Wild Garden Songs

Cultivating joy and purpose in your backyard.

BY KATE WATTERS

Last year when the coronavirus pandemic brought the world to a screeching halt, I had just purchased a 1-acre farmstead in Rimrock, Arizona. Situated between the lush riparian belt of Beaver Creek and an expanse of creosote desert scrub, the land is a shady sanctuary of towering ash trees lining a limestone cliff. The earth felt familiar right away, like home. I dug in, ready to discover what the land wanted to become.

Finding ground to cultivate beauty, biodiversity, and a sense of place has been a dream. It was probably planted in me as a child growing up in rural Vermont with a big garden and wild areas to explore. I was yearning for a place to synthesize the lessons I’d learned from ecology, farming, and horticulture. As a human resident of planet Earth, I feel an urgency to grow more habitat and heal myself and others in the process. Throughout my life, both gardens and wild places have shown me the resilience of plants, and the transformative effect they have on the human spirit. I named the place Wild Heart Farm to honor both wild and cultivated flowers, and because I believe humans need to connect to the untidy, chaotic, magical places found in nature and nurture them in our hearts.

AMY S. MARTIN

The coronavirus took a toll on our spirits, our economy, and our sense of safety. It seemed to illustrate the impermanence of life. And yet it also illuminated that we are part of an intricate web. Our interconnected world allowed the virus to travel. As humans stayed home, the non-human residents of the planet took advantage of the space. With a reduction in noise pollution, one study in San Francisco found that birds were actually singing softer, “sexier” songs to one another without competition from the urban din. 

The pandemic inspired record numbers of people to garden. Those who previously lacked time were able to dig in and find fulfillment. With supply chains impacted, it motivated many to become more self-sufficient. Seed companies reported the largest volume of orders they had ever seen. Gardening grounds us, offers a natural dose of vitamin D in the form of sunshine, and its simple delights relieve stress, depression, and anxiety. 

I’d planned to grow my cut flower and floral design business, but the pandemic cancelled that along with everything else. With weddings postponed, I focused my energy on building soil and habitat. I received a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create a pollinator garden, in particular for the monarch butterfly, which feeds on milkweed. We hired veterans returning from combat to do the heavy lifting of rocks and soil. We ended each work session with a lovingkindness meditation, to focus loving energy inward and outward. Together we transformed a barren slope into rock terraces teaming with pollinator plants. This garden became the foundation of the farm.

AMY S. MARTIN

Involving our family and friends in gardening can be wholesome and healing. The magic alchemy of soil, seeds, and sowing our collective hopes together is powerful fodder. Another upside of the pandemic was that my sister, Kelly, decided to live on the farm when shelter-in-place orders cancelled her summer vacation plans. Kelly dug in alongside me and my partner, Mike, as we cultivated and grew the dream for the farm — growing, cooking, and healing together. 

Feeding ourselves and our loved ones healthy, homegrown food and herbs is empowering and gratifying. Mike is a naturopathic doctor, dedicated to supporting the body’s innate healing ability. He grew up in the sterile, suburban landscape of Des Moines, Iowa without a garden or wild places to play. Before our farm life, he knew herbs from books and supplements or amber tincture bottles — not as living plants. We planted a medicinal garden with regional native plants as well as plants from the worldwide apothecary. Many, like purple coneflower (echinacea) and sage (artemisia) also attract pollinators. Now Mike delights in harvesting herbs from this garden and around the farm to create fresh teas and preserve herbal extracts for our daily life. Like our food, many of our medicinal herbs and teas are grown in other countries. By the time we sip our tea, months have passed since the dried herbs were harvested. We can feel that our bodies and spirits are more vital when we ingest herbs that are grown lovingly, in healthy soil, and harvested fresh.

AMY S. MARTIN

Our gardens can also help heal fractured ecosystems and provide critical refuge for species. In order to sustain human life and plant diversity we need abundant pollinators. Yet pollinators are in decline. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the long list of contributing factors include: invasive pests and diseases, exposure to pesticides and other chemicals, loss of habitat, loss of species and genetic diversity, and a changing climate. Although it feels altruistic to plant a pollinator garden, it is truly an act of human survival, as over one third of the food we eat requires pollination.

Planting pollinator habitat is one of the regenerative practices on our farm, as it fosters biodiversity — the backbone of a healthy ecosystem. Plants that attract a diversity of insects are natural pest control and increase fruit yields in our orchard. Best of all, witnessing the daily drama unfold as the garden grows feeds my soul. Hummingbirds sip the nectar from the firecracker penstemon on an early spring day. The Palmer’s penstemon has curved, gangly stalks bearing giant, fragrant flowers with open throats — a chorus singing songs of glory. The carpenter bees can hear the music. These formative native bees clumsily hover around the flowers, squeezing themselves into a blossom while the entire stalk sways. Carpenter bees were not present pre-penstemon. If you plant it, they will come!

As a floral designer I hunger for beauty, and as a gardener I struggle with the industry ideal of a garden teaming with well-loved horticultural flowers like peonies and zinnias. While many of these varieties provide forage for honeybees, I chose native plants to attract native bees for the pollinator garden. Pollinators and plant diversity are inextricably linked. There are 20,000 bee species in the world, and 1,700 reside in Arizona. Arizona is home to over 3,500 plant species — the fourth highest plant diversity in the U.S. Wherever you live, there are native bees who forage on native plants, and pollen transfer ensures future generations of both.

AMY S. MARTIN

As members of the Grand Canyon Trust, we love the wilds of the natural world. We find peace when we leave behind the chaos of modern life. We want to experience the wonder of land untouched by humans. Our backyards can also be a sanctuary for us and provide refuge for other species. The reality of climate change is becoming more and more profound each year with record-breaking temperatures, raging wildfires, and drought. When we plant ecologically resilient landscapes with native plants, our backyards transform into critical habitat for declining pollinators and wildlife in need of shelter and food. 

Plants are foundational to our gardens, therefore the ones we choose can make a difference. In my garden menagerie, sacred datura mingles with hollyhocks, dwarfing a young peach tree. Plants are complex characters living out their stories with personalities and needs like us. They offer sustenance to our body and soul. They can summon memories from ancestral realms. They are medicinal allies. They call in beneficial insects and pollinators from thousands of miles away. They awaken microbes and nutrients, and sequester carbon in the soil. If we pay attention, they also sing us songs of place. They are the backbone of any ecosystem, which is the reason we must befriend native plants and welcome them into our gardens. These plants are not available in big box stores, so you must find local nurseries and growers. To get to know the flora in your area, join a regional chapter of the Native Plant Society or botanical garden.

Restricting our conservation efforts to national parks will not preserve species. These areas are too small and fragmented, and surrounded by populated and depauperate landscapes lacking in both numbers and varieties of species. In his book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” entomologist Douglas Tallamy makes a compelling case for a Home-grown National Park. If American landowners restored just half of their lawns with native plants, we could collectively create 20 million acres of ecologically functional habitat. Inspired by this idea, we gathered our friends and together we danced the seeds of native yarrow, clover, and grasses into the soil. This diverse mix of perennial plants will offer pollen, nectar, and habitat to bees. Planting seeds of change can be a joyous communal activity. 

AMY S. MARTIN

Gardens connect us deeply to plants, to the seasons, and to the animals also trying to survive. This daily reminder that we are part of a whole is what heals us from the inside. I watch my farm family grow each day. A normally bold squirrel recently stood frozen in fear with her baby in tow. Without hesitation, she gathered it into her mouth and sprinted up a nearby ash tree. Because of our proximity to Beaver Creek, our farm is a bird sanctuary with tanagers, robins, and hummingbirds nesting in our trees. I cried with joy and relief this spring when the black phoebe who fed on insect pests in the covered growing area returned to the farm. Birds need appropriate food throughout the season — caterpillars in the spring when they are raising their young, and berries high in fat in the fall to fuel their migration. Not all berries are created equal. Native plants like hackberry produce berries with higher levels of fat in the fall, while Eurasian horticultural varieties are high in sugar. 

If we tend our gardens, we will find that the wonder we seek in the backcountry is present as we sit in our backyards sipping coffee. 

Growing a garden teaches us about ourselves and our place in the world, and it brings a sense of awe and purpose to our daily lives. Humans are part of the problem, but we can also be part of the solution. Imagine if we converted our lawns, school grounds, and churches into native habitat islands full of nectar, larvae, pollen, fruit, and seed food sources. Together it is possible to transform these spaces into ecologically vibrant gardens and stitch them together into a beautiful, functional quilt so that migrating species can make their journeys with ample nourishment. 

Find more information about pollinator gardens and a Flagstaff plant list ›

A former director of the Grand Canyon Trust’s Volunteer Program, Kate Watters now tends her gardens and creates unique floral designs at Wild Heart Farm in Rimrock, Arizona. Find her online at wildheartfarmaz.com and katewattersart.com.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views expressed by Advocate contributors are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Grand Canyon Trust.