Taking Root
Eskaton gardener grows an active community
By Jessica Laskey
December 2025

The garden at Eskaton Village Carmichael is more than a beautiful place for residents to grow plants. It’s a place to get outside and connect with nature and each other.

Helen Root has headed up the gardening committee for five of the seven years she’s lived at Eskaton. Under her leadership, the garden expanded in size and mission.

“One of the first things I did when I was elected in 2021 was update our mission statement,” Root says. “The one I inherited was so straightforward: We rent boxes and fees are used to buy supplies. We do so much more than that! The revision became: We develop camaraderie with one another, encourage other residents to come through and enjoy nature and make it a real experience.”

Root wasn’t a gardener growing up, but “a latent gardening gene must have woken up” as an adult. Part of that is because she married a man who grew up on a farm. After 15 years in Scottsdale, Arizona, the couple bought a farm in New Mexico. They sold produce at farmers markets for 10 years.

“I was a city girl, so I had a lot to learn,” says Root, who grew up in Menlo Park, attended UC Davis and graduate school in San Francisco.

Root enjoys how gardening “gets back to the science-y part of me.” During a career as a toxicologist, she worked on product safety, regulatory compliance and labeling for companies such as Dial and Purex.

She credits her science background as the reason she loves calculated cultivation risks.

“A garden is always an experiment of one kind or another,” says Root, a certified master gardener. “Instead of growing three or four dozen tomato plants, I’d rather try a weird tomato. A year and a half ago, I even got a carnivorous plant. We went to the UC Davis botanical conservatory as a field trip and got to take a gift home. I asked for a pitcher plant. It has to be watered with distilled water, so I had to buy my own still. My plant is gorgeous, if I do say so myself.”

Her willingness to try new things has led to good things at Eskaton. At the end of 2019, she and several residents renovated the community’s 20-year-old rose garden. They installed raised beds and plants with guidance from the designer of the World Peace Rose Garden on Capitol Mall.

The Eskaton rose garden is now an affiliate of the international World Peace Rose Garden network and hosts a ceremony on World Peace Day, Sept. 21. It also runs a Mother’s Day brunch. About a dozen volunteers keep the garden tidy and productive.

The garden boasts 33 boxes, including four on legs for residents with mobility issues. Eskaton residents rent boxes and plant what they please, which keeps them active and connected.

“Eskaton makes a point that aging is beautiful,” Root says. “It doesn’t mean you can’t do anything as time goes on. We’re very active. Gardening is a very demanding thing if you really get into it.”

Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.