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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."
"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."
“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.”
Evolutionary Landscaping
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.
Inspiration is among our most precious resources.
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.
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.
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?
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”.
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.
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