The Girls Who Turned Their Gardens

In January 2026, I visited Vilcabamba, a distant valley in Ecuador referred to as the Valley of Longevity, the place folks use Indigenous practices and reside terribly lengthy lives near the land and soil.

While there, I photographed three ladies who’ve every constructed outstanding gardens. Carmen is from the Saraguro Indigenous group and has grow to be a co-owner of the land she cultivates, creating her personal strategies for rising vegetation alongside endemic species. Anita is a jazz singer who grew up within the American Midwest, traveled the world, and ultimately put down roots in Vilcabamba, reworking a number of acres of land into Ecuador’s first residential ecological domes that reside alongside therapeutic areas and a quietly extraordinary ecosystem. The third is my aunt, initially from the Dominican Republic, and a lifelong scholar of plant medication, gastronomy, and ayurvedic apply.

What struck me most was not the gardens themselves however the sorority amongst these ladies. They cook dinner for one another, share what they develop, and change data from vastly completely different traditions and geographies.

In these images, the ladies aren’t simply working of their gardens; they’re changing into them. As flowers press towards their pores and skin, the backyard nourishes them in return.