Guerrilla Gardening

“If you can’t be with the one you love, then love the one you’re with.” – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Be inspired by what is already here. Embrace what you already have. Sustainable means messing up the world as little as possible, so in regards to your landscape – work with what you’ve got. Bend your aesthetic rather than your land. Accept. Adapt. Then, improve upon.

Plopping the standard five-acre suburban lawn with green ball foundation plantings into the midst of a verdant boreal forest is just slightly counterproductive. If you want to look out over the equivalent of a golf course, then buy property adjacent to one. The exception to the rule would be if you put your own mown space to work. Plant an orchard throughout and you’ll enjoy the manicured look while making all those “green lawn” resources doubly useful.

However, that slice of verdant still isn’t the place for such an exercise. Instead, if you’ve built in the midst of majestic cedars, then embrace that space as is. Yes, improve upon Nature. Shape the rough edges. Mulch over the messy. Plant appropriately to add diversity and utilize hardscaping focal points to lend just a touch of control to the wild. But, work toward Zen and Feng Shui rather than the standard bombastic.

Seek out the subtle moss and lichens. Encourage (by leaving alone) the areas of orchids and other ephemerals. Resist the urge to “clean” up too much. Many a bird is dependent upon the bugs hidden among the rot. A place for everything and everything in its place.