Introducing "The Ramble!"

A weekly newsletter for curious gardeners

Feb 03, 2024

Hey there! I am so glad you are here. Welcome the The Ramble… a newsletter for curious gardeners! I am Molly, the heart and hands behind Roots & Ramblings, a garden design studio based in Birmingham, AL that is smitten with gardens and all the plant-y things that come with it.

I am often asked how I came to the world of gardens. To be quite honest, it really feels like gardens are something that found me.

For starters…I had the loveliest childhood.

Like the loveliest of all lovely childhoods! In those formative first years we grew up far from town on a big property filled with rambling creeks, dazzling woodlands and a lake stocked with a canoe. My two sisters and I spent countless hours in the woods with just our two Border Collies, a feisty Jack Russel Terrier, and our imaginations. I know that’s when I fell deeply in love with the landscape, especially the wild parts of Alabama.

And perhaps that is when I fell in love with gardens too…

When we create a garden, we are shaping the wild with our imaginations. A garden is indeed a version of paradise, a memory of a place we have perhaps forgotten but are striving to enter again.

It feels like an immense privilege to step into the studio at Roots & Ramblings each day. My very own garden studio… I honestly look back and chuckle! How am I here? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was in my OshKosh B’Gosh denim overalls scrambling over rocks down by the creek with ripe plums in my backpack? Are little kids in overalls allowed to grow up and run their own business?

Maybe little kids in overalls just grow up to be adults in overalls?

Each day in studio, I am chasing that childhood wonder of the natural world.

Back at a knee high age, it came so easily. The giggles, the awe, the delight, the curiosity, and the gumption…

For me, that is what a garden is chasing, the delight and wonder of childhood.

As I sit here typing, I am struck by how blessed I am to have had a childhood that is worth reaching back into for inspiration. In a broken world with lots of hurt and evil, I still think gardens are poised to push against that darkness. The creation of a garden is an act of hope. It is setting into motion something that says, things don’t have to be as they are, they are free to grow and change and delight. Gardens bring beauty, and beauty matters.

Roots & Ramblings is a garden studio that exists to cultivate more gardens and gardeners. To me, a garden simply can’t exist without a gardener. It gets richer with time as a gardener cultivates a relationship with their little spot of ground. As gardeners we engage with growth and change… It’s a magical process.

So, what exactly is this newsletter?

I am so glad you asked.

My hope is that this weekly newsletter is a fun nugget in your inbox each week that opens the gate into the world of gardens for you. Whether you are just getting started on your gardening foray or are a seasoned pro with calloused hands, the best part about gardening is there is always more to grow, something new to explore, and a new person to learn from. Gardening isn't about your square footage and budget, it’s about having a relationship with a place. It’s a life long venture, one in which you simply just have to follow that next bend in the road.

So, each week, I’ll be here.

This newsletter will be filled with all those bits and bobs that make gardens so intoxicating: planting experiments, stories of gardeners and their gardens, inspirational podcasts and articles, a link to my new favorite overalls or my latest reads, tips on what to do in your garden and when… and maybe somewhere along the way we will unlock that magical quality of childlike wonder.

So if that sounds like garden party you want to be invited to, come on in! Hit that subscribe button and I’ll meet you back here.