This morning I was reading Benjamin Vogt’s blog post taking on some language we’re seeing a lot of these days. Rewilding, along with planting a trillion trees and other catchy memes, lead people to rush after one concept or another. With good intentions but perhaps not such good results.

Benjamin’s post generated some positive reactions as well as grumblings in the comments, but I think his main point holds. While I perhaps wouldn’t say the term “‘rewilding’ echoes a lot of violent and privileged colonialism,” I would absolutely agree with his definition of it: “this idea that it takes people (often white) with privilege (money) to create an ideal landscape.”

He went on to add: “You see this a lot with naturalistic garden design today, which is still embedded in a tradition of privilege. Even I struggle with helping folks get an echo of what they see in books and magazines — least of which is learning a whole new way to garden with nature and not against it. But gardens are still, in so many ways, unnatural. And they always will be.”

Amidst the comments to the post, I found a link to a book I didn’t know about, titled Wilding, by Isabella Tree. A true story of their farm in West Sussex, Isabella and her husband “took a spectacular leap of faith in 2000 and handed their 3,500 acres back to nature.” Clearly there’s some privilege here since not many of us (at least, not me) have anything close to 3,500 acres to do anything with. But it sounds rather as though this couple simply let go, as though they did not attempt to create anything in particular. I shall, of course, read the book. It looks like an interesting interpretation of how we can learn to live with nature on its terms.

I highly recommend that you read the rest of Benjamin’s post here. And, just generally poke around on his website here if you’re not familiar with his work. His plant palette focuses on mid-western prairie plants, so not on target for the desert southwest, but his concepts and ideas seem to me to be pretty much universal. Benjamin spoke at the Land and Water Summit several years ago. If he’s ever near where you live, you should consider attending one of his talks. And, of course, you can always buy one of his books. A New Garden Ethic is a good place to start. His newest, Pairie Up!, has a great title but is likely midwest focused.