Recently, I was able to combine several hobbies in a fantastic environment. While attending the 2024 Perennial Plant Association Symposium, I was treated day after day to education, good food, and mountains to stare at. My love of learning is nourished most when the topic directly relates to our lived experience rather than just facts to accumulate. Lucky for me, the lectures I attended served this purpose. Through presentations and garden tours, I broadened my perspective on how and why plants and gardens enhance our lives.
One thing that has changed over my experience as a gardener is my perspective of what gardening is. Gardening is less of an activity and more of a relationship. It requires patience, attention, and persistence - a realization that has added depth and meaning to my work throughout my 17 years as a gardener. As the garden or cultivated space evolves, so do its needs, requiring adaptability from its caretaker. Several speakers at the conference echoed this understanding. Difficulties and challenges should enhance our appreciation of what the garden presents. This evolving relationship is where the real beauty lies, as we learn to work with—not against—our plants and environment.
As we continue to deepen our bond with the gardens we care for, technology is also changing the nature of our relationship with plants. Breeders are now combining traditional cross-pollination techniques with gene editing through CRISPR. This offers not just a chance at desirable traits but allows for more precise tolerance to changing environmental conditions. CRISPR is helping horticulture evolve, making plants more resilient to drought while possibly increasing pollinator attraction. These advances, while technical, are simply another layer of that growing relationship between gardener and garden, allowing us to create more sustainable, adaptable spaces.
As time goes on, the distinction between city and forest will slim. Living roofs are changing our urban environments, helping to clean water, providing pollinator habitats, and removing pollutants from the air. A living roof can do all this while also keeping the building cool, both physically and in terms creating an inviting “hip” vibe. This new technology is part of rethinking how we approach gardening, blending human spaces with the natural world and pushing us to imagine new possibilities.
More than ever, we need to embrace our living world. Approaches such as these extend an invitation to dust off our imaginations and begin creating and nurturing beautiful life-filled spaces.
By Ed Garvin
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