When we ask for equality among our own species it feels like an attack for many, especially for those accustomed to privilege in our culture. But equality does not mean less for those used to privilege, it simply means equal opportunity for all to thrive. It means true universal freedom. This is something humans grapple with in every level of society, especially one based on a linear, hierarchical organization. 

​So when we ask for this equality among species it is no surprise there is uncomfortable pushback. If we suggest that gardens should be designed with more consideration for the wants and needs of other species, the first response is that gardens will then automatically be less for humans. Or, from a design standpoint, that gardens will lose the aesthetic value and purpose humans find so appealing. This is not true. Designing a landscape for other species as much as for humans doesn't mean we're designing a less artful or creative space, I think if anything it means we're designing a far more intentional and powerful space because we've added to the levels of design and to the lives who will use the space. Just as we know the benefit of opportunity for marginalized human groups who contribute to a successful society, so we know what the benefit is to thriving wildlife landscapes. 

​When someone questions whether a garden can be more welcoming to wildlife, a perceived attack on humans, that question does not mean the space should be less welcoming to people or less usable by people. It does not mean the space should simply be a wild bramble of unfettered nature left entirely to its own devices where humans have no place. A garden is still an intentional and arranged artifice, for better or worse. But in the face of climate change and mass extinction -- in the face of daily wildness and awareness of nature being absent from so many of us -- asking more of our designed landscapes is not asking for less. Asking for more is opening us up to far more empathy and compassion not just among all species but also among ourselves. When we step outside of a narrow vision -- gardens as spaces primarily for humans, or even primarily for privileged groups of humans (white, educated, etc) -- we step into gardens as being places of social justice and true freedom for all who use them. 

​It is time for a garden revolution. It is time for gardens to be made with far greater purpose for others -- for birds, snakes, bees, spiders, butterflies, beetles, and for those who have no nature on their walk to school or work. It is time we realize that sharing the art of garden design with others is an elevation of garden design, and not a marginalization of garden designers or landscape architects or humans. Asking what a garden does and for whom it is fulfilling those purposes is not a criticism of the garden, but an act in critical thinking on how the garden can be improved, how our lives can be improved, and how we can help nature thrive in the way it has evolved to thrive. 
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Here at Monarch Gardens HQ -- a 1/4 acre lot in a newer suburban development -- we are down to about 400-500 square feet of lawn. That means there's about 4,500' of garden beds. The front area is three years old and was planted into bare soil after using a sod cutter. The native prairie plants are not just a bag of seed. Flowers are placed in clumps and drifts with no more than 2-3 blooming at one time so as not to overwhelm the space visually. A lawn pathway goes up the middle to show human use and purpose while tying into the suburban lawn monoculture. The main problem for this guy is that the red twig dogwood along the sidewalk look fantastic in winter (open shape, stunning color) but in summer are too thick and tall. These were supposed to be a shorter selection but need annual coppicing just to keep them at a wishful 4x4 feet (however, this will prevent flowering and berries). Each spring plants in the beds are cut with a hedge trimmer and the detritus allowed to stay to add nutrients back into the soil.

Out back it is certainly more wild in the two year old meadow. The lawn was stressed (no watering for years), scalped, then thatch raked away. Three types of shortgrasses were sown, along with collected forbs (flowers), and 150 forb plugs were placed in clumps and drifts. A mowed pathway will be employed next year to create both a visual sign to follow through the area and for access (right now a sculpture and piece of corten steal or foils with which to view the area). A 10-15' deep lawn area near the house serves as both a gathering place / location to view the meadow, as well as a fire break. An annual mowing will occur each spring.

I sure get frustrated seeing social media post after social media post proclaiming how a garden or plant is beautiful (sure, I'm guilty of it, too). I predict I'll be frustrated the rest of my life. A human proclaiming a space as beautiful is just one phase of many phases in what makes that space beautiful. What's beautiful to spiders and caterpillars and beetles and birds? What's beautiful to air, water, and soil?

Beauty from the human aesthetic standpoint is a judgement based on emotion. And there's nothing wrong with it per se. We are part of nature, part of what is alive both animate and inanimate, and our spiritual bonds to wildness are necessary to our psychical and psychological survival. What is less a judgment, what is less subjective, is how a space is beautiful on a much deeper and more profound level. When we say a garden is pretty, we are treating the space as something to consume -- it's on the same level as most art, a momentary engagement, even if we have MANY momentary engagements that cultivate new responses. Our understanding of the art is limited, perhaps willfully limited, to what we perceive in the blink of an eye or the grazing of a hand over soft leaves. Our environmental crisis demands more than this simple engagement.

Again, those perceptions are good and powerful, but it's only the perception of one species -- a dominate species that seldom considers the perceptions or needs of others. We proclaim to act on nature's behalf simply by having a garden, as if any assemblage of plants -- particularly if it wakes in us a sense of awe -- is the only or primary goal of a garden or wild space.

How can we hope to garden ethically for all life if we don't comprehend even one additional aspect of a space, if we don't redefine beauty in a time of climate change and mass extinction? We may find an exotic plant beautiful and functional, but it may be ugly to wildlife. We may find a plant cleans water or stabilizes an embankment, but why can't or why isn't it doing more? We limit our response to life when we stop at calling a space beautiful simply because we find it so -- a culmination of our culture and our family's expectation passed down to and through us. A freshly mowed lawn is beautiful, but it seldom benefits the kind of biodiversity and ecological function we force upon it to defend our aesthetic choices. A butterfly bush is beautiful, but it supports no larvae and a very limited number of adult insects.

What is a new garden ethic? How do we get there? Why is it important? What do we defend about our perceptions and beliefs, and why do we defend them so fervently? Is that garden beautiful? To whom? How are gardens an act of social justice that awakens or builds a new compassion and resolve to honor all life and cultivate equality?