Rethink beauty
It’s not about pretty any more.
“Gardening is like cooking. It is tempting to cook only with the goal of achieving great taste, with no thought of healthy eating. Similarly, it is tempting to garden only for beauty, without regard to the many ecological roles our landscapes perform. All too often, such narrow gardening goals result in a landscape so low in ecological function that it drains the vitality from the surrounding ecosystem.” - Doug Tallamy, the author of Nature’s Best Hope, A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard
It’s time for a more generous definition of nature beyond the binary of “wilderness” (what we hike through) and “gardens” (what human creates). Whether we realize it or not, out gardens are already connected to the nature around them; little that moves pays heed to the garden gate. Though the creatures that come to call a natural garden home may not be the same cohort that calls a natural area home, that doesn’t diminish their value. Your garden is alive. At this moment, some creature stirs in the underbrush, buzzes between flowers, and flits between branches. When we blur the definition of “wild” nature and “tended” nature, we find a new role as creative, supportive, and deeply appreciative stewards of nonhuman life. We cultivate awareness of the place we grow as much as anything with actual roots. We garden by moving away from models of control to something that embraces unpredictability and constant change. A natural garden is a place of consilience. With a new mindset, the creative opportunities are boundless.
Traditional gardens are designed primarily to be decorative, relying on fixed planting patterns that are, by nature, static. Their care is devoted to preserving the existing state of affairs - the status quo - and such care is properly called maintenance. Natural gardens break from tradition in many ways, as a result their care requires a different type of gardening performed by a different breed of gardeners. Natural garden design is based on dynamic rather than fixed patterns. Their existing state of affairs is a moving target. Caring for these ever-changing gardens involves artful stewardship, not maintenance. There is no status quo in natural gardens.