All flourishing is mutual

Sustainable gardening can be seen as counter culture to our capitalistic society. Being part of an ecosystem and a community is a way to feel fulfilled and purposeful instead of just working for more money. We tend our garden and it gives us many gifts in return like beautiful flowers, clean air, nutrient cycling, stormwater control, carbon sequestration, bird song, and numerous other benefits. These may not be benefits that can be used to pay a car loan but they are a down payment on a heathy future.

Is her book, Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer tries to help us envision a way of valuing the natural world that is beyond its monetary value. She speaks about reciprocity, where the garden gives to us and we give back in equal mutualism. Just as the insects and plants work together to eat and pollinate, we can count ourselves into the web of life.

Our garden is not only a benefit to ourselves but it benefits our community and enough small gardens together will benefit the entire earth. In Doug Tallemy’s Homegrown National Park he claims that if we each plant half our yard with native plants, we will have enough habitat to protect our threatened ecosystems and stop the current freefall into climate disaster.

Our relationships with our family, friends, and the world around us is one of sharing and reciprocity. Instead of viewing all relationships through capitalism lets think about the economy of sharing. An economy where I grow more plants than I need so I can give them to my friends. Where we help our neighbors with mulching and gardening advise and maybe it turns into friendship. We can find common ground in our communities by planting rain gardens to prevent flooded basements and tall trees to cool sidewalks.

Why do we hoard when it hurts others? In economics class I learned about the tragedy of the commons, where shared resources are exploited for everyone’s selfish gain. However, in real world scenarios the tragedy of the commons isn’t the result. We are hard wired to share. We all value a healthy community and that means we must do what we can to sustain that community and the resources it depends on. We can start this health by growing a native garden. We can let our neighbors know that all flourishing is mutual.