Daniel Gill: Thriving While Gardening

Daniel Gill:

Thriving While Gardening By Anthony Bui

Daniel Gill has always had a long-standing interest in plants. He spent a majority of his childhood out in the woods digging up wildflowers and bringing them home to tend to. This love only continued to grow as he entered his teenage years, until ultimately, he decided that he wanted to be a horticulturist. He would go on to have a memorable career and establish himself as a key figure in the world of plants here in Louisiana.

A Love for Teaching

Gill started at Louisiana State University in 1972 and finished his masters in 1980 before going on to become an extension horticulturist at the LSU Agricultural Center. It was through this incredibly rewarding work that Gill began to realize how much he enjoyed teaching. In graduate school, he taught labs, and watching things click in students’ minds was something that he loved to see. Though he admits that he wasn’t really cut out to be a professor, Gill discovered many outreach opportunities through the AgCenter which pushed him more towards his calling: teaching the general public. It turns out that mass media was the perfect way to reach out to the community. From radio station appearances to segments on TV and weekly columns, Gill truly does have a passion for teaching the general public everything they need to know about gardening.

“Passion doesn’t die when you retire. The love of gardening and teaching doesn’t diminish.”

Following His Passion

Gill retired in 2018, but he still enjoys teaching people through the use of media. If anything, retirement has freed up more time for him to utilize these platforms even more, and he doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon. “Passion doesn’t die when you retire. The love of gardening and teaching doesn’t diminish,” he shares. This passion can be seen clearly in all the work that he has accomplished over the years with his proudest achievement being chosen to be a spokesperson for the Get It Growing Program, which was a multimedia effort to penetrate all areas of the state and educate people about the world of gardening. If you couple that with his weekly TV and radio programs, you will find that Gill has left quite the mark on the world of gardening which has recently seen a boom since the start of the pandemic.

Gardening is Thriving

To get into gardening, one must have the desire to go outside and move around. Initially, the pandemic stopped a lot of people from going out and doing the things that they would traditionally do outdoors. Because of the lack of outdoor activities and get-togethers, Gill had conversations with people in the green industry to share the true stories of how people turned to gardening. With the increased interest in growing their own gardens, more people than ever were getting their hands dirty, evidenced by a huge increase in sales. People who didn’t think they had the time to do something like gardening now found ample time as they had to work from home or quarantine and isolate.

Growing in Benefits

and jogging, it has plenty of mental health benefits, too. Interactions with plants are calming; they can’t talk back to you or yell at you. There’s also the satisfaction of building a garden and the feeling of responsibility that creates a bond between the garden and the person. This bond and the work put in can also provide both mental and physical benefits. However, we all know the benefits of gardening. Many of us felt like it would be a lost art eventually though, one that only our friends still found joy in. Luckily, this is no longer the case. “It seemed that this love for nurturing and growing these gardens would die with us, but it is back and thriving,” shares Gill. There has been a resurgence in the term “plant parent” as millennials are discovering just how beneficial gardening can be. Gardening gives you something to do and something to take care of. It also encourages daily movement which can help to prevent health problems like osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, and brain health. Gardening has also shown to have positive effects on the brain during a study done regarding Alzheimers and Parkinsons. It keeps the brain active as people are engaging in an activity that gives them something to care for and nurture. It allows them to feel that sense of independence. For a lot of people, as they grow older and lose some of their independence and mobility, their quality of life also suffers. Gardening keeps these paternal and maternal instincts alive while simultaneously engaging both the mind and body which leads to just an overall better quality of life.

Growing Your Own Garden

Gardening during the pandemic gave grandparents who were separated from their children and grandchildren an outlet to fulfill the need to nurture. Gill expresses that a bond between plant and person is special despite the plants inability to show affection or appreciation through words. There is just a benefit that comes from nurturing that only a select few will understand. For those who would like to jump on the trend, know that it is never too late to start gardening. It is a great way to get outside and enjoy some vitamin D, and it’s a satisfying way of growing your own fruits and vegetables to eat. For individuals who struggle with mobility issues and can’t consistently and frequently bend down or kneel, there are still ways that they can start their own garden. One can either invest in a good quality kneeler or a raised garden bed. These things are specifically designed to aid people who struggle with arthritis and other joint problems. To also reduce strain on one’s joints, it is important to utilize the correct tools making sure they are sharp, as a dull blade will cause you to have to exert a lot more force. According to Gill, it is also important to obtain information that is geared towards where you are living. This is critical to your success. If you are living in Louisiana, it is of paramount importance that you find information that is geared towards gardening in Louisiana. Other states and regions have different weather conditions and factors that change the way they garden and what can grow there, so applying those same techniques to a different area could lead to failure and disappointment. Once the necessary precautions are taken and the geographically correct information is obtained, we can begin to come up with a game plan for the garden. In choosing a patch of land, it is important that you find a spot that gets plenty of sunlight each day. Then, you can establish plots for the different plants and make sure that the soil is healthy enough to sustain a garden. Establishing a daily care routine based on the needs of whatever you are trying to plant and tending to them on a daily basis is vital to the success of the garden. When you know what to grow and when, jump in there and get your hands dirty. If you fail, it is okay. You are bound to see a couple of plants die, but this is all part of learning to garden. Practice makes perfect, and there is nothing more rewarding than watching a plant that you tended to and cared for grow and blossom into something beautiful.