Steward
Glove up. Yank out, ball up, and toss a blight of invasive English ivy metastasizing along the forest edge. Pluck the sprouts and excise the root balls of Himalayan and evergreen blackberry infecting the open understory. Amputate wayward English laurel sprouts, saplings and trees, by hand, shovel, or saw. Tweeze strands of reed canary grass from the creek bench.
Pan out, think big, go long. What would happen if you left this land alone, and what might be worth interrupting, removing, or encouraging? Not just for you, but for the overall health of Pacific Northwestern Washington flora, and for all the mammals, amphibians, birds, reptiles, fish, insects and other invertebrates who live here, or who might one day. How best to tend this landscape?
Salmonberry—quintessential northwest shrub, magenta star-flowers and first juicy berries of spring, hair-thin thorns protecting even the smallest twigs—surprises you by acting greedy here, knowing no moderation, attempting to take over. New shoots popping up in the few patches of open sunny meadow have got to go. Dense sprouts attempting to inhabit the entire quarter-acre creek bench have to be thinned. Canes shading out the wild blueberries, poking up through sword ferns, erasing your path to the creek, and with the audacity to grow in the gravel driveway will be removed.
When you walk the land with pruners and hand saw, you see differently. You discover dead twigs on red huckleberry shrubs and feel visceral satisfaction in snipping them free. Step back and see the shrub anew, unburdened. Or, you notice how the dense foliage of vine maple trees have begun to block the sunlight from reaching the understory shrubs, the ground covers, and the front porch beyond, and in removing just the right branches you all feel lighter, looser, brighter. Even the vine maples.
The ancient overgrown apple trees need more than simple pruning—after years of neglect and bear climbs they require a complete makeover. Your first winter here you are too timid, too hesitant, and take too little. That summer the trees sprawl heavy with apples on crowded and weakening branches. Several large limbs crack.
Your second winter you know what you need to do. You spend a whole day with ladder and saw, making large, careful cuts. Stepping back, circling and looking from multiple perspectives. Then snipping smaller twigs, minding the fruiting bodies, noting the angles new growth would take. Trying to think like a fruit tree. And, like a bear.
You had thought that owning land would be like mothering. You were wrong. You are not the older, nurturing matriarch tending a helpless babe. This landscape is so much older than you, and contains multitudes you could spend the rest of your life just beginning to fathom.
You are also not the consummate nurse caretaking a frail grandparent. This landscape is a vibrant, resilient, independent elder whom it is an honor to serve. You’re more of a minion, a reverent subject, eager to learn and refine your role in supporting the component parts, as in a body craving nourishment, appreciating cleansing, desiring balance.
Glove up, boot up, wade in. An alder tree, fallen directly across and into the creek would block salmon passage. Or maybe it wouldn’t—they could jump that, would have scaled far worse to get this far—but why make them? Why not ease their passing, where you can?
Also, it just feels wrong, that tree, there. The once whooshing, rushing creek now spitting, splashing, harshly protesting this new wall, exploding over the top. You hear it from inside. See the spray. It wouldn’t do. Never mind the February cold. Never mind the fierce rain-swollen currents. It has to go. You wade in.
Step carefully on slippery rock, stand strong against the thrusting water. Deeper in, against ankles, then shins, then over the boots and to your knees. No turning back now. The butt of the tree is wedged against the opposite bank, so you have to go all the way. The alder isn’t thick, maybe six inches at base and narrowing to three, but it is long—formerly tall—probably twenty-five feet. Reaching the trunk you grip, hold, wrestle, and finally free it, cradle the weight in your arms. You can feel the water struggling against it, through the wood. You begin to move.
Like a workhorse, you lean in, head down, and pull. The current is strong against the tree, against your body, but you are stronger. You walk on numbing legs upstream until the narrowing length of tree behind you finally swings lengthwise into the current, with the flow instead of against it. Only then do you wade the end over to the shallows adjacent to the shore and let it fall. Then move to the narrow top to tuck that too against the bank.
Back on dry land, shivering, dripping and muddy, you listen, and look. It sounds right. Looks right. Feels palpably better, like a sliver removed. The downed tree, in its new location, will mean shelter and shade to salmon fingerlings rather than one more obstacle in their parents’ way. And, a new perch for the foraging dipper. Helpful, perhaps, but necessary, for any of you? No. Satisfying? Aesthetically pleasing? Joyous? Absolutely.
Also unnecessary? Planting anything. This is, aside from a few tenacious but sparse invasive species, a healthy Pacific Northwest woodland. After spending years learning and teaching local ecology, then working to restore these landscapes, you can take one look around and recognize that. Recognize individuals. So many old friends from past homes and workplaces—trees, shrubs, and groundcovers, host to butterfly, bird, and beast. And yet, why not use your experience to supplement, beautify, diversify your home? To finally plant something and stick around to watch it grow?
Glove up and dig in. Three red-flowering currant shrubs for the hummingbirds. Three evergreen huckleberry shrubs for the berry enthusiasts, you included. Paper birch and black hawthorn for your Celtic ancestors, and a sugar maple tree for your New England-raised father. Willow, ninebark, and red-osier dogwood stakes along the far end of the creek bench for diversity, wildlife, and privacy from the neighbors. Lavender, rosemary, heather, and wintergreen off the front and back porches—cheerful companions you’ve had with you everywhere, but this time, not bound in pots. This time, rooting in the earth. And this is just the beginning.
How to truly immerse in a landscape? Reach back before the idea of human stewardship, and remember, know, that whatever else you are and are becoming, you remain an animal among other animals, making your home here. The fact that you are animal with dexterity, foresight, and consideration for other lives doesn’t preclude your primal needs and desires, but it does inform your choices.
Glove up and bring scissors, bags, and basket. Snip cedar tips from multiple trees to make a tincture, and collect fallen greenery to make a winter wreath. Pinch off nettle tips just above the joints so that you can enjoy spring’s superfood in soups and scrambles but they can keep growing. Pluck new dandelion leaves for salads and sautés, just one or two from each bunch as you move around the yard. Collect just a few berries from any one shrub, leaving plenty for birds, bears, and coyotes.
Walk around the yard with a dish of vanilla ice cream and top it with sun-warmed, slightly tart red huckleberries. Sit against a Doug fir tree and welcome gifts of the land into your body, while all around you, other animals do the same, each in their own ways.
How to love a landscape? Gloves off. Watch, listen, feel, and know what to leave alone. Decide not to buy a mower and let the meadow go feral in summer. Delight in the riot of wildflowers that thrive, the bumblebees and butterflies that frequent them, and the other critters who use them for browse, shade, or shelter: rabbit, salamander, and frog. Some flowers native to this soil, others not, but all finding balance and offering unique gifts.
The colors! From pristine white English daisies to sultry purple foxgloves, fiery orange hawkweeds to dainty powder-blue forget-me-nots. Bold buttercups and dandelions in the sunniest patches, bashful bleeding hearts along the forest edge. Subtle pasture grasses with stunning flowers of their own—greens and purples in an array of shapes and textures, if you look close enough. And you do.
While the neighbors mow and spray, edge and landscape, sterilize and homogenize, you understand that one essential element of tending is simply attending. Knowing when to stop doing and just look, listen, and appreciate. To love the land by noticing, applauding, and delighting in the component parts and the whole.
To actively work the land as a reverent subject. To immerse as an animal among other animals. To notice and appreciate as a contemplative human. These are your gifts, and your responsibilities. Your stewardship, your ever-deepening relationship. How to make a landscape home.
Heather Durham is the author of the 2022 ecopsychological memoir Wolf Tree, and the 2019 nature memoir Going Feral. Read more.