Teaching Garden
Established 2023
SITE CONDITIONS
Light: Full sun to part shade
Soil type:
Soil moisture: Medium to medium-dry
Topography: Flat
Key plants: Black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa), butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), clustered mountain-mint (Pycnanthemum muticum), gray birch (Betula populifolia), paper birch (Betula papyifera), red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia), sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina), wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), yellow prairie grass (Sorghastrum nutans).
Key plants in the "residential garden: Arrowwood viburnum (Viburnum dentatum), common juniper (Juniperus communis), common winterberry (Ilex verticillata), highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum), inkberry (Ilex glabra), mountain holly (Ilex mucronata), smooth shadbush (Amelanchier laevis), Virginia rose (Rosa virginiana).
OVERVIEW
When we began gardening here in 2016, most of the Teaching Garden was a gravel parking lot. To initiate the transition into a garden and improve the soil, we stopped mowing and allowed nature to take its course. The result was the emergence of a paper and gray birch grove, along with an abundance of lowbush blueberries. We also introduced shoots of sweetfern and sundial lupines, both of which help enrich the soil by fixing nitrogen. Habitat berms were built using sticks, leaves, and other organic materials.
In 2023, shrubs were introduced to the area in front of the building, and in 2024, beds of perennials and grasses were planted along a winding path that travels the length of the planting area. While not yet lush, this area now supports a variety of beneficial plants. In a few years, birch trees and shrubs will grow into a privacy screen for the building, while offering habitat and food for birds and other wildlife.
DESIGN
The Teaching Garden reminds us that we have much to learn from plants. All life on Earth depends on the ability of plants to photosynthesize, turning the sun’s energy into food. But plants offer us much more than that.
The garden areas - surrounded by looping paths - feature a wide variety of native plants that have been used for centuries in the Northeast for food, medicine, dye, fiber, and building materials. Some plants have essential oils with familiar flavors, like wintergreen or the citrus-like taste of bee balm. We can make cordage from plant fibers and weave baskets from grasses, woody shoots, and roots. Many plants also provide natural chemicals for dye. The wood of trees not only shelters us daily but also serves as the material for countless useful and beautiful items.
Exciting Ecology
Milkweed and related plants like dogbane not only provide food for butterflies, their larvae, and various other insects, but the fibers from their stems also produce strong, fine threads that can be spun into yarn or used to make cordage. Watch this video to see how it is done: Tying our World Together: Gathering Dogbane.
Fiber from the silk attached to milkweed seeds is currently being studied to make biodegradable, disposable surgical gowns and other medical products. The hollow fibers have antibacterial properties, are light weight, offer thermal comfort, are permeable to air and moisture vapor, and repel water.
Swamp milkweed silk (Asclepias incarnata)
Photo credit: Martha B. Moss
Plants as Gifts
The teachings of Robin Wall Kimmerer—writer, scientist, professor, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation—have been a profound source of inspiration for this garden. A key goal of the Teaching Garden is to demonstrate the many gifts of native plants.
In her most recent book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Kimmerer writes: “In naming the plants who shower us with goodness, we recognize that these are gifts from our plant relatives, manifestations of their generosity, care, and creativity. When we speak of these not as things or products or commodities, but as gifts, the whole relationship changes.” Learn more about Kimmerer’s work at www.robinwallkimmerer.com.
Indigenous knowledge offers essential guidance for building respectful, sustainable relationships with native plants. During colonization, European settlers brought their own plants and ways of thinking, often ignoring or actively undermining the deep-rooted connections Indigenous Peoples had with local ecosystems. Today, many Indigenous communities are reclaiming their traditional knowledge, ancestral lands, and time-honored practices that have sustained them for generations.
The Wabanaki Nations—comprised of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe, and Penobscot Nation—have long faced barriers to federal recognition, leaving them without the full protections and rights provided under Federal Indian law. According to the Wabanaki Alliance, “For more than 40 years, the state of Maine has used legislation passed in 1980 to deny the Wabanaki Nations’ inherent tribal sovereignty..." This exclusion has created decades of social and economic challenges for Wabanaki communities.
To learn how you can support Wabanaki sovereignty, visit: Understanding Tribal Sovereignty - Wabanaki Alliance.