Willie Nelson Peace Institute publishes Russ Henry

Willie Nelson has been my hero since I was a little cowboy.  Now I'm all grown up and I still look up to the red headed stranger.  Willie has spent his whole career standing up for family farmers who have become powerless in our country.

Willie knows that medical marijuana and industrial hemp have the growing power to save American family farmers from going belly up, and he's fought to show us all that Marijuana is medicine given from god, not a dangerous drug as owners of the alcohol, paper, and cotton industries in America would like us to believe.
Willie's strength, determination, and grace have inspired me in my own career, and shown me how to be strong enough to stand up for what I believe in.
I believe that medical marijuana's time has come in Minnesota, I believe that we can't afford to let our politicians drag their heels on this one.  Willie Nelson apparently agrees and he's published a blog post  that I submitted just in time for this election season, demanding an end to the prohibition of this our magic medicine.  Click here to read how medical marijuana can strengthen and grow Minnesota's locally grown food movement!
God Bless Willie Nelson, and God Bless Our Family Farmers!

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Breaking The Rules

Most of my heroes are outlaws. 

My heroes are folks that are not afraid to stand up and defend what’s right, no matter the cost.  My heroes are folks who are brave enough to live a life full of meaning and passion even when the rule-makers of the day demand banality and submission.  

Rachel Corrie stood in front of those bulldozers with a force of will no army can stop.  John Trudell still works for peace and justice even after his mother in-law, wife, and children were taken in a fire that was set to silence him.  And good old Willie Nelson, no matter how many times the authorities bust him down for his choice in medicine, he keeps on touring ‘round the world raising money for struggling family farmers that the government has priced off the land.  If they can do that, if they can all be so brave and free, then so can we.  

We should be inspired by people... who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong-even in the most difficult circumstances.

~Rachel Corrie

Right now the world could use some garden outlaws.  Gardens hold the potential to heal what ails us in so many ways, from reducing global carbon emissions, to providing people with affordable healthy meals, to securing local economies, to growing community health and cultural wealth.  With all this potential at our fingertips, we can’t let the rules hold back or working hands any longer.  We need to stand in the way of the march of industry, plant our plants, and sing our songs, and cultivate our culture so that we can grow a healthy planet once again. Read below to find out how you can be a garden rebel, and a outlaw hero in your own back yard!

Good Guys Break Bad Rules

They keep makin’ ‘em, and we keep breakin’ ‘em!

When one of us stands up and breaks a bad rule alone, that person becomes an example to us all, a hero.

When all of us stand up and break bad rules together, those bad rules change! 

The eagle is a living symbol of freedom.This eagle survives in the same habitat that we all share and live from, the eagle is also a symbol of our own well being. The fight for freedom and health in America is far from over, my friends.  Complying with rules and rule makers that persuade us to destroy habitat, sells the foundation of freedom out from under our feet.  Without the freedom to live in a healthy environment, we have no freedom at all!

 

Freedom isn't a gift handed down from the king, freedom is a jewel stolen by the peasants!

Rise up, break the rules and steal back your freedom!
 

Bad rules hold back our creative spirits, bad rules keep us from our true nature.  Bad rules are made to be broken by good people, so let’s all prove our honor for this Earth that made us, let all good people band together now and break the rules till the rules are good once again.

We don't run, We don't compromise, We don't quit, We never do. We look for love, We find it in the eyes, The eyes of me, the eyes of you.

~Willie Nelson

These Rotten Rules Have GOT TO GO!

Rotten Rule 1.- No Weeds:

 

Weeds are free food and medicine.  Dandelion, purslane, lamb’s quarters, creeping charlie, nettle, and plantain are just a few examples of the weeds that the rule makers tell us are bad plants while in reality these plants provide us with the most nutritious and abundant source of locally produced food.  This is a simple matter of access to health.  Why pay doctors and food companies, if we have free healthy food and medicine at home?    When I look at the shelves of any big box grocery store, I can tell that the rule-makers of today don’t care for our health as much as they care for their profit. 

We can’t eat the grass they tell us to grow in our yards, but we can eat the weeds they tell us to kill.  Now does that make sense to you?

“Let them eat grass” ring a bell for anyone?

Rotten Rule 2.

Yards Should Be Tidy:

Ever been to the jungle?  How ‘bout the woods, prairie, or meadow?  You really don’t see row plantings in nature.  Rows are for folks who don’t believe in abundance.  The natural world preaches abundance at every turn.  Mother Nature eschews boring old rows in favor of filling every square inch of  land with an ever-shifting variety of plants uniquely suited for their home environs.  To plant the exact same corn or tomato in the exact same spot year after year is one practice nature never intended, it’s just too draining on the soils.  We need to let our gardens grow us as much as we grow them, and have a long loving look at what the environment is trying to grow in our yards before we go tearing out everything that didn’t come with a price tag.

 

Rotten Rule 3.

Gardens Cost Money:

 

Really this rule is much more sinister then first glance would reveal.  Gardening is a human tool by which we gain access to food, health, and beauty.  Gardening also connects us with our earthen nature.  If we go around telling ourselves that this amazing, connective, life supporting activity is only for the wealthy, we might as well go ahead and sign away our entire life’s labors in the pursuit of someone else’s happiness.  As long as we’re working for the man, we’re not working for ourselves. 

Join a garden club, connect with Comgar, talk with neighbors, friends, or family who garden, there’s no shortage of ways to connect yourself to a garden.  Find some place that you can start getting your hands dirty in the pursuit of health. 

One of the easiest ways to break this rule is to start composting!  Compost is wealth pulled from waste, and you’ll never find a bigger return on investment in health then your time spent composting!

Gardens don't need to cost the farm! Let your friends help, collect seeds, grow your compost pile from garbage, and throw a garden party to share the fun!

Rotten Rule 4.

 Illegal Animals:

This rooster's on the lam.  While chickens are allowed in the city, Johny Law finds roosters to be a feather too foul.

I live in a city that has a rich heritage of back yard farming.  One of the most common man-made objects I come across while excavating city soils are horse shoes.  This city used to have cows, pigs, sheep, horses, goats and chickens as common in back yards as lawnmowers are today.  We used to gather our own fresh milk and eggs every morning from the barn out back and saddle up the horse to go to work.  This city is no different then any other in America in this aspect.  Animal husbandry is a rich and important part of the cultural heritage of a majority of the folks now living here.  Unfortunately, we are now denied the freedom to practice our heritage by the City of Minneapolis, Animal Control Department.  

Lets go down the list, Horses, Cows, Pigs, Sheep, Goats and Roosters…. All Illeagal.

Chickens, Ducks, Turkeys, and Bees…. Legal but unreasonable and cost prohibitive licensing required, less rule breakers face up to $2,000 in fines. Why do they have these bad rules in place?  If I had my guess it’s so that wealthier folks in mixed income neighborhoods can spare their eyes and noses from the real life sights and smells of people living as people should.  

 

Why should we pay fees to the city just so we can care for our own basic needs?  Seems to me like the sheriff of Nottingham no longer wishes to be paid off in eggs and mead, but would like our silver instead.  Avast ye scoundrels!  Let the good people be free!!

Until recently beekeeping was illegal in Minneapolis, and even today the tax man wants a cut just for a resident to get a beekeeping permit.  Ask old Friar Tuck, no one should come between a man and his mead! Free The Bees!

"I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?"

~Willie Nelson

Rotten Rule 5. Illegal Plants:

Marijuana is medicine and it’s legal for use in 14 states. 

Marijuana is also an easy to grow plant that can be sold for between one and four thousand dollars per pound depending on the variety and quality.

Now if you’re an urban Minneapolis farmer who is really trying to make a go of it selling tomatoes for a dollar and a quarter per pound or potatoes for sixtynine cents per pound while rent is already too expensive and taxes are on the rise, you might just look over the fence at your compatriot urban farming friends in Denver or Detroit and deduce that medicinal Mary Jane is an urban farmers best friend.  
 

Medicinal marijuana in Minnesota is a must if we are to keep urban farmers from going bust.  The only reason they keep this weed illegal anywhere is to line the pockets of pharmaceutical companies instead of farmers.  That’s the kind of BS that I’d like to see turned into compost! 

Imagine a city filled with farms and gardens that provided affordable organic food and medicine for its citizens.  Legalizing medicinal marijuana is the only way we are going to make this wonderful pipe dream a green reality. 

To all the rulebreakers, to all the rebels, to all tomorrows heros, I tell you, you are not alone. 

Dare to dream, dare to live, and inspire those near you to dare to be free!

"No matter what they ever do to us, we must always act for the love of our people and the earth. We must not react out of hatred against those who have no sense."

~ John Trudell

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An Introduction To Health, The Seed #42

Did ya ever get catch a cold and think “maybe I should have eaten more then just chips and ice cream for the last few days?”  Do you ever pick up something heavy in the morning and think not long afterward how a good stretch would have prevented you from the daylong backache you’re about to endure?  Maybe I’m forgetful, or maybe I’m just getting older, but I need a little help from a healing heart every now and then.

After growing up in a family that relied on regular old take-a-pill-if-you’re-sic western medicine, I wasn’t ready till just a few years ago to start seeing healers that practiced anything other than standard U.S. medical school procedures.  Sometimes I figure I’m one lucky guy.  I think I’d still be going to the take-a-pill doc for my various ailments if it weren’t for the very lucky fact that so many years ago I was blessed to meet Katherine Krumwiede.  I knew right away that Katherine would be a lifelong friend, but it wasn’t until after I made the leap of faith and called her for help, that I would come to know her as a trusted healer. 

I remember calling her office for the first time a few years ago when I was suffering from a back pain that was keeping me from moving.  I had mostly had bad luck with western doctors, spotty luck with non-western doctors and this time I wanted to talk to someone I could trust.  While I knew she’d been in practice for a couple of years, I don’t get sick a whole lot and hadn’t yet visited so I still had no idea what was in store for me. 

Now at this point I’m used to seeing the doctors who want to have me take a pain pill and go see a specialist, or tell me something less then reassuring like “I’m not sure what it is, but it will probably go away.”  Looking back, it’s silly to think that I’d pay to go to a doctor and not expect healing, but that’s the space I was in.  So when I visited Katherine and the pain in my body went from stifling to entirely manageable in one treatment, then entirely gone in two treatments without chemical drugs or side effects, I was sold, hooked, and permanently changed. I’d seen the light, and I wasn’t going back.

 

Since that first magical treatment I’ve gone to Katherine for every ache I can’t shake. Not only is she an ace with the acupuncture, but Katherine’s understanding of the plant world and use of the healing power of plants never ceases to amaze this gardener. 

This special edition of The Seed is dedicated to the health of our readers and their loved ones.  Click below to hear from the healer herself, Katherine Krumwiede, proprietor of Diamond Stone Oriental Medicine. 

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Stefan's Fantastic Farm

Stefan Meyer is one guy we could all learn a lot from.  As the driving force behind Minneapolis’ most ingenious new food production business, Growing Lots Urban Farm, Stefan is demonstrating for all of us the potential power held in the ground beneath our vacant urban lots. 

For the last few years, the city of Minneapolis has begun to take the importance of locally grown food seriously.  Through encouraging the growth of farmers markets, and official initiatives such as Homegrown Minneapolis, the city has sprouted seeds of change that should improve our health, habitat, and happiness as they grow.  As politicians congratulate themselves for being so wise and Earth-friendly, green thumbs around town welcome this emerging atmosphere of tolerance toward nature in a city where inspectors routinely cite homeowners for “Overhanging Vegetation”, and until recently bees and chickens were illegal creatures. 

Now that the officials have decided we can go ahead and grow, smart folks like Stefan aren’t waiting around for them to change their minds.  Late last year Stefan got together with Redesign Inc. a local community development corporation that encourages all kinds of good green growth throughout Minneapolis.  With a little help from these folks, and a whole lot of hard work Stefan has pushed the way forward for the development of Minneapolis’ first parking lot-covering urban farm.  
Where once was blacktop now tomatoes are growing!  This is just the type of change welcome in a city hungry for homegrown health.  Click Here to find out more about Stefan’s fantastic farm and the amazing power each of us has to grow our city!

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The Seed Volume 40, Butterfly Gardening

Why do we love butterflies so much?  

 

Is it the beauty and freedom that define their days?  Is it the transformative potential of the chrysalis that attracts us?  After all, butterflies are just bugs too, right?  How is it that we save so much room in our hearts for one bug and have entire industries devoted to the extermination of other bugs?  

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Whatever butterflies are doing that strikes our imaginations and warms our hearts, they seem to be doing it better then any other insect around.  While the dragonfly can impresses us with speed, agility, and grace, the butterflies’ lackadaisical charm flutters ever deeper into our hearts.  While the honey bees work day and night to serve our human purposes, so many people react to their little striped suits with sheer panic, but come the lazy butterfly hopping around on the breeze and people everywhere stop to smile.  I think if I was an ant or a spider I might be a little jealous of those gaudy butterflies.

 

Whatever the reason, folks love butterflies, and that’s good enough for me.  When we make a home for butterflies, we make a home for all nature.  Whatever jealousy the other bugs might feel for butterflies surely would abate if they had any notion that in honor of these little winged wonders, wantonly destructive humans take a momentary pause from laying waste to the land to build butterfly sanctuaries and gardens where all sorts of creepy crawlies can make a cozy home.

As a naturalist, I think it’s high time we humans started devoting more space to the other creatures we share this planet with, and if butterflies can guide the way towards a healthy habitat, so be it!

I’ve heard it said that love is like a butterfly; it goes wherever it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes. I suppose then that just as we need to prepare our hearts if they are to receive love, we need to prepare our yards if they are to receive butterflies.  This month’s volume of The Seed is dedicated to preparing the hearts, minds, and yards of Minnesota gardeners to receive the whimsical love that only butterflies can give.

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

~Carl Sagan

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."

~Hans Christian Anderson

The Butterfly Effect

Tiny actions can have huge effects on complex systems.  The butterfly effect is a theory used by scientists and storytellers alike to explain the notion that even seemingly insignificant actions can have a huge impact over time. With this in mind I like to ask myself a seemingly tiny question.  

What is the effect of my life on the Earth’s living systems?  The size of this question however should not be judged by the number of words it takes to ask, but by the millennia it takes to answer.

Our daily decisions have impacts far beyond our capacity to understand. 

Monarchs below and Western Tiger Swallowtail above feast on the nectar of summer blooming native perennial plants.  Butterfly gardening grows beauty and environmental health. I like to plant a few deeply rooted butterfly attracting native plants in amongst my vegetable gardens.  Not only are my vegetable crops helped when the perennial roots draw moisture from deep in the ground durring the heat of the summer, but the butteflies are happy to see the free food I've grown them, and I'm happy to see the butterflies! 
 

I like to think of myself as a snowflake falling on the side of a mountain, helping to build an avalanche.  I may be one of countless billions of tiny, seemingly unimportant, unique forms, but without my weight on the mountainside would the avalanche take longer to fall?  Does my positioning help other snowflakes land and hold fast?

Now let’s take this frozen metaphor to the next level because it’s time for an avalanche of change when it comes to human behavior within the living planetary system, and I’m one little snowflake who’s ready to throw his weight around. 

Whenever I improve local habitat by building butterfly gardens, I feel like a hero of global proportions.  I know that my work is creating a vital space not just for lovely little butterflies, but for many nations of creatures who have been run out and threatened by industrial living.  I’m not alone, and many people of all walks of life are working with the same goals of growing habitat, improving ecosystem health, and ensuring a safe place for us to live.  Someday soon an avalanche of change must descend on our way of life.

Since an avalanche can be a bumpy ride, we’d better go ahead and get those butterfly gardens started so at least we’ll have something pretty to distract us along the way. 

Butterfly Gardening 101

 
Simply put, if you want to see butterflies, plant native flowers.  The most inviting homes for butterflies will have different types of native flowers that bloom and provide nectar all through the growing season.  To ensure your yard has more butterflies then the Jones’s next door, also plant some caterpillar host plants.  One classic example of a caterpillar host plant is common milkweed, which hosts monarch butterflies and seems to grow as freely as the butterfly it hosts.  If monarchs are your goal, make sure you also plant meadow blazingstar, no other nectar-bearing bloomer can make the monarchs line up like this form of Liatris.  Monarchs are also strongly attracted to other forms of milkweed, black eyed susans, coneflowers, and ironweed. 

Why stop at monarchs though when there’s so many wonderful little butterflies out there to see.  Variety is the spice of life, and the more types of native plants you have in your yard, the more likely you’ll see rare forms of butterfly.  Caterpillar host plants include: Artemisia, which is preferred by Painted Lady caterpillars, Hackberry trees which host many creatures including the American Snout and Tawny Emperor caterpillars while Violets, Purslane, and Sedum which will host the lovely Variegated Fritillary.   

Many butterflies will have widely varying food sources.  Much more then nectar passes the pointed proboscis of our protagonist.  Various butterflies will eat everything from leaves and rotting fruit to dead animals and dung.  The greater the variety of native plants you grow including trees, shrubs, blooming perennials and ground covers, the more diverse will be your yards selections of foods, and the more the butterflies will flutter by.  

  
 A butterflies' beauty is bold and obvious. While other garden bugs may appear to human sensibilities as creepy or scary, they are no less important then the butterflies.

   We like the butterflies, are all connected to, and reliant on a living planetary system stocked full of a huge variety of bugs.  In order to protect one type of insect like the butterfly, we must protect all of the other insects, plants, and animals that live in the butterflies ecosystem.

Hints for Butterfly Beginners:

1. Good plants from good sources.
 

Locally, the best butterfly plant selections are sold at 3 garden stores. Visit all three, they each have different selections and really cool gardeners on staff.  Landscape Alternatives, and Outback Nursery are my top stops for butterfly garden plants.  Roy at Landscape Alternatives is especially knowledgeable about local butterfly plant selections. 

2.  Good dirt makes good gardens.

Ignore the silly rumors that native plants like “starved” soil.  I don’t have any idea where or how this rumor got started, but it’s a downright lie.  The meadow, prairie, and woodland soils from this region, are some of the richest soils I’ve ever encountered and I’ve checked out dirt around the world.  If you want success with your new butterfly garden, before you plant, remove any sod, wood mulch, landscaping fabric, or other impediment to growth, and lay down at least 6 inches of fresh compost (not bagged, never trust a dirt bag), after laying down the compost turn it into the soil with a shovel leaving large chunks of the soil undisturbed.  After the compost has been incorporated into the soil, simply cover with more compost till the surface of the garden is smooth and then plant away till your garden is full and your heart is content. 

3.  Cover the ground in green.

I call this notion “living mulch”.  Not only will this practice keep more moisture in your soil, but by shading the ground, it will help ensure that you are packing your space with plenty of plant diversity.  Lawn grass doesn’t count.  Sod grass lawns provide habitat for neither butterfly, nor bird, nor beast.  When designing your yard, plan for as little lawn, and as much garden as possible.  If you make the flowers happy, you’ll make the butterflies ecstatic!

4.   Grow many layers of canopy.

When we build habitat, it’s good to let nature be our guide.  Before the Twin Cities existed in this area, there was forest.  When we wish to heal the land locally, we need only help recreate the forest.  Native trees and shrubs should be included in the plan for any well landscaped twin cities yard.  I like to plant meadow plants around and underneath newly establishing trees.  Meadows are what the forest uses to recreate itself and fill in the gaps after windfalls and forest fires.  Think of our city building and farming practices as being as destructive to the local forests as a fire or tornado, then you can begin to see the amazing amount of repair we need to create in our environment before it will be healthy again.   

5.   Never EVER use pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

Butterflies are delicate, and we aren’t all that much tougher then them. It doesn’t take much to upset the balance of health in any ecosystem. We’ve already discussed how tiny decisions have big impacts, and this is certainly the case here.  Think of butterflies as the canary to your back yard coal mine.  If there’s so much poison that delicate butterflies are getting sick, then wake up dummy, so are you.  Nature did just fine thank you before we meddling humans came along with our chemical solutions and sprays.  The last thing anyone wishing to grow butterflies should want to do is poison their yard with pesticides or chemical fertilizers.     

The gentle breeze blown by a butterflies beating wing in your back yard could just be the catalyst for the creation of a current of cultural change in America.  Life is funny like that.  Little actions in one place can have huge impacts in seemingly unrelated, far away places. A friend of mine once said to me of butterflies “they should be called flutter-byes, that’s what they do”.  I couldn’t agree more.  Now is the best time to plan a butterfly garden, before the growing season flutters by.

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The Seed Volume 39, Eat A Weed

Eeyore said it best,

“A weed is a flower too, once you get to know it.”

I never cease to be amazed at the fear that passes over folk’s faces when I suggest to them that dandelions or creeping charlie are valuable in the landscape. 

Maybe it’s because I’m a rebel, or maybe it’s because of my respect for plants, but I’ve always loved weeds, in fact I can safely say weeds are my heroes.  Take the dandelion for instance.  How many of us are completely unaware of the power of this plant? 

Dandelion is only the Diana Prince like moniker through which the super hero also known as Taraxacum hides her secret Wonder Woman identity.  Providing free nourishing food, and medicine for the masses, offering soil fertility, and perfect plant companionship for tomatoes and other shallow rooted crops, and all of this in a form that is simple, ruggedly beautiful, and completely unstoppable.  Sounds like your average garden super-hero job description to me.

I for one think weeds are terrific.  I think it’s silly to be terrified of flowers. 

Gardening is a co-creative process, the gardener and the garden both creating away night and day, each with their own ideas and intentions.  As a landscape designer I like to remind myself that humans are far from alone in their desire to alter the world around them to better suit their own needs.  Every time a bird in the woods eats a seed and poops it out that little bird increases the population of its favorite foods in the forest.  This very humbling notion means that all the high-browed landscape design schools, students, and practitioners are essentially performing the same function that a bird performs when it shits.  So while we landscape designers have our notions and practices, the birds, animals, plants, soils, and landscapes have their own notions and practices, which brings me back to weeds. 

Nature uses weeds to perform functions that are often beyond our capacity to easily grasp or even understand at all.  I like to point out to folks that in a lawn made of sod grass for instance, our hero the dandelion will drive roots into the earth allowing minerals and nutrients from deep in the ground to be accessed by the shallow rooted turf grass.  The channels made in the ground by dandelions roots also help drive water and air downward increasing the overall capacity for root depth and allowing water to enter the water table instead of rushing off to damage local creeks, rivers, or lakes.

If the garden is like our mother in how it knows us, nurtures us, punishes us when we deserve it, but loves us unconditionally, then the Earth is like our grandmother.  The Earth let’s us do what we wish, and she gives us everything we can need or want, but she knows so much more then we can imagine that we are silly to question her ways. 

When you go back far enough in time, it’s plain to see that the “gardens” of this Earth created the very bloodlines of those who call themselves “gardeners”.  From this humble perspective we can rethink what it means to be a weed, and if indeed it may be that the worst, most pernicious weed seeds sprout in our own imaginations. 

Let us yank from the root the damaging notion that some plants are evil.  Let us instead see beauty, life, and nourishment wherever we can, and let’s all celebrate the fact that nature cared enough to give us each other and the rest of the creatures on this lonely planet to keep us happy and healthy.

Click Here to learn about some of the terrific edible and medicinal weeds that grace the presence of our Minneapolis yards and gardens.

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The Seed Volume 38, Evolutionary Gardening

Evolutionary Gardening

It has been said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with just one footstep.  I suppose that’s true.  I also figure that if I’m gonna be traveling a thousand miles, that first footstep should be pretty well aimed. The evolution of both the garden and the gardener represent a journey that takes place not in distance, but in time, and as a garden and landscape educator I understand that I’m responsible for giving out the best information and resources to guide folks along the path toward a healthier environment.  So, if I were standing along the trail you travel and you happened to ask me which direction you should aim your energies to find a healthy thriving landscape, I’d gladly point the way.  If however you asked me to map the evolution of your garden, my response might be a little more mysterious.  The map I’d hand you would have nothing but the following question written on it:

 

“How do you honor your environment?” 

Evolution is the process of adapting to change, and work that honors our environment is the best tool we have to help our planet adapt it in these changing times.  Truth be told, I can’t tell you how to honor your environment.  I’m happy to show you some of my favorite ways to give admiration for Grandmother Earth, but your answers to this tiny question of global proportion will be both as common as our human experience and as unique as our varied personalities. I have been blessed to visit so many great landscapes and gardens in my time, each a unique reflection of the gardeners who created them and the environments where they are growing.  In these gardens I’ve seen hundreds of methods and means of achieving healthy harmony in earthen environments.  So, while the bad news is that I have no one right way to show you, the good news is that I have seen many right ways that I can share with you, and I can tell you that allowing yourself to change your garden habits in any way that will create healthy habitat for yourself and the local wildlife is an evolutionary concept worthy of praise.

This months newsletter is dedicated to a very old notion with a fancy new name…

Evolutionary Gardening!

"The poison and pollution in our environment affects how clearly we see things. We need to use our intelligence and organize our consciousness and our perceptions of reality. This is hard work, but it must be done. We are in an evolutionary reality. We are never given something we can't handle. It's about activating the thinking process, about the real value of our ability to think. I say don't believe anything the corporations hand us, whether it is TV, ads or the news as they tell us it is. I am a human, a member of a tribe, not a subject for corporate mining and exploitation. I don't trust their corporate "democracy". We humans must think for ourselves. That's what we need to give to the next generation."

~John Trudell

"We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural rights because all of the natural world has a right to existence and we are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off."

~ John Trudell

“It's about our D and A. Descendants and ancestors. We are the descendants and we are the ancestors. D and A, our DNA, our blood, our flesh and our bone, is made up of the metals and the minerals and the liquids of the earth. We are the earth. We truly, literally and figuratively are the earth. Any relationship we will ever have in this world to real power -- the real power, not energy systems and other artificial means of authority -- but any relationship we will ever have to real power is our relationship to the earth.” 

~ John Trudell

Evolutionary Landscaping

Charles Darwin tells us that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”

 Well folks, change seems to be knocking at the door to humanity demanding it’s way in.  Between changing economies, climate change, and changing social values, our species is facing a paradigm shift so drastic in scope that every living human culture has begun preparing for a different tomorrow. 

Maybe you’ll agree that within only a few hundred years of industrialization, we’ve done an incredible amount of devastation to our delicate home.  Our warring cultures demands for efficiency has lead to an attempted homogenization of natural human processes throughout the planet.  Here in America industry gives us food and water, and industry carries away our waste.  Industry helps us birth our babies, raise our children, store our wealth, wed our lovers, occupy our adults, hospice our elders, and burry our dead.  All of these interactions have been designed by the industries offering them to take wealth and power away from the folks who purchase their products and services and put that power into the hands of industrial leaders in the form of money and brand devotion.  All of these interactions also represent a sort of degeneration instead of the evolution we’re gonna need to undergo to keep our species kickin’ around on this planet we call home. 

Now it might strike some readers that here, the owner of a company offering landscaping services is essentially telling folks to stop shopping.  I suppose I have a slightly different view of landscaping then most others in the trade.  Giving Tree Gardens seeks at all turns to empower community, clients, and anyone that will listen with the knowledge, resources, and methods that will help them engage with and honor their world a little bit more.  We offer services to those without the time or ability to do the work themselves, while encouraging a do-it-yourself mentality through our various forms of consultation, our community classes, as well as our newsletter, blog, and website.

Inspiration is among our most precious resources. 

Rain Barrels are a highly evolved idea!  Click here to find out more about rain barrels!

John Trudell is one abundant source evolutionary inspiration.  Mr. Trudell is a brilliant author and public speaker.  Perhaps the most striking thing I heard him say while he gave a speech in Minneapolis a couple years back touched on the concept of revolution vs. evolution.  John shared the notion that revolution based on the word “revolve” will only get us back where we started just as the Earth finds itself back in the same spot every new year.  He said that we should become evolutionary instead of revolutionary.  He helped me understand that if we are to move on beyond our problems, we must do the changing because our problems won’t just change for us.  So what kind of changes should we make in our landscaping habits?  Sure I’ve got some ideas for you, but I wanna hear your ideas too.  

Worms are fun, gross, and good for the earth!  Click here to find out more!

 The full answer to the question of how do we all honor our environment together will only be found when we all explore together a few more basic questions.

Who am I?, Where am I?, and What am I doing here?

Who Am I?

This question is important because who you are informs your needs, and your environment should be able to provide your needs.  The answers to this question include things like your ancestry, community, tastes, family, point of view, relationships, age, personality and more.  To take a step further into the landscape we begin asking questions such as: What plants are culturally relevant to you?  How have your ancestors traditionally raised or gathered food?  What are your favorite flowers?  These questions and many more will begin to show us what we need from our environments, and the next question will begin to show us how those needs may be met.

Where Am I?

I love this question.  My answer to this question begins with one well-annunciated word.  America!  I see such a heavy European influence in the local landscape from sod grass lawns to man made ponds to parking lots and freeways, that I find myself often needing to remind folks that indeed we are in America, and that if we are to honor this place so that it may support us, we should recognize the needs of the land beneath our feet. 

Every place has plants that are native to it.  Here in America, native plants fed wildlife and people for millennia before the conquistadors, pioneers, and settlers (some my ancestors) invaded this land and started causing widespread damage here.  If these American plants fed folks for such a long time, why shouldn’t we who call ourselves Americans eat them again?  What are the native plants in your region?  What are the uses of these plants for you and the native wildlife?  To honor your space you must know, respect, and support the life that was there before you arrived.

What Am I Doing Here?

Just what are you doing here?  This is a pretty big question.  We spend our days and nights eating, working, traveling, visiting, sleeping, purchasing, communicating, any number of normal and abnormal human activities fill our time.  Just what are these activities?  Are they good for this space?  Do our actions honor our environment?   

Every one of our actions impacts our environment.  Some of our actions have a positive impact in our environs, some much less so.  What are the local, regional, and global environmental impacts of some of your landscaping decisions?  Are the plants that are culturally relevant to you able to live here without damaging this space?  Are you able to live here without damaging this space?  How can you do what you need to do and still live in harmony with the land around you?

A rain garden can filter rainwater to recharge aquifers that we all drink from, growing even just tomatoes at home can reduce the amount of petroleum it takes to make your meals, and native tree plantings can support migrating wildlife from around the globe, these are all small, locally made decisions that have profound positive impacts in the larger ecosystem.  So what are you doing here?, and what are the impacts of the actions you make?  Are you acting with honor towards this place that supports you?  

Inspirational sources abound in this world.  A friend and former neighbor Bob Milner is yet another inspiring mentor in my life.  Bob is a marketing wizard and a community activist since….., well he may have invented marketing and community activism, but Bob and I were sitting and chatting marketing strategies one afternoon when he turns to me and says,

“Russ I want to give you something, ……Evolutionary Gardening, that’s what you’re doing, that’s what you should call it, you should trademark this idea, it’s yours, I’m giving it to you”. 

In honor of Bob, and his really good idea, I’m happy to go ahead then and tell the world what I think it means to be an “Evolutionary Gardener” as he so eloquently put it.  I’m probably not going to go for the trademark though, I just can’t find it in me take any credit for a process as old as time. 

If you click on any of the pictures on the side of the page, you’ll be shown some of my favorite do-it-yourself methods for evolving your own yard and landscape.  I love these particular methods because of their simplicity.  I suppose simplicity is important because evolution is the process of tiny, simple changes one after another working together to create harmony.  

With so much change in the forecast, I’m ready to do my part to make allies, share ideas, and develop the bonds of community that will help this land that I love so much, thrive in the face of change.  By honoring our environments we honor ourselves, so my question to you now is, How do you honor your environment? 

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