Audacious Gardening: On Daring to Care

To be a gardener is to give a fuck. To be a gardener is to be invested in a place—to know it, to protect it, to be present to it. How can we protect and heal ourselves and our planet if we’re not willing to step into, and value, the role of the gardener?

gardening as a counterforce to disconnect, a salve to the illusion of human separateness and control, and a path toward what it means to live a truly good life.

Plants and gardens are an important, and often undervalued, gateway drug. Wonderground is a place of storytelling; of irreverence, intelligence, curiosity and connection. It draws equally from culture and horticulture, art and science, beauty and botany. It’s a garden, though it’s taken me a while to see this.

Gardening is not just a set of tasks. It’s not restricted to backyards, courtyards, balconies. It can, and should, happen anywhere, everywhere. Gardening is simply a framework for engagement with our world, grounded in care, action and intimacy with place. To garden is to care deeply, inclusively and audaciously for the world outside our homes and ... See more