Planting a Self Conserving Native Landscape
Ten full moons have fallen since I published “Mother Yards and the Native Plant Sharing Network.” The ideas I proposed in that post are unfulfilled, but holding fast—assuredly waiting for warmer days to spark their emergence. Today, though, it’s cold and wintry, and I can …
“Then the thought came to me, “We are the Native Plant Nursery.” Every yard inhabited by self-conserving native plants is a birthing place, a mother yard with progeny to share freely with others.” Mother Yards Through two long torrid days of the 2016 drought, I …
I’d been imagining a native landscape-gardening school called “Working on the Edge of Nature,” a place where students learn how to work in the liminal space, the transitional threshold, where nature and human life meet. As I delved further into the idea, I recognized that …
Written in gratitude to Sara Stein, Stephen Jenkinson and Suzanne Simard, all pioneers of thought for our time, all practitioners of the things they believe in.* Early last summer, I spotted my neighbor Caroline as I was walking out to weed the front gardens. It …
In the beginning, the gardening I practiced was largely, often completely, a foisting of my human will on the land. It rarely allowed, it routinely imposed. I continued that practice for many years, then I brought its habits to Chattanooga Valley when I settled here …