Native Agency

Anytime I feel a sense of discouragement about the state of the world, interaction with nature can perk me right back up again. Seeing something as simple as a dandelion defiantly sprouting from the slimmest crack in a sidewalk can bring a smile to my face.

For one, I will never be able to eradicate that sucker (because I don’t spray weed poison in my yard).  But the other reason I just have to chuckle is that a seed landed in an almost impossible place and is still managing to grow and live out its existence. The innate agency of a little plant to overcome the odds of a non-ideal landing spot never ceases to amaze me.

A variation of this phenomenon also takes place in my garden, where I no longer intentionally plant things like dill, lettuce, or sometimes even tomatoes. They sprout on their own.

Of course, sometimes I exercise a bit of artistic license and move things around. Sometimes I repot the extra proliferation of plants and find willing victims…er… friends to give them to.

One of the beneficiaries of a few native flowers is a friend of mine. She has been contemplating a complete overhaul of her rather boring landscape which was likely installed sometime in the last century. It features a bland assortment of bushes and a whole boatload of rocks to suppress the growth of weeds. In all honesty, and I don’t think she would mind me saying this, it looks and feels as sterile as surgical ward.

We chatted about the landscape. It turned out, that since the last time I pawned off some plants on her, she had become consumed, no, obsessed, with designing her yard. In addition to borrowing every book she could from the library, she actively engaged a landscaping company to give her some quotes and help her with a design.

Now, I am a what you might call, a bit of a relaxed gardener. I prefer a little bit of structure and a touch of rambling wildness in my landscape. My friend is different, preferring more order. But when she began working with the landscapers, she realized that the whole thing was a little too contrived. The plants were all a little too perfect. Another friend of hers (a landscape architect) weighed in on the matter. She suggested that my friend challenge the landscape company to use native plants.

Back to the library she went, figuring out potential substitutes for each and every plant on the landscapers list. They went back and forth in an incredibly long and intricate email thread (I read the whole thing). They switched things out and rearranged until finally, they had a plan.

Out at an Indian restaurant one day, I asked her what drove this obsessive need to use only native plants in the landscape. While passing the baingan bharta and chickpea tikka masala, she mentioned a couple of books that had an enormous impact on her. The first one was Bringing Nature Home and the second one was Nature’s Best Hope, both by Douglas Tallamy.

What it came down to, for her, was she realized that it wasn’t just about having a nice-looking yard, or replacing the non-functional and outdated design that was there. These books informed her that she could use her yard as not just a beautiful retreat for her family, but as a real habitat. Furthermore, if more people would choose to landscape in this way, we would help many species to recover.

This made me back up and think a bit.

So many times in life, we come across situations for which we feel we have no agency. A perfect example of this is something like the environment. It’s a big problem with infinite dimensions, and just the idea of trying to fix it seems hopelessly overwhelming.

But what if we did what we could right where we are?

What if, just like the dandelion seed wedged between some concrete, we decided to have a go at it anyway?

My friend decided that she had a patch of land and the agency to do something different. And you know what? She didn’t just change her yard in the process.

After all of the time she spent learning about the benefits of natives, she has become a passionate advocate for their use. She showed me a website listing the native plants in our region. She shared those books with me. She even got the head landscaper intrigued by the idea, and he has been educating himself on how to incorporate more natives into the landscapes he designs.

But the kicker here, is that my friend is a person in a decision-making role in her job. Some of the decisions she could promote were environmental ones. After her deep-dive into native plants, she realized that her impact could extend beyond her yard if she simply asked the right questions.  If she challenged individuals or corporations to consider a new way of thinking.

And some of them have. Which might just set a precedent for the future.

The point is, and I think you know where I’m going with this, is literally grow where you are planted.  Challenges plus creativity and personal agency lead to growth in ways we might not even know. Growth that doesn’t just impact us but can ripple out into the world at large.

That damned dandelion? I’ve watched it now for a week or so. It has flowered and released another generation of defiant crack-dwellers. Nothing for me to do but smile.