.
Listening deeply, we hear all that the roots have to say.
The silence of the roots invokes the Dharma.
Patience • Presence • Care
The Practice of Tending
Hands in Practice
Should the Dharma stir a deep call within you, we invite you to enter this field of practice. The garden is a place to offer your hands in mindful tending, carried with diligence, care, and a heart inclined toward compassionate service. It is a place where we touch the earth, we feel our worth, and we awaken to a new rebirth.
As we uproot weeds from the soil, we also remember that we are uprooting the weeds of the mind, the patterns and behaviors that no longer serve our highest good or the well-being of all beings. In this sacred tending, we are reminded that we are not separate from the earth.
Through the act of tending, we sow and water seeds of awareness, compassion, transformation, and healing — seeds that sustain the well-being of ourselves, Mother Earth, and all beings. In this cultivation of life, we rediscover and uncover the true nature of our being — boundless and free.
Ways to Tend with Care
Each task is an offering that helps sustain the well-being of this shared space. Some of the ways you can help include:
- Gently pulling weeds from the rocks
- Pulling weeds along the gates and pathways
- Cutting and disposing of dead elephant ears
- Removing yellow banana leaves
- Watering at the roots to prevent sunburn and keep plants nourished
- Harvesting moringa, eggplant, okra, lavender, Malabar spinach, and hibiscus (once in bloom) with mindfulness
- Removing dead plants to make way for new growth
- Starting new seeds with care and intention
- Keeping a watering log to track and share responsibility
- Keeping a harvest log to note what is gathered and shared
- Watering the pecan tree and tending young trees
In these acts of service, we remember that caring for the land is caring for ourselves, Mother Earth, and all beings.
Seeds of Support
For those who may not be able to join with their hands, there are still many ways to nourish this space. The garden is sustained by offerings of:
- Offering tools and supplies such as gloves, trowels, watering cans, or wheelbarrows
- Donating compost, organic soil, mulch, seeds, or seedlings
- Contributing building materials like raised beds, trellises, or shade cloth
- Giving through dana acts of generosity
In caring for the earth, we deepen our vow to live with awareness. May all who enter this space be nourished in body, mind, and heart. Each contribution, material or mindful, supports a space where the Dharma is practiced through quiet cultivation. To offer your support, please reach out to us with your intention. May your giving be an extension of your path.
What’s most needed right now:
- Tools for tending with care (hand tools, gloves, watering cans)
- Organic soil, compost, and mulch to enrich the earth
- Seeds and seedlings of vegetables, herbs, and native plants
- Garden structures (trellises, raised beds, shade cloth)
- Ongoing support with compost drop-off
- Acts of dana: offerings of generosity, however modest, to help the garden thrive