Alison Ralph 0:04

Welcome to The Unsettled Garden, a podcast about the politics of gardening in Canada. I'm Alison Ralph, a writer and gardener living on the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Today we're talking with Lorraine Johnson, a cultivation activist with three decades of experience researching and writing about environmental issues. She's the past president of the North American Native Plant Society, and a long-time community activist for urban agriculture, community gardening, and protecting urban forests. Lorraine is the author and editor of 14 books, including Tending the Earth: A Gardener's Manifesto, and 100 Easy to Grow Native Plants for Canadian Gardens now in its third edition. And her latest book is A Garden for the Rusty Patched Bumblebee. Welcome, Lorraine.

Lorraine Johnson 0:46

Hello. It's nice to be here.

Alison Ralph 0:49

So, this is, interestingly, I think this is the 20th anniversary of Tending the Earth.

Lorraine Johnson 0:55

Right. Yeah, it was definitely a book that in many ways, I think was ahead of its time, it's fair to say.

Alison Ralph 1:06

What have you seen in the last 20 years from when you first put it out to now? Like, what kinds of things have shifted? Or how have you seen that as ahead of its time?

Lorraine Johnson 1:18

Yeah, well, a lot of the issues that I talked about in that book, Tending the Earth, A Gardener’s Manifesto, were really about, well, the politics of gardening. And not just sort of straight, you know, politics in a very simplistic way of, hey, what party do you vote for? Not that kind of politics, but sort of the how we exist in the world, how we set priorities and make choices. And what are some of the impulses that lead us to the garden as a practice? And what does it, what do we express when we garden? So that's kind of what I mean by the sort of the politics of the activity as a land-based practice.

And I would say, back then, you know, 20 years ago, when the book was first published, there was a lot in the book about kind of ecological connections between gardening and the planet, and how gardening traditions weren't really alert to those connections or didn't honor the connections. And the way that, you know, just think about 20 years ago. There was still a debate about whether or not it was okay to use synthetic pesticides in the garden. So there have been changes, definitely, in the kind of ecological sphere over the last 20 years. But what I also explored in the book was the ways that gardening is or can be such a force for, basically for social justice, in a positive and a community sense, and the way that gardening can nurture community. And I think that that was something that was really well, the focus of the book. And it's something that in the past 20 years, I would say that there has been a lot more kind of understanding, appreciation and actual carrying out of that as an idea in a much broader way.

There was something very interesting in the response to Tending the Earth, A Gardener's Manifesto, I found that, you know, there was a real resistance back then 20 years ago to the idea that gardening connects to these broader ecological and social, especially social issues. Because gardeners were saying, “Wait, my garden is an escape. I don't want to think about the world. I don't want to think about problems. I don't want to think about responsibility. I don't want to think about what I might do. I want to escape into this place of separation.” Which I get, I totally get. I mean, you know, I understand that but maybe can't we actually feel the garden for all the healing kind of personal things that it does for us the ways you know that—I wouldn't necessarily call it escape—but the kind of meditative the, all those good feelings and great state of mind that the garden can bring us to? And can't we kind of connect that to what the world needs or our responsibilities in terms of communities and tending the Earth.

Alison Ralph 5:24

Along that line of people having that difficult response to it? Have you had conversations with people or heard from people who have had that initial reaction? And then kind of have over time had that shift?

Lorraine Johnson 5:40

Well, I would say that it's been more, you know, just sort of, rather than a kind of personal one on one, it's just a sort of cultural shift that I've observed within the kind of conventions of garden over the past few decades. Yeah, it's really, it's been more like, a kind of shifting understanding that I think you can see expressed in a whole bunch of different ways, the rise in community gardening, the rise in urban agriculture, the rise in interest in native plants, and habitat regeneration, and, you know, concern for pollinators, and all of those, all of those issues that our gardens can connect with and have a really positive impact on. I think these are just sort of discussions that you're seeing happening in the gardening, within gardening traditions more and more, and it's just increased exponentially over the past few decades. And that's really great to see.

Alison Ralph 6:53

You've talked a bit about the community building aspect of this. And I just wanted to ask you a little bit more about that. What are the ways that that gardening can be an act of community building?

Lorraine Johnson 7:06

Well, I think, you know, in a very literal sense, when people come together with a shared purpose to nurture or cultivate or nurture growth, whether it's some kind of ornamental garden, or food growing, or farming, or habitat or, whatever the frame for that activity is, I just think it connects us with, with a very basic in a very basic way, it bridges, it connects us with each other, and it connects us with the earth. And those are two very powerful impulses, and they're brought together in any kind of, you know, gardening activity that's based in community. This just has such power and potential. So that's a very literal way that gardening can support community,

But then there are also, so many other ways, and something that I think is really important, particularly right now, is the way that gardening can kind of build community, especially when it has to do with gardeners coming together with a purpose of making resources available. And what I mean by that is, well, it can be all kinds of things, but I am speaking quite literally, about, you know, the way that gardeners could come together, you know, we have a native plant availability issue, for sure, in that so many native plants are just not available commercially.

For so many people you know, it's a luxury to be able to go to a nursery and just buy plants and by native plants, so how can that impulse of gardeners to nurture growth, to propagate plants be harnessed to a community purpose? Which is, okay, those of you who love to propagate plants and those of you who want plants, let's bring you two together. And, you know, what a community building way to kind of, you know, come together around this shared purpose. I'm not talking about a kind of charity-based model. I'm talking about you know, communities that have resilience and strength, but have been denied resources. So, yeah, but that's that's also a way that gardening can build community.

I think if we think about it in terms of these larger social questions of justice. Another way that gardening can build community is by every gardener asking themselves, okay, who has access to land for gardening? Who doesn't have access to land who has been denied access to land? I mean, that asking those questions can lead to some really significant and important community building and connection. But it's not often thought of as a gardening question, really. But I think it is central.

Alison Ralph 10:58

I think I think you're right. I think there's a lot of questions about the justice issues. I mean, you talked about that, that shift over time over the last 20 years. Are you seeing more more people, I guess, starting to ask those questions, or is that still kind of, in the beginning stages?

Lorraine Johnson 11:19

I would say that it's very much in the in the beginning stages, you know, but Well, I would just say that we have a long way to go. We have so far to go. And so, you know, I'm heartened that there are inklings of this, that are really starting to seep through conversations and starting to really get entrenched. And I think that's a good thing.

But, you know, I would say that in the traditional gardening world, you don't necessarily hear a lot of acknowledgement. I mean, let's say horticultural societies and garden clubs might start meetings with a land acknowledgment, for example. But Okay, so how do we then carry that land acknowledgement? How do those garden clubs and Hort societies then carry that land acknowledgement through to some kind of action?

And, you know, gardening is a land-based activity. So, you know, questions around access to jurisdiction of land, or let's say, you know, I've observed that the horticultural societies and garden clubs, you know, were often white led organizations with a lot of diversity and certainly memberships that don't include a lot of indigenous folks. So how can those horticultural societies and garden clubs really start to focus on ally ship and support of Indigenous-led land based activities that have stewardship? And you know, whether that is called gardening or some other word—land care, tending the Earth, Stewardship? How can settler gardeners and structures and organizations actually support those Indigenous-led efforts? Or BIPOC efforts of land care and stewardship?

Alison Ralph 13:34

As a writer, what kind of role do you think that our language plays in in this kind of community building work? In this sort of ecological social change sphere? What kind of role does our language play?

Lorraine Johnson 13:53

Yeah, that's a really great question. And it's something that I have been sort of struggling with, in some ways, in that when I look back on what I have written over the years, you know, over the past three decades, you know, some of it will just make me cringe. The perspective of I would say that my, my work has been entrenched in the settler colonialism, that I, you know, was trained, and grew up in, and have enacted and participated in, throughout my adult life. And so, it's as no surprise, my language and writing is also steeped in that and one of the things that really stands out for me, and I really, I struggle with in terms of trying to express in a good way that I honestly believe we are a part of nature, and have always believed that and have always tried to kind of write about, motivate, encourage, think about the ways that we can actually connect deeply with nature. But the way that I have written about that is still entrenched in a very separated way, a very disconnected way. And so that is both something that is kind of a central issue of trying to try to come to a way of writing about our human connection with the earth as a part of ourselves, and not perpetrate a disconnect. Very hard, very hard, I certainly haven't figured it out.

Alison Ralph 16:05

Well, and I wonder too, like having heard, you know, different people, like Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, and leaders in the BIPOC community talk about connections with the land, there seems to be certainly a different approach to it. And I wonder if there's something, you know, the way that as you say, we, we kind of struggle in our Euro Western kind of mindset, to make those connections between ourselves and the land. And to situate ourselves in that sort of ecosystem, we often in the sort of the Western mindset, you know, situate ourselves as sort of, like, at the peak of the pyramid, whereas a lot of other Indigenous ways of approaching things are, you know, as part of a, maybe within the circle of the ecosystem, and not at the, you know, at the pinnacle of it. And so I wonder if there's something embedded in our culture, it makes me wonder if there's something embedded in it, that that sort of blocks us, and it comes through in our language that, you know, there's there's that difference of the way that we situate ourselves within the world. And I think that that may be part of our challenge. And I'm not sure what it is. But there's something in it.

Lorraine Johnson 17:28

Yeah, I would agree that it's embedded. But I wouldn't say that, that embeddedness I don't want to imply that that embeddedness is somehow quote unquote, natural or intrinsic. Like it is taught, it is propped up, it is connected with a lot of systems, such as capitalism, that benefit from that disconnection.

But I think, you know, what, I do think that the ways out of that are are all around, and it's a matter of trying to attempting to think and feel around these questions. So, for me, one of the realizations that has helped me in thinking about these things, has to do with death and decay, actually, and decomposition.

I wrote a book about composting about 20 years ago, called The Real Dirt. I co-wrote it with Mark Cullen. And so, I was thinking a lot about, you know, these harsh words like ‘rot’ and ‘decay’ and ‘decomposition’. And I came to the realization that that was actually I, you know, someone asked me, you know, 20 years ago, what are your religious beliefs, and I just sort of blurted out automatically, I believe in compost. And that is very much

Alison Ralph 19:07

I love that.

Lorraine Johnson 19:09

That is the simplest way to express my own personal beliefs for sure. But I also think that, for me has been a really helpful guide in terms of feeling that you know, and thinking about that connection with the earth like everything else, even those words like ‘thing’, but I'm going to use them. Every being, every at—we could use Western science terms—every atom, every molecule that's been on Earth is still here and is recycling, is living is decaying. Even our language of ‘animate’ and ‘inanimate’ and ‘alive’ and ‘not alive’, you know, those are so inadequate to the task of being in the world. But at any rate, what has been helpful for me in terms of really trying to feel the world and to be in the world and to understand which is, you know, kind of thought and thinking words, but also to feel, you know, the earth where we are, this place, our place, all those issues, to think in terms of, of this cycle of death, decay, life growth, nurturing, and somehow being, like really feeling a part of that process, for me has been very helpful. Just speaking personally, in terms of how to really engage with this. These ideas of reciprocity, and connection and relationship building, that are expressed in Indigenous worldviews—it's been really helpful to me personally, to just think about cycles of life and death, and decay, and growth and rebirth. And it's just been, it's been, as someone, you know, steeped in settler colonialism and the language of settler colonialism and the worldviews of settler colonialism. Yeah, it's been very helpful to me to think about things like, you know, everything that is here, is, has always been here, and will always be here in some form in some way. Life wants life, life continues life. That's what life is. It's helpful, it's been helpful to think of those ways or to think about oxygen. And think about shared breath, shared oxygen in the atmosphere, you know, and the way anyway, we're getting quite far away from gardening, I guess. And in other ways, not at all. We're getting to the basics.

Alison Ralph 22:05

But I think that's one of the key, it brings us back to, you know, the work that you did in Tending the Garden (Tending the Earth) that was so ahead of its time—asking those questions. I think that's one that's been one of my experiences in the last number of years of taking up gardening is just, you know, that it's an activity that breeds questions. And, you know, the questions typically start off as you know, what do I plant? How do I plant? Where do I plant? And for me, it's shifted from those questions, which are still very important. It has led to, I guess, maybe not shifted, but led to other these other questions that are a bit, I guess, less commonly asked, and are hopefully starting to become more commonly asked about, about the broader issues of our connection with community and with the land.

Lorraine Johnson 23:02

Yeah. And broader and deeper questions. I would. Yeah, I would say, I would agree that that question of, What do I plant I'm hoping for, and actually, so Sheila Colla, and I we co-wrote A Garden for the Rusty Patched Bumblebee, our most recent book. And we talk in the, in the introduction about a really shifting the question from what do I plant? To what are our responsibilities to the land we tend? And I, you know, I really think that is the central shift that we're called to as gardeners. And I'm really hoping and I think, you know, the biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis, call out to us to really rethink our role as gardeners and to move beyond Hey, what do I plant? To what are, what are my responsibilities to the land I tend? And how can I carry out those responsibilities in a good way that supports life and supports all of the relationships that exist? Yeah, and that are a part of this web of connection that we are all a part of as gardeners. So what are my responsibilities within this web? How can I support all the co-evolved relationships? How can I see myself within those co-evolved relationships? How can I, how can I support those relationships? How can I be a part of them?

And for me, and certainly with the book that Sheila and I have co-written A Garden for the Rusty Patched Bumblebee, which is all about the relationships between pollinators, native pollinators, the native bees, and other pollinators, and native plants like what are those relationships? Why does supporting those relationships by planting native plants matter? And, you know, what is our role of gardeners in terms of making choices and decisions and engaging with the garden as a place of, you know, regenerating habitat and participating in supporting these, these just crucial ecological relationships that were a part of?

Alison Ralph 25:31

Well, I can tell you that A Garden for the Rusty Patched Bumblebee has been really, really helpful and insightful for me reading it. So, I appreciate that and quite a number of your other books. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me today.

Lorraine Johnson 25:46

Thanks so much. Really, really, great to talk with you. I appreciate it. Take care. Have a good day.

Alison Ralph 25:51

That's it for The Unsettled Garden this week. I'm Alison Ralph. For more information about Lorraine Johnson visit lorrainejohnson.ca. This show is produced by Lead Podcasting. If you like what you heard, be sure to follow our show on your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking for me, I'll be in the garden.