Naturalized Spaces with Lorraine Johnson

Tina: So if we just get back to beginner gardeners who understand there's a biodiversity crisis, they understand that nature needs our help.

They have gone out and bought some really good books, like Doug Tallamy's book.He has a few of them.

They've bought, hopefully a couple of your books.

Where do they start, You know, for this new movement what what would be your best advice for them so they're not overwhelmed?

There's so many lists out there telling you about all these plans.

It's so hard to navigate all this information.

Lorraine: Yeah, you know what, that that's such a good question because I think what is not stressed often enough, but what I would say to that person in terms of where to start is that there is not just one place to start and you get to determine what makes sense for you.

Don't let anyone you know tell you that there's just one right way or one way to do things.

What I say, my suggestion to people is follow your passion.

If your passion, like if you're, if you're, if your passion is, you know, I love seeing flowers, I love seeing plants bloom, that makes me happy.

Well, that will lead you in one direction.

If your passion is I love, you know, you know, buzzing bees and butterflies and birds, you know, that will lead you in another direction of, and I just mean, I thought, I mean, they will all, or if you're like, I'm really curious about soil and microorganisms in the soil that will lead you in another direction, But they're all connected and they're and all those directions are connected.

But to follow your own passion, see where it leads and under the umbrella of, you know, I want to do something positive for the, for the biodiversity crisis.

I want to do something positive for climate change.

I want to create resilience.

I I'm worried about the future, but I know that if I plant habitat, I'm doing something positive.

So where do I start?

That would be my kind of general advice, but also crucially, do what's doable for you set.

That's another, I think crucial starting piece.

Follow your passion and do what's doable.

Tina :Can you just give us a little bit of a high level on Project Swallowtail too?

Lorraine: Yeah, Project Swallow Tail is a very, we're we're, we call, we think of ourselves as small but mighty in that, you know, we don't have charitable status.

We're, we're really just a group of people who are with a steering committee.

And then, you know, more than 1000, I think we're up to two more than 2000 members.

And membership basically means you just sort of sign up for our newsletter and then we ask you if you want to be a block ambassador because Project Swallowtail is all about neighbors, helping neighbors at a local level to plant habitat for pollinators.

And that can be on boulevards, it can be in community areas like schools, it can be or community centres or libraries, it can be in yards.

And we're trying to create connected, you know, connected habitat across the landscape of native plants for pollinators.

And we think that, you know, it can really have an impact with, with someone like a block ambassador who is basically someone who's willing to help their neighbors grow native plants…We don't dictate what form that takes. We just help you.

We have resources, we do webinars, we have a newsletter, we have signage.

And, and I think this is really crucial- We grow a lot of plants.

We have seed sitters who are people willing to just grow plants over the winter.

And we help you do that and then give them away.

Native plants give them away.

And just this past weekend, so we're speaking in October and just this past weekend, Project Swallowtail gave away, I think it was 900 native plant.

We gave them away like so.

And and I don't say that like, oh, aren't we great?

We're so generous.

The idea is our mission is to make plants available and to remove the barriers. And a big barrier can be economic, obviously.

And I know when I was introduced to gardening and first started, you know, learning about gardening, which is about more than 40 years ago or about 40 years ago now, gardening was then very much an elitist activity.

And I think it still care and it can be still there can be this attitude out there and there are economic barriers as well that that make it, you know, an activity only accessible if you have the resources.

And I mean that in time and money.

So Project Swallowtail tries to actually distribute, get native plants out there for free to to people who want them and will grow them and will nurture them and build habitat.

We're kind of focused in the Greater Toronto Area, but we just, we just try to get plants out there.

Tina: So if I signed up and I want to be a block ambassador, then I'm on my street and I started, let's say, my Blvd. planting or my front garden planting.

I guess the idea is you're going to go talk to your neighbor and they're going to talk to the neighbor and before you know what, the whole street hopefully is a beautiful habitat corridor, right?

Lorraine: That is definitely you get to define how you be a block ambassador and if you like talking to your neighbors, which we hope everyone does, but you know, you're talking to your neighbors, that's fantastic.

What I have also found works really well and was one of my has been one of my actions as a block ambassador is to give away plants.

Literally set up a table, set up a table or a chair or whatever, you know, buy that Blvd. you're talking about or in the front of an apartment building where you live or, you know, get permission from the library to set something up.

What it can be anywhere, any space with where people are going to be walking by and say free native plants and stand there and hand out resources.

Tina: I'm gonna ask you again about shrubs just because I think it's a really overlooked, you know, part part of a plant community where we go to maybe too heavy on herbaceous plants.So your favorite shrub for shade?

Lorraine: OK, yeah, I love the Spice Bush, Lindera benzoin…

And I have growing at least I think it's just two at the moment, 2 spice Bush and are very, very shady backyard.

It's fantastic.

And we also planted at least two, maybe 3 spice Bush at the community garden I'm a member of and the ones at the community garden produce.

We have feet the females spice Bush there along with the male.

So it's producing fruit, which I collect because you can use it in cooking where it adds this wonderful flavour of allspice.

So, and I always recommend that folks plant Spice Bush instead of Forsythia because, you know, if you like all the, you know, yellow flowers in the spring, why not plant a Spice Bush that has yellow flowers all over it in the spring and has all of these other ecological benefit.

So highly recommend Spice Bush for shade.

Tina: I am a bit of a sedge lover…

What sedges have you had success?

Lorraine: With my two favorite sedges and I really, I guess I should branch out because these were my two favorite sedges from my very beginning of, you know, from my start with native plant gardening.

And you know, more than 30 years ago, they were my favorite sedges And they were given to me by Trish Murphy, who at the time was also a director of the North American Native Plant Society.

She's now she's started a native plant nursery.

It's some in kind of the Ottawa Valley was in Quebec for awhile.

…Trish introduced me to sedges and we used to talk about 30 years ago.

Oh my goodness, there's going to be a sedge revolution… but for the longest time they've been sort of difficult to find in the nursery trade, the native sedges, but that is increasing.

OK, all of which is to say, my two favorite sedges are still Bristly Sedge, sometimes called.

It's got another common name that escapes me at the moment, but it's Latin name is Carex eburnea

And then my other favorite sedge is Plantain leaved sedge.

So Carex plantagenea and I got to do my dream project.

It was a public I'm part of a doing a pollinator garden in a public place, and so we designed it together.

We filled it with native plants called the Portland place pollinator patch, because it's in front of this social housing.

And I got to do my dream project, which was to alternate as an edging, you know, by the sidewalk as a way to signal intention.

Tina: that intention is what we call ‘cues to care’, correct?

Lorraine: Yeah. And the academic who kind of coined that term and has written a lot about cues to care is Joan Nassauer.

She's an academic Ann Arbor who really has written a lot about how to signal intention with landscapes and and what that, you know, people's reactions to landscape based on those ‘cues to care’.