Cultivating Community Newsletter- 'We Live Here Too'

[Amanda Shankland]

Good day, 

I am writing today to share the first edition of my monthly newsletter. The ‘Cultivating Community’ newsletter provides commentary on how community-centred thinking and action can drive sustainable environmental and food movements forward. 

For those of you who don’t know me well, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. I am a writer, consultant, and educator specializing in environmental water policy, sustainable agriculture, and food systems. I live in the traditional territory of the Algonquin-Anishinaabe in what is now called Ottawa. I hold a Doctor of Philosophy from Carleton University and am an adjunct professor there. I am a published author, editor for the Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems Journal, and an active member of the Canadian Association of Food Studies board of directors. Currently, I am a freelance consultant and editor offering expert guidance on agricultural and environmental priorities. 

As a passionate advocate for sustainable agriculture, I examine topics including sustainable diets, agroecology, and the political economy of agriculture. I am committed to efforts towards decolonizing our food system and the affirmation of traditional knowledge of foodways. I seek to advance a notion of community that includes all plants, insects, animals, and people. 

I hope you enjoy this short article below. You can also subscribe to my newsletter on Linkedin Subscribe to 'Cultivating Community' and share it with your networks. 

Best regards, 

Amanda Shankland Ph.D.

‘We Live Here Too’

Last week I visited Mont-Royal. There, I discovered a sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the city. The walk up the mountain through the protestant cemetery is Montreal’s hidden gem. Maple, oak, and ash trees watched over me as I passed by, and swallows, wrens, and alders sang songs of welcome. Below my feet, the ground appeared to be moving. I stood still and noticed the clover swarming with bees. I walked carefully so as not to squish any of these busy creatures. The magic of that moment became etched in my mind, and I saw myself as but a small part of this bustling landscape. The experience caused me to reflect on how this space juxtaposed with the well-manicured, still, lawns of my suburban Ottawa neighbourhood. 

This experience also made me question what lawns mean in the context of community. Traditionally, lawns are spaces where people come together; children play, families have barbecues and invite their neighbours, or perhaps can be the site of a good game of croquet. But most of the time, the lawn remains empty, devoid of human activity. The lawn also remains devoid of most other activity. Grass provides minimal habitat for birds, bees, or other insects that would otherwise thrive in a field of wildflowers or native groundcover. The absence of milkweed means no monarch butterflies will rest their tired wings, the lack of wildflowers means no bees will find pollen, and the relative absence of insects means the birds have little reason to linger. But don’t all these creatures also live here? Why are these creatures absent from our definition of community? 

The environmental, economic, and social problems associated with the mass proliferation of the lawn are well documented. The lawn became normalized in the 1950s as North Americans adapted a homogenous vision of the ideal home life. Several authors have undertaken thoughtful and well-researched critics on the topic (Pollen, 1991; Tallamy, 2007; Stein, 1993; Hadden, 2012). Lawns are an environmental disaster, particularly the vast expanses of manicured lawns in suburban areas. The heavy use of water, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides for lawn maintenance contributes to ecological degradation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Lawns consume valuable land that could be used for ecologically beneficial purposes, such as community gardens, urban forests, or wildlife habitats. In terms of addressing climate change, lawns provide very limited carbon sequestration. Economically, the costs of lawn maintenance are staggering, particularly for water. Lawns also provide virtually no benefits in terms of cooling homes or reducing energy costs. 

My main critique here, however, is simply that the vast uptake of lawns is fabricated on a false premise; that we humans are somehow separate from the larger communities that we inhabit. Lawns reinforce our alienation from the world around us. They represent a superficial and controlled view of nature, devoid of the liveliness that characterizes natural ecological systems. This view of nature has given us a false sense of comfort in a familiar uniformity but provides no real benefits. 

It is August 2023, and the time to say goodbye to lawns. Replacing lawns with native plantings, community gardens, or urban forests will improve air quality, increase carbon sinks, better manage stormwater, support local food production, and welcome back the expansive communities of creatures that have been made refugees by the scourge of the North American lawn. Plant the seeds now, and if you already have, encourage your neighbours to provide a much-needed sanctuary for their communities. 

Special thanks to my neighbour, Leslie Baird, for her garden tour. The photos shown here are from her pollinator garden in Westboro, Ottawa.

To learn more about what you can do, check out the following links:

Fletcher Wildlife Garden: https://ofnc.ca/programs/fletcher-wildlife-garden 
Wild Pollinator Partners: https://wildpollinators-pollinisateurssauvages.ca/ 
Watersheds Canada, Community Gardens: https://watersheds.ca/ofccb/freshwater-stewardship-engagement-toolkit/community-gardens-toolkit-resources/ 
Canadian Wildlife Federation, Pollinator Garden: https://cwf-fcf.org/en/explore/gardening-for-wildlife/tools 
David Suzuki Foundation, Butterflyway Project: https://davidsuzuki.org/take-action/act-locally/butterflyway/ 
The Xerces Society: https://www.xerces.org/ 

References: 

Hadden, Evelyn. (2012). Beautiful no-mow yards: 50 amazing lawn alternatives. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press

Pollan, Michael. (1991). Second nature: a gardener's education. New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing

Stein, Sara. (1993). Noah's garden: restoring the ecology of our own backyards. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

Tallamy, Douglas. (2007). Bringing nature home: how native plants sustain wildlife in our gardens. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press


Ground covers for Ontario and Quebec. Native plants are marked with an asterisk: 

Bugleflower (Ajuga species)
Lady's mantle (Alchemilla mollis and vulgaris)
Woolly yarrow (Achillea tomentosa)
Erry (Arctostaphylos uva ursi)*
Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense)*
Snow in summer (Cerastium tomentosa)*
Lily of the valley (Convallaria majallis)*
Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis)*
Crown vetch (Coronilla varia)
Barrenwort (Epimedium varieties)
Purple wintercreeper (Euonymus fortunei 'Coloratus')
Running Euonymus (Euonymus obovatus)
Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana)*
Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens)*
Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)*
Dead nettle (Lamium varieties)
Japanese spurge (Pachysandra terminalis)
Ground phlox (Phlox subulata)
Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)*
Irish and Scotch moss (Sagina subulata verna and aurea)
Dragon's blood stonecrop (Sedum spurium)
Foamflower (Tharella cordifolia)
Thyme (Thymus varieties)
Sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum, Asperula o.)