Helping people grow gardens, community, and connection.
Kristen Freeland
Hi, neighbor!
A few years ago, I turned my front yard into a garden.
At the time, I wasn't trying to start a nonprofit, become a garden consultant, or build a community project. I simply wanted more flowers in my life.
But something unexpected happened.
Neighbors started stopping to talk.
People walking their dogs paused to ask questions about the plants. Kids wandered over to look at the flowers. Conversations started happening with people who lived only a few houses away - people I had previously known mostly through awkward waves from across the street.
That garden changed how I think about gardening.
I realized gardens aren't just places where plants grow. They're places where relationships grow, too.
The more time I spent gardening, the more interested I became in what gardens reveal about people. How we learn. How we connect. How we build confidence. How small acts of care can change the way we experience a neighborhood.
Those ideas eventually led me to found Kind Hearts Bloom, a nonprofit that uses gardening to help people reconnect with one another and the places they live.
They also shape the work I do through Bestside Blooms.
Today, I help homeowners make sense of their yards through garden consulting, write a weekly publication called The Best Side of Things, and continue exploring a question I can't seem to stop asking:
What happens when we grow things together?
Whether I'm helping someone plan a garden, speaking about community-building, or writing about life lessons from the garden, I'm ultimately interested in the same thing:
How the spaces around us shape the relationships within them.
Stay Kind,
Kristen