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To Garden Honestly

From "Minnesota" 1980 by Joan Mitchell An ornamental garden is not always what it appears to be The call to action appeared in my inbox: “are we gardening while the world burns?” Yes, I got the easy reference to Nero, Rome and all that, which is, historically, a fairly complicated story in itself. And yes, ornamental—as distinguished from food—gardening, could be considered an oblivious, even oppressive activity, especially if conducted with plenty of staff in the pursuit of displaying wealth using plants and techniques that harm ecosystems. But rebelliousness rose in me. As a serious modern gardener, I wondered, does this person not understand where gardening is situated in the history of our species and how it can be used to make a fierce statement about possible futures? And I’m not talking about utopian ideas of getting back to the Garden of Eden, either. Nettled, I did look around the internet and found that the phrase seems to have come from an essay in which the write ...

The Last Tomatoes

Samhain, Halloween, Day of the Dead, All Saints/Souls Days

An Absence of Some Months

A Small Prairie Garden

On Summer Break, Back Soon

All Kinds of Nightshade

Guest Post at Beautiful Wildlife Garden

Problematic Pokeweed

Beware the Dreadful Bindweed

A Date with Some Turtles

Ecological Reality Is Not What You Hypothesize

How Gardening Is Not Writing

Matteo and His Fig Tree

Spring Dispatches from the Backyard

April is Poetry Month 2011: "Segovia's Every Tree in Its Shadow"

The Earth Day Reading Project: A Blog Meme

We Need More Native Plants in Our Parks

In Praise of Native Shrubs

It's Time for Your Lawn to Make Peace with the Earth!

"Attracting Native Pollinators"

One Year on the Blog

Sandhill Cranes and Spring Resolutions

An Historical Precedent for the Polyculture Lawn

The Wild Things Conference

(GMO) Alfalfa and Our Future

Guest Post at Beautiful Wildlife Garden

A Hedgerow Project

Pollinator Garden Resources on the Web

Two Classic Accounts of Living with Nature

Rambling around the Web

Let's Talk About Bees

Non-native Plants I Won't Deep Six

Hummingbird Facts and Nature Rants