Washington DC
LOCATION
Gardening DC
The Piedmont Plateau of Maryland is an amazing place to live. With the Potomac River, Rock Creek, and Sligo Creek coursing through the heart of the region, we are gifted with the jaw-dropping beauty that exists in the areas just east and west of the fall line that unites the Atlantic Ocean with the Appalachian Mountains. It only takes for one to visit Great Falls or to hike the Rock Creek Park Trail for one to understand the true magic of this place. If there’s one thing we know about the soil in this region of Maryland is that much of it is abundant in clay. Over the years I’ve learned how to work with this clay, just as my family did farming the Red Clay Hills of North Central Mississippi. With patience and dedication, following a few easy steps can turn what appears to lack any value into a true treasure: Black Gold.
Garden planner Geoff Edwards brings his ancestral wisdom from the south up to his current dwellings in Maryland. With a residence in Silver Springs and healing arts studio in Rockville, he traverses this region well, going deep into the heart of the soil. Many of Geo’s clients are rooted in the Washington DC area and Prince George County.
Visitors from all over Maryland experience healing just by visiting his herb garden and Geoff brings this energy to the gardens he can design with you.
HOMEGROWN
Geoff Edwards
The Healing Garden Artist
The garden is my canvas, classroom and clinic. On any given day I hold these spaces as one and the same. Numerous mentors and teachers have guided me in honing the art of using hands, plants, poems, paint, as tools of empowerment. My studio practice, Nu Healing Arts, is a child of many paths and bears many forms; herbalist, acupuncturist, artist, educator. However it is the garden that allows me to weave these paths into a unified form. My earliest memories of learning the connection of land and spirit are from time spent during the summer at my grandparents’ home in the Mississippi Delta. Those early impressionable years planted seeds that have grown and are tended in my life’s work today—rooted in knowing land as liberation. Reclaiming, remediating, and reimagining our ancestral healing traditions is the method. A true biophiliac at heart, I live according to the “grow your medicine, know your medicine” way of life and am deeply passionate about creating community around this pillar.
Let’s grow something together.
MY STORY
Ancestral Roots Grow Into Healing Wisdom
I embarked on the path of herbs and land as a father of sons with chronic asthma. I wanted them to breathe with ease. Every step that I took closer to the land, I was embraced, nurtured by something larger than myself that was open and willing to be my guide. I learned that as a descendant of indigenous peoples I would have to decolonize the western notions of the senses and awaken from deep within myself memories of ancestral ways of being and knowing that only existed in our tongues, ears, noses, eyes, and hands. I would have to activate the knowledge embedded in the stories of my grandparents, encoded in the flavors of our foods and herbs. Entire worlds of knowing were waiting to unfold as I began to embrace my indigenous foods and flavors. I learned there were ancestral memories that would only become accessible when I embraced those plants and cultivated them. Afro-Indigenous foodways became a new way to heal my family and community.
OFFERINGS
How We Can Work Together
01
Ecology Within and Without
Learning My Landscape – In this offering, gardeners/clients will learn about the ecology of their local landscape/yard/space and its connection to human anatomy & physiology from a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective.
02
Planting Seeds and Words
This offering is an adapted version of one of my previous art therapy workshops on community grief where we combine seed sowing + writing + art making to create personalized planter containers.
03
The Backyard Consult
In this offering you will learn how to identify local plants and trees, their health promoting benefits, and sustainable ways to ensure they remain a foragable source for years to come. Find what’s already there for you and create the rest.
Book An Inspiration Call with Geo!
Get Your Free Garden Inspiration Session!
Check Out Geoff on the Edible Activist Podcast
Rites to Wellness
Geoff “Geo” Edwards is a licensed acupuncturist, herbalist and arts educator. And on any given day, you will find him in the garden, clinic or classroom. In this episode, Geoff paints a vivid story of, what he calls, a “rites to wellness” experience with one of his clients and how he integrates the three healing spaces into his practice, Nu Healing Arts.
Ancestry and Herbal Healing
Geoff Edwards brings his wisdom back to the show talking all-things ancestry and herbal healing. He has deepened his work, navigating this ancestral journey even further through the exploration of medical herbs, traveling to Costa Rica and Jamaica connecting with indigenous roots and farmers, and applying this to his Nu Healing Arts practice. In this episode, listen to Geoff speak on the importance of knowing what our grandparents grew, and what their parents grew, as a way to connect with our ancestors and to incorporate a diet that reflects our ancestral DNA.