Tree and Julia arrived at The Garden in January 2021, when Tree started posting Tik-Toks online to spread the word about their “off-grid intentional community,” an ongoing agricultural project meets conservatist community that had existed for 12 years before Tree and Julia showed up, as Vice outlines. By March 26 The Garden announced on Facebook that it was closed. All it had taken was a couple months of snowballing attention, views, and finally threats of mob-and-pitchfork-style “burn it all down” attacks for The Garden to shutter for safety’s sake. Two months later Vice interviewed Tree and Julia to see what they were doing at that point.
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The two regretted how members of The Garden were forced to leave under threat of violence. But Julie admitted to Vice that they inadvertently contributed to The Garden’s downfall by being “a little too trusting” when posting online. However, they didn’t regret the decision to involve themselves in the community. Tree said that The Garden was “always a transitory space” for everyone, where various people went at certain times of the year, left when they pleased, and moved out of specific buildings within a year to prevent a sense of ownership from developing. True to this ideology, Tree and Julie had already moved on by the time of their Vice interview, but still remained involved in a variety of sustainable community projects, some with other former Garden members.
