Our Gardens Need Science and Spirituality

The landscape design world is still far too divorced from actual ecological processes and communities that very much exist in our country, even in urban centers and other novel ecosystems (we can deny those ecological communities all we want, but it won't make us feel any better about our role in climate change or extinction, or lead to effective outcomes). We're getting there as more projects become joint collaborations between architects, engineers, biologists, ecologists, and horticulturists. But if these new gardens do not spur a significant psychological if not spiritual ethic grounded in both reverence and science, an ethic that truly links human and animal culture well beyond even biophilic aesthetics, our species will not endure. How we experience and intervene in our daily environment is how we will experience and intervene in our larger world.