Walk through the garden gates and red saucer-sized poppies, magenta roses, a golden chain tree and feathery purple fennel catch the eye and say come hither.

Who can resist a rose with its promise of perfume?

Masses of fragrant blooms await eager noses. Pale piles of what appear to be cut straw are heaped at the base of a moss rose bush, one of the 200 roses in the garden, and all around the clump of huge, lime-coloured elecampane leaves close by.

Rose and elecampane aren't the only interesting alliance here. A white crushed-rock path leads past a small weeping birch underplanted with French sorrel, red chard, alpine dianthus and artichokes. As far as the eye can see, islands of mingled herbs, flowers, trees and vegetables rise up from a .81 hectare straw sea. The boxy terminology of corn row, vegetable patch and perennial border doesn't apply here.

"Ninety-nine per cent of gardeners perform an exercise in separation, putting the veggies apart from flowers," explains Mhora Hepburn , who along with Joy Nahirnick, created the Hugging Gardens. "We challenge the expectations of the garden." The two garden revolutionaries counter separation anxiety with a culture of companionship.

Groupings of plants that grow better together than they do separately form the foundation of the Hugging Garden . Hepburn calls a collection of plants that like growing next to each other a guild.

These guild guys and gals don't just sit side by side hugging each other all day. They spread the love around.

Hepburn points out that in a natural balanced ecosystem, a variety of species co-exist-plants, insects, birds and humans. So her plants cross paths and spill over edges, enfolding all garden visitors-butterfly or burned-out nine-to-fiver-with colour and fragrance. If a glimpse of blue flag irises inspires a cross-country bee-line to one of the garden's ponds, it's understood you've been touched by a plant. You won't find a Keep Off the Canary Grass sign here.

Canary grass?

Turns out what looks like cut straw is actually cut canary grass. Hepburn uses 400 bales of this seed-free, weed-free bog grass mulch annually. Because it still contains sugars and starches, it rots better. Also, it's cheaper than straw.

The canary grass keeps plant roots most, as do ditches filled with water only twice a month and then covered with mulch. Hepburn counts gardener Ruth South, who championed the mulching system of gardening and authored No Work Gardening, as a mentor.

A water-wise, no work garden is the ultimate aim of Hepburn and Nahirnick, who live in a straw bale house on the property. They transformed a field of hardened sod, once used to grow Christmas trees, along with their top-notch avian crew.

"Joy and I and 50 old lady chickens 'rescued' two acres of gardens for less than $4,000-which included the professional digging of ditches and two ponds," says Hepburn. "The cheapest tractor that you can buy is a bunch of chickens."

Hepburn has written a book, Gardening Connection, about her gardening methods, including keeping roses disease-free with banana tea and making living fences from rooted tree prunings. But you can't beat her "no dig" new garden method.

Stake out a circle and cover it with free lumber wrap from the building supply store. Pile on compost, including garden detritus, kitchen refuse, newspapers, cereal boxes, cardboard, leaves, even mail. Cover with about a foot of straw or canary grass and leave for a year. Pull out the lumber wrap and plant.

The Hugging Gardens began with such a circle, and more circles were added. Nature, notes Hepburn, never grows anything in a straight row, and circles are the key to great energy. A hug is, after all, a rudimentary circle.

Hepburn says letting go of assumptions and beliefs is part of the creative gardening.

Letting go is easy when you're enjoying lilies stuffed with cream cheese at the Gardens' High Tea with a Difference, but not so easy when you hear gnomes, fairies, elves, brownies and nature spirits are somewhere nearby.

Hepburn, who communicates with the spirits of nature that guide her in plant placement, says before you start your no-dig garden, you should ask the spirits where to locate the circle. In the field of "spiritual gardening," Hepburn doesn't stand alone.

At Scotland 's Findhorn garden, 180 kilogram cabbages became the norm, after Dorothy Maclean contacted plant spirits called "divas." Maechelle Small-Wright, who Hepburn first read about in Harrowsmith, uses kinesiology to get in touch with nature spirits in her garden, Perelandra. Recently, Canadian Gardening's October/November 2003 issue featured Thai spirit houses, for the guardian watching and protecting the yard, flowers and trees.

"The human body can only see and hear 10 per cent of what's out there," says Hepburn, "I'm not satisfied with that."

She invites people to seek out the other 90 per cent at the Huggig Gardens. "Eat some greens. Talk with a plant. Look for a particularly beautiful flower that calls to you and delve for the metaphor. Enjoy. Get carried away."

TIMES COLONIST - Thursday June 10, 2004

Story by Pat Burkette

Special to the Times Colonist

Top of Page