The plump, just-picked, hot pink rhododendron sat in a vase on the corner of my desk. As I was drinking in its beauty, I noticed, for the first time, that the edges of all its leaves were serrated — eaten away by some unseen insect. Instead of seeing the leaf as damaged, I felt a wave of happiness run through me as I thought about how this ornamental bush was contributing to the amazing ecosystem that we are part of.
So how did I get from seeing the leaf as damaged to a thing of beauty? It has been a long journey.
When I moved to this tiny patch of green in Greenfield 40 years ago from the asphalt of New York City, I became the owner of a house and a quarter acre of lawn punctuated by three large old apple trees, some blackberries next to the garage, a swamp in the back, a vernal stream on one side, some trees on the ledge rising up on the other, a large patch of Jerusalem artichokes, out of control comfrey, and a patch of bloodroot in the woods.
Two of the apple trees died and I replaced them. I cursed and mowed the Jerusalem artichokes and the comfrey. I planted a garden and cursed the woodchucks. I learned that too much water was not a good thing. I became intrigued with permaculture — less labor, I thought.
I have always been drawn to Japanese gardens with their soothing greens, varied textures and rocks. I find many “conventional flower gardens” gaudy, but I loved my bloodroot that bloomed for a day. One spring, while walking in the surrounding woods, I tripped across carpets of spring wildflowers and became enamored of them. This lead me to Nasami Farm in Whately and an effort to bring some of those spring ephemeral flowers to my yard as companions for my bloodroot under the maple tree outside my large, east-facing window.
It was at that point that I also decided to plant some bushes to attract birds and bought a book called “Bringing Nature Home” by David Tallamay. I expected a book about bushes with berries. What a surprise to see a book about caterpillars and bugs and the plants they like to eat. It turns out that birds need the high protein of bugs for their young. Who knew?
I then discovered that not all maple trees are equal. The maple I had let grow outside my east window was the kind of a maple that supported only 40 species of caterpillars, while a sugar maple supported 300. What was the difference? Mine was not native to this area. It was a Norway maple. So I decided to take it down and replace it with something that could contribute to life in my backyard … hopefully this will finally happen this year.
Around this same time, pollinators were much in the news. Bee colony collapse! This lead to my surprising discovery that honeybees came from Europe, as did the common earthworm! When I learned that there is evidence that a common insecticide, neonicotinoids, are one of the major causes of colony collapse, I went shopping for neonic-free plants only to discover that most nurseries use them in the soil they use because, we the customer, buy plants with perfect un-chomped leaves before we buy ones with “damaged leaves.” So we are the cause of having neonics in our environment. On top of this, from a bug’s point of view, I learned our lawns are deserts.
This lead me to yet another book, this time one co-authored by Tallamay and Richard Drake called “The Living Landscape. Its beautiful photographs of yards planted with native plants with small patches of lawn offer a new way of creating not only a beautiful environment that I want to live in, but one that contributes to the health of the birds, the 4000 native bee species, butterflies, mice, fox, raccoons and many other critters that I share my life with.
I close with a quote from “The Living Landscape” — “Perhaps one of the most important ecosystem functions of our gardens will be to sustain the diversity of life that sustains us … our landscapes are a public resource, just like a reservoir, a river, and a national park.”
This vision, and transforming my little patch of green into being part of our larger ecosystem has been an exciting journey, and it is not over. So much to learn and once established, there will be less lawn to mow and more time to simply enjoy.
Nancy Hazard works with Greening Greenfield to
make Greenfield more
sustainable so that present and future generations can
enjoy life in our beautiful,
verdant and abundant
valley. She can be reached at: nhazard@worldsustain.net.