Acknowledging our love for the living world does something that a library full of papers on sustainable development cannot: it engages the imagination as well as the intellect
– George Monbiot
Gardens matter, and the way in which we create them, grow them, and rethink them matters on a level far more important than whether they simply function aesthetically.
And who we garden for, matters more than ever.
Gardens can be a space to help sustain wildlife and ecosystem function because plants are far more than just a visual commodity.
And beauty isn’t just petal deep, but goes down into the soil, farther down into the aquifer, and back up into the air and for miles around on the backs and legs of insects.
You don’t have to see soil microbes in action, birds eating seeds, butterflies laying eggs, ants farming aphids – just knowing it’s possible in your garden connects you to the web of life.
Plenty of books tell home gardeners and professional landscape designers how to garden sustainably, what plants to use, what resources to explore. Yet few examine why our urban wildlife gardens matter, and not just for ourselves, but for the larger human and animal communities.
Vogt addresses why we need a new garden ethic and why we urgently need wildness in our daily lives – lives sequestered in buildings surrounded by monocultures of lawn and concrete that significantly harm our physical and mental health.
He examines the psychological issues around climate change and mass extinction as a way to understand how we are short-circuiting our response to global crises, especially by not growing native plants in our gardens.
Simply put, environmentalism is not political, it’s social justice for all species marginalized today, and for those facing extinction tomorrow.
By thinking deeply and honestly about our built landscapes, we can create a compassionate activism that connects us more profoundly to nature and to one another.
So says the blurb on the back of this ”game-changing book – in an epoch Mark Bekoff calls ”the rage of inhumanity” – author of Rewilding Our Hearts.
I cannot endorse enough’ the clear and urgent call to be conscious about what we plant in our gardens, and to respect the resilience of species that have been in our communities for millenia” by Dr Peter Robinson, CEO David Suzuki Foundation.
This ”powerful and transformative book is about so much more than gardening. It shows us how we can begin to heal … by opening up to the value and beauty of the everyday wild, and the native plants that root us in place” – Susan J Tweit, author of Walking Nature Home.
Open your perspective on deep ecology, on re-wiring our culture, re-thinking how we engage with, manage and revive wildness.
Plant indigenous. Be defiantly compassionate!
Image courtesy of Mullhalls, Omaha, a diverse group of people, bound together by something even bigger than selling plants: working together to engage community and share their passion for the beauty of the natural world.