Gardening, stewardship, and sustainability

Transforming lawns to a vibrant wildlife habitats, growing vegetables, and carefully tending 'our' patches of land are sustaining activities, ones that ground me in what I can do, and away from worrying about the difficult environmental times that face us.

My work (as a garden educator) is also encouraging: I help folks learn how to be better stewards by being better gardeners, promoting native plants and restoring wildlife habitats, and am definitely an encouraging voice about growing more vegetables and fruits in the open spaces (lawn or not) that many Americans have access to, whether on their own 'property' or not.

I love the idea of guerrilla gardening - planting plants where they should be, but aren't! These are the curbside planting areas, empty 'hell strips' between sidewalks and roads, and barren parking lot edges.

Gardening and stewardship provides hope, for restoration of both native and created garden space. At least that's what true for me.