In this episode of listenN, we speak with author, environmental activist, urban guerrilla gardener and native plant expert, Lorraine Johnson.  Highlights include:

Redefining what it means to garden, why we garden, how we garden.

Lorraine’s personal journey since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report came out, and how it has gotten her to rethink the definition of native plants.

How Lorraine learned her love for cultivation and nurturing of the land from other people.

How cities and communities spend a fortune on complex solutions that could be handled so much better at a landscape level.

The need and importance for RAIN Gardens.

How our gardens can be places of incredible meaning and transformation.

Mindset pep talk: Start with the thought, ‘what you do matters’, and know that you can do things that are really important in the simplest of ways.

How traditionally we have thought of gardening as a very solitary activity and space, and how for Lorraine, the garden has been an incredibly social place—full of community.

How the so called ‘exotic’ is really prized in traditional gardening, and despite the fact that it needs to be coddled, and takes so much work, it is still highly valued.

There is something in traditional gardening’s value system that values the exotic—at the expense of the familiar, local and the adapted, but it’s a hugely missed opportunity.

Deep dive into the ecological cost of the corporate message that we have to have a green lawn.

How we need to examine the impulse to control others, and why there is so much focus by cities and governments on rejecting any alternative expression in the landscape.

The majority of our near-nature experiences in our cities should actually be places of habitat and ecological function–which would mean exposure to and honouring the native plant.

The importance of really questioning and thinking deeply about any choice that you make in your landscape—this will lead us to a good place.

How Lorraine hopes we continue to shift our definition of what is beautiful, and rethink our aesthetics, and start to value function as an aesthetic value.

How there is a snowball effect when it comes to native plant gardening.

How Lorraine urges food lovers to learn more about edible native plants and fruits they can grow in their gardens.

How there is no downside to questioning convention.

When it comes to convention we need to keep the things that actually help EVERYONE, instead of only benefiting the select few. Let’s do everything we can do to be outside those conventions but also dismantle them.

FULL EPISODE NOTES  |  PDF