Gardens Honor & Harm Nature

Gardens already come with a prepackaged, innate illness -- our hubris. The manipulations we make of nature do both honor and harm to it, even if we come into garden making with the most noble and loving intentions. The reality of the latent illness in garden making doesn't negate the spirit of gardening, and it shouldn't undermine why we are out there smelling flowers and touching dirt; what the reality should do, however, is more openly and fully question both our motives and our outcomes. When we are questioned or challenged our garden making can become deeper and more meaningful not only to us, but to all of the species whose homes and lives we are inviting ourselves into.