The Conscientious Gardener: Cultivating a Garden Ethic

The Conscientious Gardener: Cultivating a Garden Ethic
By Sarah Hayden Reichard

“I believe that a garden ethic reflects the conscientiousness of those who care for land by nurturing gardens,” author Sarah Hayden Reichard writes in the Introduction to this book. She continues, “Gardeners revel in the beauty of a flower, the wonders of pollination turning that flower into a lovely or delicious fruit, the snap of a fresh pea pod picked from the vine and eaten on the spot. They are connected to their plot by a love of the living. But the garden ethic also arises from an increasing awareness that, over time, practices and products have crept into our craft that decrease its long-term sustainability. As we have moved from an agrarian society to one based in urban and suburban landscapes, we have lost contact with habits common to our ancestors—such as using naturally decomposing materials rather than synthetic fertilizers to improve soil fertility or nurturing predatory insects and birds instead of deploying the latest, greatest, also usually synthetic products to control pests. A garden ethic gives us the information and structure to return to those less harmful procedures, helping us to view the garden, like the land, as a fully functioning ecosystem – and to incorporate the awareness that its impacts extend far beyond its footprint. Invasive species that escape into wildlands, the mining and transportation of materials such as peat from regions thousands of miles away, and the use of inefficient engines in garden equipment all contribute to the loss of biological diversity beyond our garden gates.”

This book is divided into eight chapters that explore topics important to both gardens and conservation. Fertile, porous soil (The Skin of the Earth) and clean water, our most precious resource, are critical to our existence, but garden practices affect their health and sustainability; these natural resources are explored in the first two chapters. Chapters 3 and 4 guide plant selection. What are native plants, and should you use them? When are they appropriate, and when is a nonnative a better choice? How can you determine which nonnative species will invade, and why are people so concerned about them in gardens when the problems they cause occur in wildlands? The plants you select, as well as other aspects of your garden, such as its structure and water features, can attract desirable wildlife and repel undesirable animals, topics explored in chapter 5. However, gardens also invite unwanted plant, insect, and other species, and how to safely control and even prevent their presence is the subject of chapter 6. The final two chapters, on global warming and reducing waste, look at the big picture as a spur to change. Gardeners can help prevent climate change through simple measures such as reducing soil tillage, switching to push mowers, growing some of our own food, and planting trees to shade the house in the summer. We can also help shrink landfills by composting, not buying overpackaged goods, and either reusing or freecycling garden items.
The book ends with an appendix summarizing more than twenty years of the author’s research on garden plants that can become invasive, with a table of the species worldwide, their impacts, and where they are known to be problems.
Sarah has set a lighthearted tone throughout and thankfully doesn’t get all preachy, it’s engaging reading and often quite easy to embrace her sustainability messages. She has a nifty list of conscientious choices list in the Epilogue that is a full of excellent suggestions such as, “I encourage garden centers to purchase plants grown in decompostable pots, or I do not trade plants with other gardeners if I know the plants are invasive, or I slow the movement of water so it is absorbed into the soil by using plant layers, bioswales, rain gardens, green roofs, or other methods.
Sarah Hayden Reichard is Professor of Conservation Biology and Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington. She is also Curator of the Hyde Herbarium at the University of Washington and heads the Rare Plant Care and Conservation Program, both at the University of Washington Botanic Gardens. She is coeditor of Invasive Species in the Pacific Northwest.

The Conscientious Gardener: Cultivating a Garden Ethic
By Sarah Hayden Reichard
University of California Press
Copyright 2011
Hardcover, 254 pages, $27.50 USD

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