by Shira Lynn
You know those high maintenance yards where plants don’t touch — where each specimen is surrounded by a mulch moat living the American dream of ruling one’s own turfdom? Standing out while fitting in. It’s powerful, impressive and sort of lonely. Not great for the environment or for mental health. Must everyone stand alone? Our hearts ache for closeness.
Let Life Be Lush.
Admittedly, I like my home sparse, tidy and airy. I rearrange furniture to experience what is familiar anew. Inside, I manipulate objects. The Outside, however, is teeming with dynamic, complex life. I may want desperately to be in control so life can feel stable, but The Outside ≠ The Inside. Outside, I don’t have to be obsessive and controlling — because I’m not in charge. Outside, I get to share the vision and the work as a part of a living organism. I’m in co-creation with other beings, so I need to watch, listen, learn from and be of service to the place where I stand.
Growing up, I was taught that most forces are in competition for survival so I must vigilantly defend my territory. I’ve begun to wonder though, “Is it true?” If food were everywhere again, and we weren’t so busy creating scarcity and going at it alone, might there be plenty to share around?
Add > Subtract
Diversify > Simplify
In Agroforestry, there’s alley cropping. In annual agriculture, there’s interplanting and living mulches. John Jeavons and others recommend companion planting to improve flavor and to discourage creatures that might eat before and more than we get to. In permaculture, we plant guilds as we Use and Value Diversity. We keep the ground covered with vegetation and Integrate rather than Segregate. Each of these systems recognizes that resilience comes from close, symbiotic partnership.
Permaculture promotes the edible-and-ornamental-as-one, teaching us simultaneously to assess what niche is being filled and what services are being offered. According to Edible Forest Gardens (Jacke and Toensmeier), a plant within a community might act as a nectary, an aromatic pest confuser, a dynamic accumulator, and/or a nitrogen fixer. It might be culinary (with weedy herbaceous examples like lambs quarter, nettle, amaranth, chickweed, sorrel, dandelion, violet, chicory and purslane) or medicinal (like yarrow, mullein, coltsfoot, raspberry, cleavers, St-John’s-wort, goldenrod and clover).
Yet, I do weed: I yank out grass. For legibility, I do pull some of the “unlike” trying to mingle with clumps of otherwise sameness. I weed around vegetables in a tempered fashion. And in order to keep an eye on new plantings, I lightly weed their mulch circles.
Sometimes I pull the roots. Other times, I cut the heads off with a scuffle hoe, sickle or manual hedge clippers. I return to the land what I have taken, amassing it in nearby compost piles or in weed-designated piles. I frequently simply Chop and Drop using cuttings directly as mulch. If I’m feeling insecure, I might solarize in a large, reused plastic bag or on pavement in the sun before topping off the compost piles. I eat thinnings and have read that some people dry and burn them for the nutrient-rich ash. I would never send organic matter to landfill.
As I tear out handfuls of young, green growth during our oh-so-short growing season, I pause to wonder: Am I doing good? What if the aunties and uncles are crowding around to welcome the new member of the neighborhood? To coddle the baby, put arms around shoulders, and intertwine roots? I wonder why I need to fear plants. Why I want to villainize them. When I encounter their resistance, do I listen? Am I able to ease into a posture of curiosity rather than double down into a battle of wills? Granted, I lost out to poppies in a chard bed one year. There was pollen and beauty, so we all feasted regardless. I Loosen Control to Make Way for Magic. When tearing shit out feels too exhilarating or obsessive, I gotta check myself. Back off. Slow down.
Nonviolent Direct Inaction
To hone my skills of discernment I assess:
• Is the unplanned plant able to reproduce in its present stage of life?
• By what means does it spread and at what rate?
• How easy is it to knock back for better breathing room during slug season?
• When will it die back on its own?
• Is it offering color, nectar or wild food in the earliest part of the season?
• Is it holding bare soil?
• Is it helping to trap moisture in a good way?
• Might it help protect focal plants from marauders as a physical or chemical barrier?
• What is it telling me about soil conditions?
• Does it enrich the soil?
• Is there a tap root drawing nutrients for the benefit of more shallowly-rooted plants?
• Might the depth and spread of the roots be complimentary?
• Do they occupy different vertical stories?
• Could it provide nectar in the shoulder seasons and seeds and shelter in the winter?
• Is it a nesting or overwintering site?
• Edible?
• Easy going?
• Beautiful?
• Aromatic?
Cultivate the Conditions for Life
Biodynamic principles and Findhorn Garden philosophy embrace the physical-and-spiritual-as-one. They instruct us to coordinate with cosmic life forces to help other beings reach their full expressions. I wonder, if my role is to help other life, how do I discern which life gets priority? Grounded in the understanding that humans are among the youngest species in creation, Robin Wall Kimmerer recommends asking the plants themselves, “Who are you and what do you have to tell us?” Annual vegetable growing requires constant, reductionist manipulation whereas permaculture, while still incorporating annuals, offers us a richer, more self-sustaining model. Surrounding the woody plants that anchor our designs, both the planned and unplanned can find home. This helps us answer Wall Kimmerer’s call to seek the threads that connect rather than severing them.
Watch. Wait. Work?
So, I try to resist my acculturation to separate out and simplify. I try to open elbow room as needed the way a parent gives increasingly larger shoes to a growing child. I avoid killing a plant that is flowering or that is about to. I try to follow the lead of volunteers and migrators who show me where they want to be. I try not to assume that I know who will become best friends. I let shrubs take their natural forms so they can maintain their own understory. I only clear cut if I have a specific other use in mind that I am ready to implement. (I do cardboard and chip in advance when replacing lawn so that the materials have time to change state.) My mottos are: Let It Fill In, Adjust to the Land, Work With What is and With What Wants to Be, and Flip the Feel. If the property is more lawn and mulch than contiguous perennial habitat, reverse the negative.
Cultivate > Inhibit
Look > Manage
Observe > Intervene
The more I hone my spidey senses, the more I fall in love, and the less I am driven or willing to disrupt the life I encounter. Everywhere I look, something exquisite is occurring. It may sound silly, but when a branch snags the hat off my head, I choose to imagine it’s playing games with me. When it thwacks me in the face, I decide it’s wanting my attention. Life is everywhere calling. Have I walked by too often without saying hello? So each day, I visit the yard and touch the plants. I make social calls, cultivating community.