Sowing seeds of hope

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/12/2023 (322 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is every possibility Alla Olkhovska will spend this Christmas in darkness and bitter cold. Olkhovska lives and gardens in Kharkiv, Ukraine, where a black winter has been forecast. But Olkhovska will work steadily throughout this Christmas season — often by candlelight during the frequent blackouts and internet outages — to package seeds collected from her garden to send to gardeners around the world. Orders for her seeds began pouring in within hours of the release of Gardening in a War Zone, a powerful documentary film that debuted on Floret’s YouTube channel on Dec. 12.

Gardening in a War Zone is the very first Floret Original documentary film. The executive producer is Erin Benzakein, a Washington state-based flower farmer, author and owner of Floret Flower Farm, one of the most well-known flower farms in the world. Benzakein specializes in cut-flower seeds and does what so many gardeners do to find the absolute best flower varieties — she researches, buys, trades and makes new connections. That is how she found Olkhovska, who was selling her unique seed collection through her Instagram account. Benzakein was immediately interested in the seed varieties she saw but also captivated by Olkhovska’s remarkable garden photography.

“I didn’t know what her situation was at the time,” said Benzakein in a recent Zoom interview. “I ordered seeds, and she exchanged instructions and told me how to sow them.” Benzakein was especially interested in the clematis varieties Olkhovska grows in her garden in Kharkiv. “I have been gardening for at least 20 years, and I thought I knew a lot about clematis — I grow about 30 varieties at Floret — but once I discovered Alla and looked at her catalogue and then her book on clematis, I realized I had no idea there were so many clematis varieties I had never seen before.”

A friendship soon formed. Benzakein learned that Olkhovska, 38, cares for her sick husband, her 89-year-old grandmother and her mother-in-law in a rural area in the Kharkiv region. She is dependent on the income from the sale of seeds she harvests from her garden as well as from sales of her e-book on clematis which she wrote last winter during the first year of Russia’s war on Ukraine. “She is such a remarkable person, and it became more and more clear that her story needed to be shared with the world in as big a way as we could possibly pull off,” said Benzakein.

Rob Finch directed Gardening in a War Zone. “What struck me most about this project from the beginning is the power of beauty to overcome and be such a powerful force even in the face of such a horrible situation,” said Finch. “We wanted to make a film that told Alla’s story through the power of hope, the power of flowers and to do that in the most authentic and honourable way.”

The active armed conflict in Ukraine meant Finch and Benzakein could not travel to meet Olkhovska in person, but they felt an urgency to help her. Finch worked with Olkhovska over a period of months coaching her on how to learn to film herself with her smartphone camera. “She made over 200 video clips, non-edited, that chronicled her daily life. Some were up to 10 minutes long, some were just 15 seconds long,” Finch said. Zoom proved to be an incredible tool that enabled Finch and Benzakein to have several hours of conversations with Olkhovska. “We committed to the idea that this was going to be a film not made by high production value,” said Finch, “but made by the quality of the conversations we had with Alla and the video clips she filmed. The power of this film is Alla herself — her spirit, her resiliency.”

Finch and Benzakein were able to hire a photographer who was born in Kharkiv and whose family still lives there. They discovered him through new connections they made, and he was able to spend two days filming Olkhovska.

In the film, Olkhovska guides viewers through her two gardens, one of which is at her grandmother’s home and the other at her mother-in-law’s. She talks about the joy she finds in the breathtaking beauty of the clematis, peonies, roses and rare perennials she grows. As she collects seeds one by one, there are the sounds of air sirens and explosions can be seen in the distance. Olkhovska makes the dangerous trips to the gardens by bus and must return home before curfew.

“She is at the garden every single day,” said Benzakein, “and every single seed is picked by hand, collected, brought home and then dried, cleaned and sorted. She counts the seeds, hand-writes the labels and puts them into thousands of little bags. I refer to them as ‘magic’ because they are tiny bags of magic from her garden and every step along the way is done by her own hands. It’s such a labour of love and it’s so much labour. But it is the only way she is able to take care of her family.”

In less than a week after the release of Floret’s film, Olkhovska had sold every one of her seeds. She takes the seed packages with her handwritten notes to her local post office, which thankfully is still in operation. The money she receives will buy food and fuel for her family. With her spirit buoyed by the incredible response to Floret’s film and the countless new connections she has made with other gardeners, Olkhovska has renewed hope for her family’s survival. Now she will look forward to next spring with the same anticipation and eagerness as Benzakein and you and me, and the opportunity to be in the comfort and promise of the garden once again.

Olkhovska’s new e-book, Clematis, is available through Floret’s online store, (shop.floretflowers.com) for US$26. Since the book is a digital product, it will be delivered right away, and 100 per cent of the proceeds will go directly to Olkhovska. This excellent resource is organized into concise chapters that cover everything you need to know about growing clematis, including pruning groups, vegetative propagation and growing clematis from seeds.

“It is so full of information that is based on her firsthand experience. Alla has opened up a whole new world for all of us gardeners who thought we knew a lot about this,” said Benzakein. “It was my hope with Floret’s film that the community of gardeners around the world would connect with Alla and support her and they overwhelmingly have.”

Benzakein and Finch were very interested when I told them Manitoba has Canada’s largest proportion of residents who identify as Ukrainian, with more than 180,000 people, and that our province has welcomed more Ukrainian refugees per capita than any other Canadian province.

Benzakein and Finch invite you this holiday season to watch Gardening in a War Zone (wfp.to/jYE) and to share your support.

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