Wild Space Creates Common Ground

My partner and I have a small piece of land on the shore of Georgian Bay.  It is just 59’ x 75’ in size.  It is not zoned for building.  It used to be tended by a woman who could be found gardening on her hands and knees out there, well into her eighties.  She eventually suffered from dementia and began “weeding” so much that even the grass was pulled out on the land that we eventually came to care for.  So, when she ended up in long term care we were faced with a denuded patch of earth.

As I stared at the ground throughout the winter, I kept seeing in my mind, a giant turtle lying in the space.  And so once the ice melted away, we placed stones from the land and from the shore in a large turtle shaped ring.  We used really big stones for the head, tail and feet.  Inside the oval, I created 13 mounds of earth to represent the plates on the back of a turtle.  I carefully selected indigenous and medicinal plants from my seed catalogue and planted a variety of plants in the mounds.  That was a dry summer and we had to constantly water the tiny plants.  Some thrived while others withered back into the earth.

The next spring and summer were cool and wet.  Some of the plants never returned and others grew like wild fire.  I added some new varieties that I purchased from a local wild flower group.  No need to water that year, but the job became selecting which plants to keep and which new arrivals from nature herself to keep. 

This spring was the third year for our turtle garden.  Some of the original plants like Marshmallow, Arnica, Black and Blue Cohosh, Sweetgrass, Sage and Yarrow are well established.  But the Calendula, All Heal and Feverfew didn’t come back.  Yet there are new arrivals like Butterfly Weed, Curly Dock, Jewelweed, Vervain and some as of yet unidentified plants that appeared.  I leave plants I can’t name to flower so that I can look them up in one of my many guidebooks.

The garden is teaching me about what wants to grow there and about new medicines that arrive on the wind or via bird droppings.  Even my favourite Stinging Nettle showed up this year.  To the untrained eye, the wild plants may be seen as "weeds" but they are in fact a fabulous pharmacy.

This may all sound magical and indeed we are enchanted by it.  However, our next door neighbor is not.  He has pulled up almost all the plants on his small patch of earth and put down limestone screenings.  He attacks the right-of–way that crosses our property with his lawn mower, leaf blower and whipper snipper.  We have occasional encounters when he crosses the line and we have had to erect a fence-line to help him understand boundaries.

Water Lilies and Cattails provide cover for spawning fish

On the shoreline of half of our property, we have let the water plants re-wild themselves as we don’t put any boats in that space.  White water lilies, Cattails, Bullrushes, Joe Pye weed, Blue Flags and Purple Loosestrife have appeared.  My partner has observed Yellow Perch (who are just returning to this area), Sunfish, Bass and Garpike spawning in this small wild space. Some of the cattails have already been eaten by a muskrat or beaver.  It is truly amazing how quickly nature restores the balance once we leave it alone.

Sadly, our neighbor’s son likes to fish right in front of this area with no regard for the fishing seasons.  Recently, my partner observed him setting a minnow trap right in front of the new spawning ground.  A little while later, his father with whom we have had so many negative encounters arrived.  My partner greeted him and the man asked if his son had been down there.  My partner affirmed this and told him about the minnow trap.  The man was upset.  Apparently, he had told his son not to set the trap there because he would only catch Bass hatchlings.  The man had been observing one spawning Bass in this new wild space.  He could see the eggs and had watched the fish protect them.  He too wanted to protect the nest.  So he took the trap away.

We had thought that we had absolutely nothing in common with this man.  We had written him off as someone who saw nature as the enemy.  Perhaps because he likes to fish he has a relationship with the cycle of life for fish.  Who knows?  But the wild space that we had “allowed” to generate became space where we could find common ground with our “enemy”.  I am sure that the plants in the garden still drive him crazy, but we have formed an unlikely alliance around the fish.

Monarch Butterfly feeding from Milkweed flowers in our yard

Back at the house, my partner only cuts the grass once in the spring for a certain area.  Over the past few years, he has left milkweed plants to flourish there as a Monarch butterfly garden.  Every year there are more milkweeds but there haven’t been very many butterflies.  This summer however, he has seen up to 12 butterflies at a time drinking nectar from the milkweed flowers.  We have observed several eaten leaves so we hope that there are eggs and caterpillars out there as well.  It is indeed magical on a hot summer’s day to breath in the sweet smell of Milkweed flowers, while butterflies flit and feed. 

I got to thinking about how these re-wilded spaces are so quickly filled with so many species of life.  The diversity that emerges is in stark contrast to the monocultural lawns of our neighbours.  And yet within that diversity we have found a common space with one neighbour.  Perhaps that is the one of the gifts of diversity; a wealth of connections are possible.

  

How wonderful to be a part of the great Monarch migration story