Guest blog on Natural Gardening by Coventry resident, Tom Mascaro

After trying several times to grow a lawn under the shady, thirsty maples, my son convinced me to let the understory grow naturally. He is a recently minted Ph.D. in biology with a specialization in rain-forest ecology. By late spring, the soil is like talcum powder and there's insufficient sunlight to sustain even shade grasses.

Several years ago I let the leaves fall and the plants grow on their own. The results have been impressive. We have several nice stands of maple saplings, some four feet tall. Two yews have self-propagated. There is a young ash tree, five feet high, a large silver maple, a couple of cherry trees, a basswood, a hickory, a growing stand of redbuds (which will soon be blooming every spring), oak, a couple of grape vines, and a raspberry bush. I have also added a couple of blueberry and raspberry bushes

"Letting it go" naturally means some weeds and grass will mix with the trees. This has never been a problem. They are green, have a natural woody look, and they do their share of absorbing CO2 from the air. Each year, the maples and other trees advance and choke out the weeds and grass. I suspect that within a few more years, the stand will look like a chunk of the park where the Great Fire Lighter emerges at Halloween.

 

 

                                                       ~Ken Druse in The Natural Habitat Garden

 

Two years ago the University of Illinois Extension Service published a survey outlining the top ten reasons people garden. They are, in order, gardening for safe, healthy food, for exercise, for beauty, to learn, to make money, to meet people, to be creative, to show off skill, to fulfill emotional needs, and finally, to provide lasting memories.

What I found odd is that gardening for earth stewardship was not mentioned at all. At least three other serious Coventry gardeners besides myself have devoted some of their gardening space to natural habitat gardening. More and more, gardeners are becoming aware of the need for humans to give back to the earth by cultivating native plantings or by “ungardening” and letting nature take over a portion of their property.

The verb "to garden" implies that one must tame nature to perform a designated function. Our garden aesthetic has developed accordingly—we have conditioned ourselves to expect orderliness in a garden. Yet in survey after survey we rank “access to natural areas” the highest priority in our communities. Must “garden” and “natural area” be mutually exclusive?

Ken Druse offers many compelling reasons why we should rethink what makes a garden beautiful. Increasing habitat for wildlife, especially for insects at the base of the food chain, means a more diverse community of songbirds and butterflies for us to enjoy. From a different ecological perspective, prevention of erosion, increased groundwater filtration, and decreased pollution in river systems from storm water runoff are a beautiful result of natural gardening. Opening our eyes to the natural beauty of wilderness may enable us to see ourselves nurturing a new kind of American garden, one in which we collaborate with nature rather than try to tame it.