Digging into the colonial roots of gardening

Spring came early this year. It’s getting warm, and spring flowers like daffodils and tulips, as well as magnolia trees and cherry blossoms have pretty much come and gone.

Many of you have probably already done some spring clean-up in your gardens or community spaces. Maybe you’re thinking about what you’ll be planting this year.

On this week’s Don’t Call Me Resilient podcast, we decided it was a perfect time to revisit one of our most popular episodes from last year about the complicated, colonial roots of gardening. In this episode, we explore how colonial history has affected what we plant and also, who gets to garden. And we look to a new way forward, discussing practical gardening tips with an eye to Indigenous knowledge.

We speak to two people with deep knowledge of the topic. Jacqueline L. Scott is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her research focuses on the wilderness and making it a welcoming space for Black people. And community activist Carolynne Crawley is a woman with Mi’kmaw, Black and Irish ancestry. She is a member of the Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle in Tkaronto and she leads workshops and walks that integrate Indigenous teachings into practice.

Scott says:

“Gardening is absolutely fun, but it’s a complex and layered history and not everyone has the freedom to walk into a garden and plant whatever they want to plant. And so it’s recognizing some of those histories, and how those histories also show up in terms of what we think a garden should look like, how do we actually do the gardening, the plants that we plant in the garden, and who is doing the labour in the garden.”

Crawley asks:

“How do you decolonize the garden? It’s not just about thinking about ourselves, and putting humans on top. It’s about thinking about all of our relations… all those beings who are coming to the garden and through the garden. What I’ve learned from my family is that all these beings are our relatives. The lands, the waters, the plants, the trees, the animals, the insects. And they’re to be treated with as much love and respect and gratitude as we treat our human loved ones.”