Visitors to the Pineapple Peace Garden in Minneola quickly realize it is no ordinary backyard.

Butterflies drift among native flowers. Fruit trees share space with herbs and medicinal plants. A yoga deck sits beneath the trees, while a small healing cottage offers a quiet place for reflection.

Founder Katie Haley says that every plant tells a story.

Some plantings trace back to her years studying herbal traditions in India, Peru and France. Others remind her of family members who inspired her love of gardening. Many represent lessons learned through years of research, travel and hands-on experience.

Perhaps the most meaningful story growing at Pineapple Peace Garden isn’t about plants; it’s about coming home.

Five years ago, after 33 years spent building a career as a licensed massage therapist, aesthetician, herbalist and aromatherapist, Katie returned to Lake County and moved back onto her parents’ property for the first time since leaving home at 18.

“I came here and I saw my parents’ land with just weeds and grass,” Katie says. “And something said, ‘You need to move here.’”

She returned with a vision, not only to help her aging parents, but to create a place where others could learn about gardening and about how beneficial a deeper connection with nature can be.

That vision eventually became Pineapple Peace Garden, a nonprofit educational garden dedicated to teaching people how to grow food and herbal medicine in their own backyards.

The garden’s name comes from a pineapple plant Katie brought with her from South Florida, the only plant she transported when she moved. The pineapple also symbolizes hospitality, something she hopes every visitor feels when they arrive.

Katie’s love of plants began long before her nonprofit.

“I’ve been a plant lover my whole life,” she says.

Her Italian grandmother kept a garden and her Irish grandfather came from a farming family. Years later, her early fascination evolved into a lifelong pursuit.

After years of study, Katie launched an aromatherapy company that operated for 18 years. She trained with farmers and distillers, studied extensively in India and spent years learning about traditional healing practices from cultures around the world. Her travels eventually inspired books focused on medicinal plants and herbal traditions.

Of all the places she visited, however, she chose a backyard in Lake County to be the foundation for her next chapter, but with everything she’d learned about intertwined.

Today, Pineapple Peace Garden offers guided tours, workshops and hands-on classes focused on gardening, food forests, medicinal herbs, pollinator habitats and sustainable living. Visitors learn how to harvest herbs, make tinctures and discover practical ways to grow food in even small spaces.

One of Katie’s goals is helping people see plants differently.

Many visitors arrive knowing herbs as ingredients for cooking or flowers as decorative additions to a landscape. Katie teaches that many plants have served additional purposes for generations.

She points to rosemary, oregano, passionflower, rose petals and olive leaves while explaining their traditional uses and demonstrating ways they can be preserved through tinctures, teas, infused salts and other preparations.

One of her favorite examples is the moringa tree, sometimes called a ‘miracle tree’ because nearly every part of it can be consumed or used in some way.

Katie dehydrates the leaves into powders, incorporates them into recipes and regularly shares seeds with visitors interested in growing their own trees.

“I hand moringa seeds out when I give talks,” she says. “You know how Johnny Appleseed was giving out seeds to help people grow apples? Well, I’m giving out seeds to help people grow moringa.”

She also teaches visitors how previous generations preserved medicinal plants much the same way they preserved food.

“You want to make the medicines and harvest things, kind of like our grandmothers and their grandmothers did in the summertime when they had peaches,” she says. “No one was gonna be able to eat them all, so they made jam.” 

For Katie, learning how to harvest, preserve and use plants isn’t about replacing modern medicine. It’s about helping people better understand the resources growing around them and reclaiming knowledge that was once commonly passed from one generation to the next.

Over time, Katie realized her mission had become about something larger than gardening.

“All the information we need is at our fingertips, so we don’t need more information,” Katie says. “What do we need more of? We need inspiration.”

She believes many people have lost touch with experiences that previous generations took for granted, like growing food, preserving harvests and spending time outdoors.

“I want to help people do things that are quick and easy, because that’s a good way to start,” she says. “And then if they feel inspired and they are seeing the benefits of it – which I think they will – then they might want more.”

Her classes place just as much emphasis on connecting with nature as they do on gardening techniques.

“I think people forget how powerful nature is,” she says.

Her philosophy extends beyond food production. Native plants throughout the garden attract bees, butterflies and birds. Katie regularly teaches about the importance of supporting pollinators and creating backyard habitats that benefit the environment.

“If we all just planted a little bit of the natives, we could have a huge renaissance just in our own backyards,” she says.

Many visitors leave inspired by the plants, but Katie’s greatest inspiration is very human. One of the garden’s most meaningful success stories is standing right beside her. Katie’s father, Jerome Haley, helped transform the property from her idea into their reality.

“My dad has helped me do so much,” Katie says. “He was reluctant, but he helped me because he’s a good dad.”

Jerome admits he wasn’t immediately sold on the plan.

“When we started, we didn’t know how much work would be involved,” he says. “I was kind of overwhelmed.”

Together, father and daughter removed grass, hauled mulch, planted trees and repeatedly adjusted the layout as they learned what plants worked best where.

“We started out with one plan, but we kept changing it,” Jerome says. “It’s more complicated than people may think, but it’s worth it.”

As the garden grew, so did Jerome’s enthusiasm. Katie says the transformation has been remarkable.

“My dad is 87 years old and he can work so hard,” she says. “He’s lost weight, he’s gotten more fit and he helps me a lot.”

The project also strengthened a relationship interrupted by decades apart. Katie says working side-by-side with her father has become one of the garden’s greatest gifts and Jerome agrees.

“It really gave me a purpose; I wasn’t doing much before,” he says. “Most of all, we work great together.”

With that, Katie doesn’t measure success by how many trees she plants or how many workshops she teaches. Her satisfaction comes from helping people rediscover something many have forgotten.

“I feel like there’s so much in all this, so much beauty and real healing,” she says. “Whatever I’ve found that is helpful to me, I want to share it with other people.”

In a world that grows increasingly digital by the day, that connection remains at the heart of everything she hopes to cultivate.

“My number one mission is to keep people connected to nature,” Katie says. For more information call 407.760.8214 or visit PineapplePeaceGarde.org.  

Photos: Nicole Hamel and Provided