More Environmental Issues
legal and practical
Getting Started Organically
start with the basics
Edible Garden
for food, drink & medicine
Trees & Shrubs
Mother Nature's way

The above photo shows me preparing trees for transport home after digging them up in a ditch which is legal in Canada.

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Related Articles

Paradise Lost, the Tyranny of Conformity, Carol Wallace's account of the illegal destruction of my naturalized garden by the City of Winnipeg on June 1, 1998. Carol, at the time of writing, was a Pennsylvania law professor.

Inspirational Green Thumb Award
Eileen O'dea, Home & Garden editor, granted me this first annual award in 1998, in recognition of my fight for environmental gardening rights.

Inspirational Green Thumb Award Interview
Eileen O'dea's interview of me to find out how I can carry on gardening in spite of intense physical pain and tremendous opposition.

What Are You Doing to My Beautiful Creation
Ever wonder how the creator feels about the way we are denaturalizing his creation?

Amazon Books

Sacred Ground to Sacred Space
Visionary Ecology, Environmental Ritual, Perennial Wisdom, Art

Organic Gardening for the 21st Century
Guide to Growing Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs, & Flowers

More Environmental Gardening Books including by my favorite gardening author, Louise Riotte

From Curse to Blessing

by Traute Klein, biogardener

What my neighbor had meant as a curse, environmentally conscious strangers turned into a blessing.

Background

In 1998, the City of Winnipeg had illegally demolished my backyard without warning, because it did not " . . . conform to the standards of the community." You can read about the event in articles linked in the left column. I found out later that the supervising police officer was responsible for stopping the demolition crew before they got to the sides and front of the property. He had taken the trouble to check the City's required authorization which did not exist. Within days, the inspector wrote out an order designed to obtain that authorization. I appealed the order and won. The committee members who unanimously granted my appeal were horrified at what had already happened. The inspector did not bother showing up at the hearing to defend his case.

The Canadian Environmental Defense Fund, now renamed Environment Canada, was going to launch a lawsuit against the City on my behalf, but unfortunately the lawyer who took on the case got busy running for political office for the Green Party. He postponed work on the case again and again until it was too late. I had trusted him to do what he said he was going to do. Big mistake!

In the intervening years, my two neighbors took turn next-door neighbors took turns launching complaints against me annually. I received notices for various offenses from an inspector who apologized for having to bother me. At one time, a French CBC TV crew waited across the street all morning, camera on shoulder, ready to document another demolition which never happened. I wonder who had informed them that there was supposed to be one.

One of the two neighbors eventually moved into an apartment because her ailing husband was no longer able to cope with the stairs in their old three-storey house. The new neighbors allow their entire backyard to grow into a meadow filled with flowers and weeds. The previous owner stops by occasionally to offer gardening advice which no one heeds. She is most unhappy about it.

One to Go

My remaining neighbor, however, had an axe to grind. She had gotten upset when I reclaimed 6 feet of property to which she had been claiming squatter's rights for as long as she had lived there. She was also upset with me when her daughter got into trouble for assaulting me on those 6 feet of my own property. The poor woman is very unhappy. Children and animals know it. When she steps into the garden, birds disappear suddenly. Children freeze when she tries to be friendly with them. They rip off her flowers when she is not looking, the same children who love to help in my garden. When she goes away, cats make deposits on her open porch, just to annoy her, the same cats who protect my garden from mice. As soon as she leaves the property, the birds come back to fill the air with song.

This woman had been busy all along to garner neighborhood support for her cause by telling all kinds of lies about me. They got back to me, of course.

Last Attempt

In the spring of 2005, she made one last desperate attempt at forcing my garden to conform to hers. I was supposed to have mine stripped and replaced with a herbicided, pesticided, dandelion-filled lawn. Maybe I should also should have kept my compost bin empty like the one which her children bought for her.

The area was now serviced by a new inspector who was not familiar with the history. We also had a new city councillor who only knew what she told him.

This time, the neighbor reinforced her complaint to the city with interviews by the media, hoping to get public support for her destructive cause.

I saw one of those interviews. In it, she portrayed herself as my benefactor who had been trying to help me. Give me a break!

Backfire

The media publicity backfired. People came out by the hundreds to see for themselves. Some of them had difficulty finding my property, because they were looking for signs of neglect. People whom I had never met before took up my defence on radio and TV shows, in newspaper articles, and in a petition which was circulated in the community. People from all over the city offered practical help.

Accident

I had been unable to do any gardening that spring, because I had dislocated both my shoulders in a backward fall which landed me on both elbows. For several months, I could not even dress myself. After several months of chiropractic adjustments and acupuncture, the pain finally subsided sufficiently to do light work. When I received an order to clean up the garden in two weeks, I appealed the order, not in content but to get a time extension because of my injuries.

At the hearing before a committee of city councillors, the room was filled to overflowing with my supporters, none of whom I had previously known. Three people presented briefs on my behalf. One of them handed in the signed petition sheets. All took notice of the absence of the complaining neighbor.

I was given another month to clean up the garden, although I had already finished the work. The extra time was to serve as a precaution to make sure that my efforts would satisfy the inspector. They did.

The Blessing

It was satisfying to see the outrage of the general public in support of environmental gardening methods. I could have used that support in 1998.

Shortly after the city hall hearing, I received a visit by a delegation of the Manitoba Naturalist Society asking for permission to feature my garden in their 2006 garden tour. They also asked me to facilitate a winter workshop. We settled on a workshop entitled "Medicine from My Garden" for May 31, 2006.

As I travel on Winnipeg Transit buses, many people recognize me from the media attention and they encourage me. What was meant to hurt me has turned into a blessing, although the experience was rather stressful.

Aftermath

My neighbor no longer talks to anyone around here. That certainly cuts down on neighborhood gossip. When I say hello to her, she ignores my greeting. She patrols the sidewalk around my garden daily looking for some reportable offence, her face predicting seven years of rainy weather, as Germans would say.

On January 18, 2006, a Century 21 sign was planted in the snow on her front lawn. She is selling her house.

Postscript

On the July 22 Garden Tour I clocked 309 visitors in 6 hours. The crowd was most enthusiastic about the healing plants. Many shared stories about the healing methods which they had observed from their grannies. Some have returned to take home some of my potted surplus healing plants and to ask advice about personal health problems. The children who had come along enjoyed the raspberries and the juicy apples which they picked off my Norland tree. I encouraged them because I have lots to share.

For the tour, I had labelled all my plants and put up many signs written on recycled styrofoam trays. Neighbors love them. They tell me that they learn much from them. This sign receives the most attention:

My garden is not a museum but a workshop, not a gallery but a classroom.

My cat's harness also had two labels attached. One read "I am Dusty" and the other "Pet me!" That cat had the best day of his life, because most people responded gladly. Here is a photo of the handsome fellow.

Copyright Traute Klein, biogardener