Protect your practice like a cactus

On naked gardening, resilience, and carving out space in the desert

Photo by Ashleigh Robertson on Unsplash

I’ve never had much reason to celebrate World Naked Gardening Day. You can’t do much gardening on a condo balcony, especially naked. But this year, things are different.

I’ve been back in the desert a few months now—back in the house I grew up in, surrounded by dust and gravel and memories I didn’t ask for. The place feels both exactly the same and completely unrecognizable. There’s no naturist community here. No beaches. Nothing but dry land and wide-open sky.

In California, naturism came easy. The ground was already broken—clubs, beaches, events, a culture that had been there long before I showed up. The soil was rich for growing a naturist practice, the climate forgiving. I didn’t have to defend it or explain it. I just had to step in, and let it grow, one flower among many.

Here in Nevada, the climate is different. The soil is dry, the sun relentless. There’s no established ecosystem—no gatherings, no shared language. Nudity here isn’t supported by culture. It survives, if at all, like desert flora: by being hard to kill.

Out here, my naturism feels more exposed, more solitary. Out here is where my practice gets tested. If California was where my naturism took root, then Nevada is where it has to prove its resiliency.

So this year, I’m gardening naked. Not just because it’s World Naked Gardening Day, and not just because I finally have a yard. I’m doing it as a way of adapting—of cultivating something that can thrive in a harsher climate. A practice with deep roots and a thick skin. Like a cactus: patient, private, self-sustaining.

As a gardener, I don’t really know what I’m doing. But I’m out there anyway—hopefully establishing and supporting something fruitful. Something lasting. Maybe that’s what this day is good for. 🪐