Make Every Day Earth Day!

Give the Earth a hug on Earth Day (credit: SoulPancake)

How do you love the Earth through gardening?

Soul Pancake’s video Props to the Planet is my go-to inspiration for Earth Day and every day. It asks people to pause a moment to reflect on how, why, and what they love about our planet. It brings a complex subject down to earth. It shows, in a spontaneous way, how loving the Earth is fun and makes both people and the planet happy.

On Earth Day, it seems appropriate for those of us who enjoy gardening, or simply experiencing gardens, to pause and think about how we can love the Earth through our favorite pastime. I’ll kick us off:

How do you love the Earth through gardening?
I act as a steward of my small corner of the world and am mindful of protecting its natural ecosystems and providing wildlife habitat. I enjoy the beauty of exotic and ornamental flowers as much as anyone, but have learned over time that some of them are not very well-behaved in our region, so I respect the “genius of place” by designing my garden and selecting plants so that I make the lightest impact on nature that I can.

Why do you choose to love the Earth through gardening?
I feel a personal responsibility to repair some of the damage that’s been done. I live in an area that has very specialized and unusual habitats (some unique in the world), so I’m extremely conscious of how important it is to provide for the non-human residents, for example by protecting natural corridors through developments that separate wild spaces. But I also love beautiful flowers, shrubs, flowering trees, garden art and sculpture, and I collect flower pots, so there has to be a place for those things, too.

What do you love about the Earth when you garden?
I take great pleasure in planting things, watching them grow, observing the change of seasons through the changes in plants and animal activity. It’s a form of play for me, an excuse to sit on the ground and watch what the smaller life forms are doing, to walk around and see what’s blooming, or needs attention. It’s exciting to watch the great variety of birds feeding their young, see the nestlings fledge, chase butterflies around with a camera, listen to the spring peepers, wait for the lightning bugs to show up ….. I could go on and on. The root of it is feeling the sense of my place in the web of life, enjoying and appreciating the rich variety of planet Earth.

So, how do you love the Earth through gardening? Leave a comment.

Happy Earth Day! You can view the Soul Pancake video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31wYaZJIrKM

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