Healing nature
with Alys Fowler
This post contains affiliate links
The year turns – a fresh start, a new decade, and yet so many of us are experiencing a total sense of overwhelm at what’s going on beyond our the garden walls. On a global scale, today’s political crisis succeeds yesterday’s ecological catastrophe with wearisome regularity, and all forecasts look bleak. It’s not the most promising start to the 20s.
And yet... and yet, when the big picture is too much, we find comfort and strength – perhaps even meaning – in the small things. In the differences we can make on a domestic level, in our homes, in our gardens. In nurturing a houseplant, in making our outdoor spaces more welcoming to wildlife. In growing herbs we can pick from the garden to increase our wellbeing as well as our connection with the natural world – Alys’s latest book, A Modern Herbal, is a fabulous reference to guide us through the process and the plants involved.
In this episode there’s a micro review of Dave Goulson’s latest book The Garden Jungle or Gardening to Save the Planet in which he too advocates a temporary retreat to the garden in order to regain a sense of agency, of being able to influence events and surroundings, even if only on a small scale. It’s notable that in the November report released by the author in his capacity as Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, on the highly concerning decline in insect populations, there’s a general feeling that, if we seize the opportunities available to us now, we can avert the impending collapse. Will enough people take up these opportunities?
Can we garden our way out of this? It’s a question I ask Alys at the end of our conversation. I do hope you’ll listen in.
Please do continue to share the podcast on social media, and if you’d really like to brighten my day, leave a review on iTunes or your podcast app of choice. Or drop me a note in the comments section below, having listened on the embedded player on this page.
Gardens, weeds and words podcast, S02E05 show notes
A blend of slow radio, gardening advice and conversation, and readings from the best garden and wildlife writing.
These notes may contain affiliate links.
Garden soundtrack
January, getting back out into the garden.
Rains and flooding.
A sign that not all’s ok with our relationship with nature
Micro book review 03:30
from The Garden Jungle or Gardening to Save the Planet by Dave Goulson.
Published by Jonathan Cape July 2019 https://amzn.to/2QsH5PT
Extract read by Rachel Coldbreath
Insect declines and why they matter, Dave Goulson, FRES, 2019. Dorset Wildlife Trust https://www.flipsnack.com/devonwildlifetrust/insect-declines/full-view.html
Interview with Alys Fowler 06:04
07:05 Urban vs. country – where were Alys’s skills for observing the natural world honed?
09:03 Nature under your feet. Being detail orientated.
09:55 Plant blind
Plant blindness
Wandersee, J. H., & Schussler, E. E. (1999). Preventing plant blindness. The American Biology Teacher, 61, 82–86.
https://abt.ucpress.edu/content/61/2/82
Wikipedia Article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_blindness
Article on Plant Blindness by Sandy Knapp of the Natural History Museum (London) https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ppp3.36
12:20 The way we garden and how it interacts with the wider landscape
14:43 How well is the rewilding message being communicated?
15:20 A generational shift to a more sympathetic relationship with nature
16:35 Countering late stage capitalism
17:25 How long change takes
18:36 Caring in spite of it all
19:43 Mindfulness vs. paying attention
22:42 Vested interests and inertia
24:52 How our gardens help us to make sense of it all
26:29 Finding meaning and hope in a relationship with plants
27:25 What’s the definition of a gardner?
28:32 Thrifty gardening – recycling
31:37 Style vs. meaning in the garden
34:20 A multi-faceted job description
36:55 The relationship of the garden to the house – pushing the boundaries
39:10 Approaches to making gardens
42:20 Japanese gardens – listening to nature
44:45 Control, dominion – human relationships to nature and the garden. Patriarchy, religion, feminism.
48:46 A Modern Herbal – Alys’s take on herbs and herbals.
52:49 Gender roles in the transmission of herb lore
55:29 Herbal medicine and conventional medicine.
Gayla Trail
https://www.instagram.com/yougrowgirl/
56:40 Can we garden our way out of this, Alys?!
***
New Year, New You.
A new relationship with nature.
Paying it back.
Thank you to Alys for joining me on this episode. You can find Alys on Instagram here instagram.com/alysf and on the Guardian pages here https://www.theguardian.com/profile/alys-fowler. In the interview we talked about Alys’s latest book, A Modern Herbal, published by Michael Joseph in 2019. You can find that here https://amzn.to/2tt5Xhw.
Of course, as she says in the interview, the best way to get hold of her is by phone!
Thanks too to Rachel Coldbreath for a cracking reading from Dave Goulson’s book .
With thanks to all my listeners for your continued support and reviews, I really do appreciate them. You can support the podcast by buying its producer a virtual cup of coffee for three quid, at https://ko-fi.com/andrewtimothyOB. Proceeds will go towards equipment, software and the monthly podcast hosting fees.
website: gardensweedsandwords.com
email: gardensweedsandwords@gmail.com
Instagram: instagram.com/AndrewTimothyOB
Twitter: twitter.com/AndrewTimothyOB
You can hear find the podcast trailer and the first four episodes here, either on iTunes or on Switcher.
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A year of garden coaching
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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, writer, photographer, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking this image.
