Weaving the Web of Life

One of my foremost goals as a gardener is to help weave the web of life in the places where I can make most difference: my own yard and public spaces near my home.

As many people are aware, the earth is under a great deal of ecological strain nowadays. Most suburban yards do nothing to ease those pressures. Instead, landscapers have historically chosen “low-maintenance” plants, by which they mean plants that don’t produce seeds, fruits, nectar, or other foodstuffs that might attract birds, bees, and other wildlife. The result is that suburban landscapes can be remarkably devoid of living things. There’s what we put there, and squirrels, and that’s about it.

Just planting one garden with, for example, nectar flowers to feed butterflies, or milkweed that monarch butterflies lay their eggs on, makes a bit of a difference. But it can’t make much of a difference.

Take monarch butterflies, for example. They migrate from Mexico to Canada and back again every year, and they need to be able to find food sources all along the way. If I have some milkweed and nectar plants, but nobody near me does, the monarchs are unlikely to find my isolated spot, however welcoming it may be. And year by year their numbers dwindle.

What we need is what I have come to think of as an archipelago of friendly habitats. We’re never going to convert every suburban dweller to cultivating butterfly plants. But if enough people have butterfly-friendly gardens, then butterflies can pop from one garden to another, find what they need in various places, and flourish. The denser and bigger the archipelago, the more butterflies we’ll have.

This is why the garden around my house is filled with habitat-friendly plants, and also a big part of the reason why I have started gardens in other public places. I also believe that people are happier if they see gardens in public locations: gardens bring joy and relaxation, and make it look like someone cares about this place. But even more importantly, an archipelago of gardens weaves the web of life more securely.

My concerns here are not just aesthetic. Commercial farming has greatly increased food yields in the last couple generations, but evidence is mounting that commercial farming is fragile in many ways. It depends on a inexpensive supply of abundant petroleum, which we may not always have. It depends on bees to pollinate crops, but many commercial hives have collapsed in recent years. It depends on healthy soils, but commercial practices often lead to the depletion and erosion of soil. It depends on predictable weather patterns, but the world has seen a remarkable number of droughts and floods, heat waves and cold snaps, storms and hurricanes, in recent years, and climate change scientists predict that the weather will become even more erratic unless we dramatically curb our use of fossil fuels and other climate-changing materials.

Perhaps we will continue to have plenty of food for the next fifty years. But perhaps not. Already food costs are being affected by the widespread prevalence of “extreme weather events.”

I can’t do much about these big concerns, but I can do some things.

… I can plant habitat-friendly plants, which help sustain my local ecosystem.

… I can grow some of my own food, reduce my drain on the planet right there, and help keep alive the knowledge of how to grow food in New England.

… I can purchase food at farmers’ markets, and thus help keep local farms in business.

… I can purchase food that has been grown using organic and/or biodynamic practices, and thus contribute to the long-term sustainability of our food supply.

… I can ask my political representatives to support agricultural policies that favor small farms and diverse crops rather than large commercial farmers and monocultures.

This isn’t enough to solve the problem, obviously. But every little bit helps.

Just ask the honeybees and native bees who are buzzing happily over my thyme blossoms.

See also:

Wildlife Habitat Certification

Gardening as a Spiritual Practice