Healing Gardens

1. A "family" garden: I see this as a family's sustainable efforts to feed themselves, to keep a close watch over the foods that they share, and the ways that they heal themselves and keep in good health. It is a place where children grow with a sense of identity and place, where everyone has a job and a part in the growingn and caring for their own plants. It is essentially a part of the family, a working member that must be cared for the way any other person might be. A family can be biological, it can be a group of friends, a community, or a single person. The plants that grow in these gardens are not specific; they are healing or culinary herbs, vegetables, fungi, beautiful flowers, or trees. The defining characteristic of a family garden is that is has a place and a role in a family or community, and its gifts are meant to educate, nourish, and heal. (Lincoln school garden, the garden at my house, my grandmother's garden)

2. An "Earth" garden: This is culled right from Earth Blanket. A garden without borders or limits, one that remains in the state which it naturally appeared. These gardens cannot be defined by a place, but rather, a purpose. The ocean, the trees of the forest, caves, fields, these are all parts of the garden. To go to a place that belongs to no one and harvest food and medicine is to participate in the Earth Garden. To go to the beach and collect just enough shell-fish to feed a party is to harvest from the garden. I believe then, that there is only one Earth garden, and that we are meant to share in it equally. This garden is for the education of our selves, of our world the relationship among all of us. (Earth)

3. A "product" garden: This is a plot of land that has been cultivated, tilled, and is harvested with the intention of selling the products. Although it seems a little vain in comparison to the first two, there is obviously nothing wrong with a person making their living in a capitalist economy by growing food or herbs, especially if that person or gardner or farmer is conscious of green, organic, and sustainable practices. Now especially must we rely on our local farmers and gardners to produce food and herbs that are safe and delicious; if one cannot or is not growing their own food, then without these productive gardens, they are stuck eating corporate agro-business food or non-natural synthesized crap that is harmful for their bodies. I just realized that corporate agro-business food would fall into this catergory as well. To me, this means that a garden (or farm) must be catergorized by the practices and purposes and not the product.

4. An ethnobotanical garden is one that focuses on the many cultures of the world and is interested in educating people about the many plants used within these cultures. An obvious example would be the Longhouse Garden, which is made uip of almost entirely native plants, but which attempts to bridge the gap between western and Native American practices.  Education is the prime purpose of these gardens, but obviously they could fall under a family or Earth garden as well.