Local writer Kathie Wallace submits this interview to Village Vancouver with Olga Ruskin at the Pearson Center:
In the Garden
This year Jen Rashleigh created a series of table top wheelchair accessible gardens at the Pearson Centre so the residents there could enjoy growing their own food. One of these resident gardeners is Olga Ruskin and this is her story of why she loves gardening:
I garden because I enjoy being outside and seeing things grow because it’s life. It exposes you to the world of living plants and makes you realize there’s more than you on this planet. It fills me with joy to have something growing from nothing and flourishing. I feel more alive when I can smell and feel the plants and the earth. We’ve lost touch with Mother Earth when we are actually part of her. The air around a garden is brighter, it smells so much nicer, and the colours are uplifting. There is such a sense of peace working around flowers. They don’t talk to us but they do indicate whether they are happy or not in their own language. It’s an interesting experience to talk in another language: the language of plants.
This garden has changed my days. When I feel low, I can come out and look at the flowers and I feel happy because they are so pretty and colourful. They literally uplift me if I have a bad day. I can’t do much because my hands are stiffened with arthritis but I can go into the garden and get engrossed in the plants and I forget my cares.
A feeling of fellowship has grown among us as gardeners. It promotes friendship because our common interest in gardening bonds us together.
The world of plants is a different world that lifts us up out of our problems. They give me peace and calm that I don’t feel in the busy world out there where everyone is rushing around. Plants don’t rush. They sit there happily being themselves. When we feel that from them, we are more satisfied with our lives.
I’m not a great gardener you know but I love gardens and get joy just looking, smelling, and touching the plants. I hope what I’ve said inspires others to get involved in gardening.
Olga passed away on January 19, 2010.
