Resilience Gardening with Ayla Bella

Resilience Gardening: For the Gardens We Have, and the Futures We Imagine This class is for growers, land stewards, and curious newcomers ready to respond to the growing instabilities and injustices around us. It’s for those seeking a grounded, powerful toolkit for creating gardens that nourish, protect, and transform. RESILIENCE GARDENING is more than a way to grow food; it’s a way to cultivate care, connection, and capacity in uncertain times. In this three-hour workshop, we’ll explore a holistic approach to gardening that weaves together ecological health, resource access, and social justice. Whether you’re tending a patio planter or imagining a neighborhood food forest, this class offers practical tools and thoughtful frameworks for building gardens that support both people and planet without burning out. We’ll dig into four core pillars: • Ecological resilience – designing for biodiversity, healthy soil, and adaptability to changing conditions • Social resilience – exploring gardening as resistance, cultural survival, and community care, with a focus on how gardens have long served as tools of healing and justice, especially in marginalized communities • Emotional resilience – facing climate grief, reconnecting to purpose, and grounding ourselves for long-term change • Resource resilience – growing food, fiber, and medicine to support mutual thriving We’ll cover a lot of fertile ground (with at least one break!), so come with any comfort items you’d like and a readiness to grow something that matters. If you’re dreaming of growing more than just vegetables, if you’re ready to grow resilience, this space is for you. Welcome to the movement. I can’t wait to dig in with you. INSTRUCTOR: Ayla Bella is a Columbus-based grower and advocate for sustainable food systems. As a Master Gardener, Master Rain Gardener-in-training, and certified permaculture designer, she is passionate about cultivating resilient landscapes that nourish both people and planet. With a B.A. in Public Management, Leadership, and Policy and a specialization in ecofeminism, she understands how deeply food systems are intertwined with social structures. Ayla believes that growing food and building community are powerful forces for change, and she is dedicated to using regenerative gardening, ecosystem connection, and community-based food systems to spark a movement toward a more resilient and nourishing future.