Fall is time to plan planting

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Ken Parker, the owner-operator of Sweetgrass Gardens, believes that gardening should be "a joint venture with nature."

Parker, who gives gardening tips on the Weather Network and is also a gardening expert for the Gardening Gamble show on television, presented a slide show on native plants at the Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment and Training Centre in Toronto Oct. 29. The talk was part of Miziwe Biik's celebration of the first season of its new Aboriginal Community Garden.

Parker, who was born in the States but now lives at Six Nations, believes that "The site should dictate the plant material.

"Oak leaves make the soil acidic, so if you have an oak tree dropping its leaves on your property, you must plant things that will grow in acidic soil."

It sounds simple, but Parker says it's not how most gardeners operate. The vast majority of gardeners plant the wrong type of plant or use non-native species that require chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and a lot of human intervention.

"I'm really against using all these chemicals in the garden," Parker said. "People need to get their gardens off drugs - the chemicals are bad for birds and butterflies and everything else."

Native plants, which are adapted to the climate, do not need human intervention to grow and thrive. They suffer from less disease and have fewer pests. In fact, they don't even need to be watered.

"Two-thirds of native plants are below the ground," Parker said. "On a two- to three-foot plant, the root system will be four to nine feet. It takes several seasons, but once native plants are established, they are virtually indestructible."

Parker defines "native plants" as plants that were here before European settlement. "Aboriginal plants," on the other hand, are plants that are significant to Aboriginal culture. That means an Aboriginal plant can be a non-native plant: comfrey and coltsfoot, for example, were introduced to North America by European settlers but have been adopted by Native people as medicines, Parker said.

"We have to be careful using the term 'native plants,'" Parker said, "because Ontario is a big place. We have cactus in the south and Arctic tundra plants in the north."

The nursery at Sweetgrass Gardens grows plants that are native to Ontario, but also grows plants from the Rocky Mountains, the Midwest, and the Carolinas to create certain ecosystems.

Parker told the audience of approximately 25 people packed into a meeting room downstairs at Miziwe Biik that "we need to think of gardens as plant communities" and as ecosystems. Certain plants work together, he said, and help each other. Other plants are important sources of food for butterflies and birds.

Parker-who says he is not an herbalist, but a "grower"-spoke about some plants and their traditional uses, and also identified what types of native plants would grow in various climates and soils. He also spoke about endangered plants, and about a butterfly that is on the verge of extinction because the native lupin, which is the butterfly's exclusive food, is disappearing.

"I'm in the restoration business," Parker said. "I'm trying to preserve these plants."

The speaker series was sponsored by Miziwe Biik in association with Evergreen, a charity that organizes naturalization projects in cities and works to bring communities and nature together. Evergreen and Miziwe Biik are partners in the community garden project.