Our Global Garden

By Julie Dennewitz, CGC Horticulturist

What is a garden? How do we draw the line between our well-loved and tended gardens and the chaotic wilderness beyond?

A garden is a sanctuary. A refugium from the dangerous world. The first garden was said to be a paradise containing all the pleasures and gifts that nature offers. We know the difference between a garden and a field or forest because gardens are “ours.” They belong to us. They are under our care.

This is a false distinction.

All the lands of this world, now more than ever, are ours to protect and nurture. Our gardens do not end at our fence lines. They never have. We are surrounded, anywhere we go, by the great garden of the Earth. Its pleasures and gifts are ours collectively. But so is the responsibility of its tending.

Human beings are a keystone species. We shape the landscapes around us as the beaver shapes the river. In North America’s recent past, indigenous people tended their continent-wide gardens with fire. They created wide savannahs of grass and wildflowers punctuated by mighty oak, hickory and chestnut trees. These park-like open woodlands allowed wild game such as deer, turkey and grouse to flourish. But they also made space for an incredible biodiversity of other species. The bounty of Ohio’s forests was no accident; the entire region was a garden that grew to benefit both its human gardeners and all the surrounding wildlife.

At present, we often tend our regional gardens thoughtlessly. We flatten them with heavy earth-crushing machinery, mow down trees and wildflowers, poison the soil. We let the gardens along roadsides succumb to invasive species or fill with trash. We replace diversity with a lifeless monoculture of turfgrass. This style of gardening leaves little room for a healthy future, and it carves the distinction between “garden” and “other” deeper and deeper. It is reckless, poor stewardship.

If we saw our backyard flowerbeds treated this way we would be outraged. We’d work tirelessly to repair the damage, then do whatever it takes to make sure such vandalism never happened again. We have no doubt that our home gardens need tenderness. That good gardening takes patience, consideration and careful effort. But this is the style of gardening we need everywhere.

We cannot abandon the gardens beyond our property lines to be swallowed by invasive plants or devoured by invasive pests. We have to maintain them, manage them, protect them. We must put in the time and effort to restore our sanctuary. The last thing our global garden needs right now is a “hands off” approach. We planted these weeds—accidentally or otherwise—and now we’ve got to pull them.

Gardening is hard work, but it’s easier when you have help. And with a garden this big, we’ll all have to pitch in. There is room in our global garden for people of all ages and abilities. We each have an impact on the world around us every day, whether we are aware of it or not. Our impact can be small but meaningful, in ways such as composting kitchen scraps, recycling and reducing consumption. It can be larger, by joining local conservation efforts and volunteering to maintain public greenspaces. We can all advocate for smarter environmental policy, push for the control of invasive species and promote native plants and wildlife.

Or we can do nothing, and let our global garden fall further into neglect. But I won’t be doing that, and my guess is that if you’re reading this, neither will you. Because we know that there is no line between us and nature. The fate of our planet is our own fate as well.

We cannot go back to the fabled gardens of the past. Instead, we must plant for the future. And if we want that future to be a world that is healthy and diverse and provides for us all equitably, we’re going to have to get out into the garden and get to work.