42. Bogs + Good Native Plants II

Would you like to talk with me about Land + Spirit ?

42. DeColonize with Good Native Plants

What is the meaning of good native plants for a person who's on a spiritual journey?

I talk again today with Bogs, a Mi'kmaq student of Environmental Sociology at McGill University in Montreal. Bogs has started a non-profit in service of Mother Nature called Good Native Plants.

We covered a variety of topics and tangents on this podcast, including the supremacy of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge, Animal and Plants as Nations, engaging with and connecting to Passion + Purpose, Native plants as a process to decolonize, plant systems as exemplars of good social systems and so much more.

I really enjoy speaking with Bogs and I hope you do too. Check out their non-profit if you’re looking to re-design your property/spaces to be more integrated and beneficial to the whole of Nature.

Click here for Part I.

🌀Good Native Plants

🌀 The article about gendered language.

🌀 Mi’kmaq Online Dictionary

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Transcript

Lezley (00:00:12):

Hi folks. Welcome to the Beloved Presence Podcast. Today I talk with bogs again and good native plants. We talked about so much stuff. We really do go on a ride when we talk together. I really enjoy my conversations with 'em. We talked about how plants mimic societal structures, how planting native plants is decolonization. We talked about an illuminating, enlightening conversation for me about engaging with passion and finding purpose, and I dunno, there was just a lot here. We talk about bogs, nonprofit, good native plants, and if you would like any direction on designing your yard, designing your land with good native plants, they're the one they're doing my yard. And I will show you going forward, kind of what happens, how it works, how we do it. We talk in this episode more about what's involved in designing your property or a plot of land or something with good native plants. So check that out. Check out good native plants.ca. I really thoroughly enjoy speaking with bogs, and I hope you do too. Would you be willing to listen to me say a few words? I've been practicing a beginning greeting. Go ahead. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. This is the first time I've ever done it in this context, so I'm a little nervous about it. So please listen with patience and forgiveness and understanding.

Lezley (00:02:08):

Okay. F. So warm. Welcome to all my relations. So thank you to the Great Spirit. Thank you. I wish you a thousand good things. I am grateful and thank you for the good life, which means the Ani witches are on Turtle Island.

Bogs (00:03:06):

That's excellent. Thank you for sharing.

Lezley (00:03:10):

Thanks. I'm sweating. I just was public speaking or something.

Bogs (00:03:20):

Do you hear my partner talking in the background?

Lezley (00:03:24):

I did, yes.

Bogs (00:03:25):

Oh, whoops. Is it clear or do you hear me okay?

Lezley (00:03:28):

I hear you fine, yeah. Okay, good. But your partner was clear also. I can definitely hear someone talking, but I dunno what they're saying.

Bogs (00:03:36):

Okay. That's good. As long as you don't know what they're saying because I think they're on another meeting.

Lezley (00:03:42):

Oh, that's awesome. The work from home joys. Right.

Bogs (00:03:48):

Even with the door closed, we can still sort of hear each other, but I think it'll be okay. So I've been thinking a lot about the question that you asked me, such a deep question. Do you want to ask it again for the recording?

Lezley (00:04:05):

Yeah. Well, I mean, my interest is always to include the emotional, spiritual connection and aspect of the good native plants and of the, all the education that you're sharing. And I'm not sure that I'm seeing it as well as I wrote it. I felt very clear when I wrote it. But yeah, I'm very interested in not forgetting about the emotional and spiritual relationship we have with the plants,

Bogs (00:04:39):

Basically. Absolutely. So from what I understood, you were asking what is the meaning of good native plants for a person who's on a spiritual journey, and how can they relate that into their lives?

Lezley (00:04:53):

Yes. I thought

Bogs (00:04:54):

About it a lot and I wrote down some notes. So the first thing I noted is what a lot of people don't realize is if you're on a spiritual journey, you're on a decolonization journey. There's no way to do it without decolonizing, even if you're not even aware. And what a lot of people do, because western colonizer culture doesn't give you any tools to expand your spiritual worldview. So you literally have to go looking for Indigenous worldviews in order to find spirituality. And in most Indigenous worldviews, it's actually a uniting factor in Indigenous worldviews across the globe. Connection to the land is extremely important to a person's spiritual journey. So with the good native plants, it allows people to connect to the land that they live on. So wherever you are in the world, the principles are still the same. If you be promoting biodiversity and creating ecosystems and creating wildlife sanctuaries, and you're actually creating a personal relationship at the same time with the land that you live on, it's also very good for your health. So gardening in general is very good for your mental and physical health. There's a lot of research going around that it's therapeutic. It offers physical exercise, stress relief, but I think gardening with native plants takes it even further and allows you to really connect spiritually with the non-human community that's all around you.

Lezley (00:06:38):

Yes. I love everything that you're saying, by the way. I'm trying not to interrupt and be like, yes, I'm only going to interrupt if I have questions.

Bogs (00:06:52):

At the same time, when you're gardening with native plants, you're revitalizing Indigenous knowledge because our colonial history has sort of marginalized the scientific knowledge that's been accumulating in Indigenous cultures. And it's sort of strange in academia where ecology is seen as an inferior science.

Lezley (00:07:19):

Is it really? I'm like, I'm not in science.

Bogs (00:07:23):

It's so complex and it's so scientific, but it's still, I think the problem is it's very feminized and it's very Indigenous, and those are two things that are really put down by colonizer culture.

Lezley (00:07:38):

Right. Easily dismiss easily des disposable.

Bogs (00:07:42):

Yeah.

Lezley (00:07:43):

Yeah. Fuck that. Okay. Yep.

Bogs (00:07:48):

Interesting. There's sort of these waters where ecology is deemed as a little bit inferior compared to very masculine sciences like physics and chemistry.

Lezley (00:08:00):

Right. And it's interesting to me, sorry, I'm interrupting. Go ahead. But it's interesting to me how they're very mind oriented. Do you know what I mean? They're very intellectualized. Physics and math is very intellectualized, ecology is very earth body, very scientific of course as well, but also has this element of, but just like what you were saying, it's feminized. Somehow the earth is a feminine thing and easily taken advantage of.

Bogs (00:08:36):

Yeah. There's a lot of connections between the feminization of the earth and actually the exploitation of the earth in similar ways that women's bodies are exploited by modern society.

Lezley (00:08:50):

Hundred. I'm giving up on staying out of it. So what is your take? And I don't mean tor you, I want you to come exactly back to where you are. I don't want to miss out on anything, but you've called the earth the mother before. Do you see it as a female?

Bogs (00:09:11):

Absolutely. Yeah. Maybe it's just from the way that I was raised. I was always raised to see the earth as a mother figure. But the more I learn about it, because the more I learn about ecology, the less I actually think of it as a mother. Because a mother to me is someone who is responsible for and for, I feel like when it comes to the earth to the land, it's the opposite way. We're responsible to them. So it's more like, well, maybe it's an aged mother, or sorry, I use the pronoun it, but I should say they them. I'm always catching myself.

Lezley (00:09:54):

Me too. We talked about that before and I'm like, oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. No ITing here. I'm sorry.

Bogs (00:10:03):

Yeah, no, when it comes to the land, it's too dehumanizing.

Lezley (00:10:07):

Yes.

Bogs (00:10:08):

But there's sort of like an aging mother where it's still your mother. There's still a relationship of profound respect, but now you have responsibilities towards them. You have to take care of them.

Lezley (00:10:22):

Right, right. Oh, I like that. I like that. I don't, for me personally, I have difficulty seeing the world in terms of gendered things because it's just so all encompassing, it seems. It's not natural to me to see it like that, to see them. It happens all the time. I'm sorry. Please continue.

Bogs (00:10:50):

Even when I'm writing my own social media posts, I always catch myself writing it. And then I go back at the last minute, and just this morning after I had posted the post about violets, I had to go back and edit it. I realized I wrote it instead of they.

Lezley (00:11:07):

Instead. Instead. Yeah. I mean, good. It's a habit, right? It'll be habit. Would you correct someone if they called? Yeah.

Bogs (00:11:21):

Yeah. It depends on the relationship that I have with them, to be honest. If we're just acquaintances, I'm not going to correct someone and be like, actually, it's they them

Lezley (00:11:32):

Actually. Oh God, it's a meme. Yeah. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. But it does come up. I'll hear it and I'll be like, oh, it is jarring

Bogs (00:11:47):

And it feels like linguistically wrong. And then I have to analyze that feeling of wrongness. Obviously it comes from colonizer culture where language can be wrong.

Lezley (00:12:01):

Yeah. Well, it's a choice made on purpose, and it's a choice made that has beliefs and attitudes and perceptions attached that are very specific. Yeah. Language is really powerful.

Bogs (00:12:16):

And the English language is very much like when you analyze it linguistically. I studied linguistics in CGEP, and when you analyze the English language linguistically, you notice that it's very rigid. It's very goal and object oriented. And the structure is not as flexible as it is in some other languages. In an Indigenous language, like Mi’kmaq, the object of the sentence isn't even conjugated like an object. So instead of conjugating objects and subjects, you conjugate what's animate, what's s alive, what's sold, and you can mix around the word order. It doesn't really matter what order the words are in, because the conjugation is so specific.

Lezley (00:13:11):

Interesting. I just read two days ago that Indigenous languages mostly are verb based, whereas English is, like you said, object based. So Indigenous languages are very active and involved and interactive and relational. Yeah. Anyway, it's interesting. That's really interesting.

Bogs (00:13:41):

And there's parallels in the culture because the Indigenous culture is very relational and active and involved.

Lezley (00:13:48):

Yes. Yeah. It's not necessarily the thing, it's what the thing is doing and how the thing is interacting and relating and impacting others.

Bogs (00:14:07):

That's why it's on my list of things to do to now that I'm graduating university, the next

Lezley (00:14:15):

Congratulations.

Bogs (00:14:16):

Thank you. I just have two classes to pass. I'm hoping for a's, but I will accept bs,

Lezley (00:14:26):

Shoot for a's I believe you. Yeah.

Bogs (00:14:29):

But once I graduate, my plan is to take a Mi’kmaq course in the fall.

Lezley (00:14:35):

Interesting. Good. Yeah.

Bogs (00:14:38):

And also a landscape architecture class. I found one that I can do online.

Lezley (00:14:44):

Excellent. Well, let me know when you're ready, because I'll be the first to hire you to get this done here. I'll do, you'll be

Bogs (00:14:54):

My experiment.

Lezley (00:14:55):

I'll happily be an experiment. It's something I'm very, very, very excited, very soul, heart connected to transforming this, because as I've just veered the conversation completely away from your notes, we can come back to gardening and all that you have to say.

Bogs (00:15:19):

Okay, next in my notes is when you're gardening with native plants, you're actively participating in the restoration of Indigenous wildlife and in Indigenous cultures, our wildlife are parts of our communities. They're considered legal persons within our communities. So to us, relating with wildlife,

Lezley (00:15:43):

It's just so, it's so nurturing, it's so safe, and I love it so much. I'm going to cry because it's just so valuable.

Bogs (00:15:55):

So I've explained this in an academic setting before, and people have annoyed me by asking for citations, which where I'm just like, I cite myself, I spoke to the library about it.

Lezley (00:16:10):

Check your heart, check your heart connection to that. That's my citation.

Bogs (00:16:15):

I spoke to the librarian about it, and she gave me recommendations on how to literally cite myself in my own essays.

Lezley (00:16:23):

Oh, so interesting. Because yes, of course. You're a source of wisdom, right? Yeah. Okay, go on. Tell me more about how do you cite yourself?

Bogs (00:16:37):

Well, normally when you cite a person, you have to provide the link and everything to their article or whatever. But when it comes to traditional Indigenous knowledge, there's no article that's written. It's a verbal knowledge system. So in order to, there's not a lot of tools in the citation system to accommodate the sharing of verbal knowledge. So the librarian just recommended to cite myself and the year that I'm saying the knowledge, and oh

Lezley (00:17:12):

My gosh, that's amazing. So you're almost becoming a part of the recorded, the recorded Indigenous knowledge database that's being created. Is that weird? Is it weird that I said that?

Bogs (00:17:27):

No, it's daunting, but I think it's true. There's so few of us talking about Indigenous traditional knowledge that I think even I am becoming someone who's being documented.

Lezley (00:17:42):

It's amazing. It's so important.

Bogs (00:17:44):

Imposter syndrome.

Lezley (00:17:50):

Okay. What do you do about that?

Bogs (00:17:53):

I just ignore it.

Lezley (00:17:55):

Okay, good, good, good. Because I definitely don't think that there's, I, no one can help you with imposter syndrome, but I'm telling you a hundred percent. I'm here because you've got the goods. Sorry, what happened? I said, you've got the goods and nothing. Did you not receive that?

Bogs (00:18:21):

Oh, sorry. There's a bit of a delay in the audio and video. So I saw your mouth moving and I was trying to listen.

Lezley (00:18:30):

Okay. Okay. Yeah, I definitely think that you have the goods. You definitely have the wisdom and the knowledge, and I'm happy that you're sharing it. Thank you. And it's interesting how the citation system is so based in written, I've seen a lot of creators say that western culture, colonizer culture has this elevation of the written word that is just one of the ways to receive knowledge isn't the whole way, isn't even the best way.

Bogs (00:19:02):

Well, it's really, when you think about it, like most of colonizer culture, it evolved in a time where we didn't have instant forms of communication. And so there were a lot of upper class lonely men who, for one, they weren't allowed to emotionally and intellectually connect with their wives because their wives were inferior to them. So they would write to other lonely intellectual men, and they would discuss science amongst each other through writing. And I think that's why the written knowledge system became so powerful because it was the only way for those men to really connect with others.

Lezley (00:19:43):

Interesting. Oh gosh. I can see so many men being triggered by that, by what you just said, but it makes so much sense. That makes so much sense. Okay. Thanks for indulging these sidetracks. You're just a wealth of knowledge.

Bogs (00:20:04):

I love it. I appreciate Sidetracks, because otherwise things will come up in conversation that we never would've talked about without a side

Lezley (00:20:12):

Check. Yes, exactly.

Bogs (00:20:14):

Exactly. But I was saying, I've included in a few essays and in a few presentations in school, so when it comes to the Indigenous relationship with wildlife, it's not a relationship with an animal. It's a relationship with an allied nation. So we don't just talk about the moose as an animal, that we're hunting an animal, that we're eating an animal that we're arguably, including in our agricultural system, we're talking about our relationship with the Moose Nation, who is a part of the Mack nation, or whichever.

Lezley (00:20:54):

Okay. Yeah, yeah, of course. I like that you're bringing these very, it's spelling it out for me. Thank you.

Bogs (00:21:10):

That's one of those things where I'm unable to find citations for it, and I feel like I just know.

Lezley (00:21:16):

Yeah, yeah, of course. It is part of interesting that it's part of your own nation, family earth.

Bogs (00:21:32):

Family earth. Yeah. I guess there's sort of a divide in human cultures across the world where either your culture teaches you that humans are separate from nature, or your culture teaches you that humans are an interconnected part of nature, and it's the interconnectedness that sort of unifies most Indigenous cultures across the globe,

Lezley (00:22:01):

Right? Yeah. And that's the animus part, right?

Bogs (00:22:05):

Yeah.

Lezley (00:22:06):

Yeah. I also just indulge me for a second. I kind of realized yesterday that there's two different worldviews that you can choose from a spiritual perspective where we're either together, we're all whole together, unified, inseparable together, or we're separate, completely divided and separate and separated from each other. And on the one hand, unified whole is a loving, nurturing, supportive, safe place to be, whereas separate is just awful. You know what I mean? And it's similar to the same way you either are taught that human beings are part of this family earth together, united whole, or you're separate and you have to fight and scrabble and dominate in order to not be consumed by something else. Sorry, that may be simplistic, but

Bogs (00:23:11):

No, I understand. I think the truth is found on the edge of those two dock trains. So I think there's a biological reality, which is that we're a mostly closed system, and we have to maintain our system conditions. So in a sense, we are alone in that. We ourselves need to keep our bodies going, need to get our nutrients, our water maintain homeostasis, as they say in science. But at the same, we're not completely closed off. I mean, we're literally just like a tube with meat around it. So we're always connected to the outside world.

Lezley (00:23:56):

We're a tube with, we're a Taurus. A Taurus, that's what it's called, right? A Taurus,

Bogs (00:24:09):

I'm not sure.

Lezley (00:24:11):

Anyway,

Bogs (00:24:14):

But yeah, the interconnected aspect is where spiritual ascension is really found. So I think even though it's true that we are individuals, you won't find wholesomeness in the individual. You won't find, what's the word when you achieve peak? It's slipping my brain now. It'll come to me later, but later. There's a word for when you achieve above your own basic needs and you start becoming more conscious of the spiritual world.

Lezley (00:25:05):

Enlightened

Bogs (00:25:06):

Enlightenment. Yes. It's through the interconnected aspect of spirituality that you can achieve any form of enlightenment.

Lezley (00:25:15):

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Which is, yeah. Okay. So do you think enlightenment is possible by a monk that sits by himself in a cave, a standard kind of symbol for enlightenment? The hermit off the cave?

Bogs (00:25:35):

Maybe if he's doing a lot of drugs,

Lezley (00:25:41):

Maybe they're,

Bogs (00:25:44):

I've heard of people taking certain drugs and they suddenly recognize the interconnectedness of the world and everything. But before, beyond those stories, I always thought that it was something that could only be learned or achieved through community.

Lezley (00:26:00):

Through community. Yeah. Well, I've always been a little bit skeptical of the hermit or the monk pathway, just because I think it's easier to stay, become enlightened and stay connected to enlightenment in a community that's cloistered. It's really difficult to just be in the world and in the marketplace and remain connected to the reality that we're all connected in a web together. That's really hard to do in the marketplace. Yeah,

Bogs (00:26:43):

I know what you mean. And I think the fact that it's harder sort of makes it more worth it. I almost feel like a person who achieves enlightenment in the middle of the city is almost more enlightened than a monk who sat alone and did it himself.

Lezley (00:27:03):

I agree. I agree. I also think it's more valuable if you're able to share that with all the people that you're going to run into. But yeah, I totally agree with that.

Bogs (00:27:21):

So speaking of sharing that and sharing knowledge, I've been exploring all of my different social media options and marketing options and things like that, and I'm considering starting a meetup group. Nice. Where people could come and we could talk about plants and things, and maybe I'll give a little presentation and then afterwards we'll open it up for discussion.

Lezley (00:27:49):

That's great. Are you going to do that in real life or in online?

Bogs (00:27:53):

Online. Oh, great. Yeah. I think online is best since I could reach more people.

Lezley (00:27:59):

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, I want to come, if I can,

Bogs (00:28:04):

I'll come. I'm going to do some research first. I'm going to attend a bunch of different other meetups, and I think there's a space for what I offer, because when I searched through Meetup, I didn't find much about plants. When I searched with plants as a keyword, I found a lot of people interested in hallucinatory drugs.

Lezley (00:28:28):

Everyone wants that quick setup to enlightenment, whereas

Bogs (00:28:35):

Let's go the slow and steady way. And I think there is a lot of enlightenment to be found in something as simple as gardening, especially with native plants, because there's, I've said this in my videos before, but plants can be used as a metaphor for humans and human societies. So for your tell about

Lezley (00:28:59):

That, I dunno.

Bogs (00:29:02):

The way that plant communities grow in the wild, in nature is comparable to the way that a human community runs itself. So there's the ecosystem engineers who create the lived environment, and those are the plants. Plants. The plants themselves are comparable to governments, creating places for people to live, creating opportunities. And then underneath the soil, that's like a whole city ecosystem of individual organisms that are coming together, attracted by the resources provided by the engineers, the plants.

Lezley (00:29:44):

Interesting.

Bogs (00:29:46):

And that continues outward above ground where you have more than one type of plant. And because there's more than one type of plant, they're able to specialize in different areas and offer different resources for their communities. And then there are organisms that are able to travel between different engineers in order to get different resources. So it's like a big metaphor for a very large, well organized country.

Lezley (00:30:22):

Interesting. And I'm also not surprised. Nature seems very efficient. So this is putting you on the spot. If you had to think of one way that we could learn from plants and have better societies, what would be your suggestion?

Bogs (00:30:51):

I think one thing that we could learn from plants, which in the past 50 years or so, we've started to learn independently of plants. Maybe it would've gone faster. We just studied ecology. But in the plant world, diversity is power. Diversity is resilience. Diversity is, it's protective against everything that could damage the ecosystem. One of the main flaws of colonizer society is it tries to teach every man to be exactly the same kind of person.

Bogs (00:31:30):

And there's just in an ecosystem, there's just not room for the same thing over and over and over again. There needs to be diversity in the jobs that people do, diversity in the roles that they play in society, diversity in the way people think. And we're very blessed in that we're naturally diverse. So even if there we're talking like a thousand years ago where everyone was Indigenous and everyone had the same culture, the same beliefs, the same language, say in a certain tribe, there's intellectual diversity that will occur spontaneously. Not everyone wants to be a hunter. Not everyone wants to be a berry picker. Not everyone wants to be a bow maker or a toolmaker or a storyteller. So we by design, sort of delegate the labor of society across all of our different people in the same way that the different ecosystem functions delegated across different types of plants,

Lezley (00:32:43):

And it's based on their who they are. Do you know what I mean? And how they're best suited to be in the world. That's what they do.

Bogs (00:32:57):

And I feel like everyone is truly different in who they're and how they relate to the world and what value they can bring. And that's so beautiful.

Lezley (00:33:07):

So beautiful. I mean, that part of Indigenous culture, from what I understand, Indigenous culture, it's a monolith. I apologize for that, but is that idea that each individual person is born and created exactly as they are and have purpose. And the community's role is to help support them and raise them in that purpose, the best that they can. Do. You know what I mean? To fulfill their reason for being here. Yes, please. That's great.

Bogs (00:33:49):

I wish that's what we had. I wish we had a school system that reflected that.

Lezley (00:33:54):

Yes, 100% how wonderful it would be, and how much more could be given to society, period, if everyone's allowed to flourish in their own individual way instead of having human monoculture.

Bogs (00:34:12):

Exactly. Especially, I am not sure about other cultures, but in MikMak culture, it's sort of known that who you are as a person starts to become apparent when you're as young as eight to 10 years old. And so traditionally, that's the age you are when you start apprenticing in the field that you're going to work in for the rest of your life.

Lezley (00:34:33):

Interesting. Now, is that decided by elders, by people outside you? Is that decided in combination with the child, or how does that work?

Bogs (00:34:47):

It's sort of in combination. So the people who are close to the child, usually the mother, the teachers, the grandparents, their job is to pay close attention and to really listen to what the child talks about, what the child is interested in, what sort of learning goes quickly for them. And then they sort of make those recommendations gently towards the child. And eventually it just becomes known that that's who they are. That is a child of the forest, that is a plant expert, that is a hunter, that is an artist.

Lezley (00:35:31):

It feels so natural and beautiful. And I mean a lot of assumptions about it too. I have assumptions that a parent and a grandparent and a teacher, whatever, wouldn't be triggered by a child to repress their natural expression of self. I assume that that doesn't happen.

Bogs (00:35:55):

I can't say that it never happened, but it's not supposed to happen. So in the knowledge system, children are seen as the peak of what society is meant to be. They're more connected to the natural world than adults are just intuitively. So it's almost like a sin. If sins were a concept in this worldview to repress a child from their natural calling,

Lezley (00:36:27):

Which is true, really? It is a terrible, terrible shame. It's a terrible thing to do.

Bogs (00:36:38):

For example, when I was a child, I was obsessed with animals and wildlife, just absolutely obsessed. I would spend hours walking in the woods all alone, which I probably shouldn't have. I would gather fiddleheads and apples, and I would spend hours as well watching the Discovery Channel back when the Discovery channel was good,

Lezley (00:37:04):

When it was actually about learning.

Bogs (00:37:07):

And there were tons of animal shows. I would sit there and watch David Attenborough was like my king. I would sit there watching like, yes, tell me about wolves.

Lezley (00:37:18):

Nice. Yeah.

Bogs (00:37:21):

And I remember as a child, I would get frustrated when people didn't see that aspect in me. So sometimes I was also very artistic and I would draw a lot. But the key is I would obsessively draw plants and animals and people drawing. Adults would see me drawing, and they would assume that I'm very artsy, that I'm an artist, that I should be an artist. And they would always tell me that I should be an artist. And even as young as eight years old, I felt frustrated with that. I felt like, no, that's not me. I don't want to be an artist. I want to run around in the woods all day.

Lezley (00:38:02):

Right. And the artist was, the art part was just another way for you to engage with that obsession. That's really interesting.

Bogs (00:38:16):

Yeah. So I felt like a lot of adults around me were misunderstanding or misreading my purpose in the world.

Lezley (00:38:24):

Yeah, I totally understand that. I totally get that. I had the same experience about art.

Bogs (00:38:34):

Oh, yeah.

Lezley (00:38:35):

Yeah. It took me a long time to realize what I was obsessed about. It was very difficult to figure that out as a child, because there was nothing in the world to help me to understand that. What I liked to learn about was how spirit expressed in the world of form. That's fucking not, what does a kid do about that? And then you can't talk about what you hear and what you learn through communication with the world, because then your mom's scared and also think you have to go to the doctor. But drawing was a way for me to engage with that. And so it was also like you and I never put that together about how the art didn't quite fit. It was a branch, but it wasn't the root.

Bogs (00:39:40):

People are observing the symptom of your passion. Yes,

Lezley (00:39:45):

But not the actual, not what it was. And in fairness, how are they able to do? My parents were not equipped to relate to me. What I mean, they weren't equipped. In fairness, colonizer society, Western society was not built for that. I mean, worse would it been if they identified it and sent me to be a nun or something like that. Do you know what I mean? That would've been even worse. Yeah, that

Bogs (00:40:16):

Would've been worse.

Lezley (00:40:18):

Yeah.

Bogs (00:40:20):

I considered being a nun actually when I was a teenager.

Lezley (00:40:23):

Did you really?

Bogs (00:40:25):

Okay,

Lezley (00:40:26):

I need to know why and what happened. And I mean, I'm fascinated because symptom,

Bogs (00:40:38):

So I had a teacher who just casually mentioned that you can be an artist or you can write books or whatever, no matter what walk of life you take. And as an example, she threw out, you could be a nun who writes books about nature, and I was like, awesome.

Lezley (00:40:59):

Oh, no.

Bogs (00:41:03):

And then I didn't seriously, I never joined a church or anything, which I would've had to, but I would tell people, I want to be a nun who fishes on the weekends and does all kinds of cool things for a nun.

Lezley (00:41:23):

But was it the rights about nature, was that the draw? Was that the hook?

Bogs (00:41:28):

I think the hook was the spirituality about it. I was attracted to the idea of being a person who's spiritually attuned, and at the time, the only examples that, well, I had Indigenous examples, but I didn't know they were spirituality. I didn't know the difference between Indigenous culture and Indigenous spirituality.

Lezley (00:41:50):

Is there a difference?

Bogs (00:41:53):

They're so interconnected. There barely is.

Lezley (00:41:57):

Yeah. But I

Bogs (00:41:59):

Wanted to be a person who was spiritually attuned, who people came to for advice, who talked to people about spirituality. And so at the time, I thought maybe a nun. Right? I would've preferred to be a priest, but that's not allowed.

Lezley (00:42:18):

Oh, shit. Oh, so much is unpacking in that, right?

Bogs (00:42:22):

Yeah.

Lezley (00:42:25):

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I'm so interested by how spiritually in tune you are connected you are, and how have you been able to not include that in your whole education sharing so far?

Bogs (00:42:51):

That's a lot of purposeful work, really. I didn't want to include spirituality in my educational work because I don't want to scare people off. I know there are people who are into that, and I have a lot of followers who are witches and spiritual people, and I know they would appreciate the more spiritual content, but I also, I want to be receptive to as broad and as uneducated and audience as possible.

Lezley (00:43:24):

It's interesting. It's interesting. Okay. And I'm saying this just because being a mirror for me about kind of stuff that I've been thinking about this past day or two about sharing, and I've come to the opposite conclusion of you where I realize I have to go all in and share the full breadth with nothing held back of the spiritual perception that I have. I love

Bogs (00:44:00):

That.

Lezley (00:44:04):

Why do you love it?

Bogs (00:44:07):

Well, for one, I think it's brave because there's a lot of disrespect in this world for spiritual people and spirituality in general, and it's also colonizer bullshit, and it's also, it's so needed. There's a

Lezley (00:44:26):

Hole

Bogs (00:44:28):

Where spirituality is supposed to go, that colonizer culture just doesn't teach people. So I think there's a place for someone who is all in on the spiritual train.

Lezley (00:44:41):

I have such an emotional reaction to you saying that because yeah, that's kind of what I understand is I have been waiting for most of my life for consensus in order to share this checking and waiting and seeing is this acceptable? Is this permissible? And I just suddenly realized that until I share, there can be no consensus making. It has to be shared, and it has to be out there for people to interact with, for us to have consensus and build this spiritual life together. I can't wait for it to be safe. I can't wait for it to be there and be approved. So yeah, it's interesting. Thanks for your feedback on that. I appreciate it.

Bogs (00:45:32):

No problem. I think it's coming. I think we'll have a point where the CO of CIBC bank will be a deeply spiritual person and open about it, and it's probably within 50 years. I think it's coming.

Lezley (00:45:52):

Yeah. I think we die if we don't, to be honest. Oh, yeah. I think that's the path choice, the seventh fire messenger path. It's either we connect to this world with our heart and our spirit or we die. To me, that's the choice. I mean, I know it's simplistic.

Bogs (00:46:19):

I think the reality is there are a lot of people who will die without ever achieving any kind of spiritual enlightenment, and it's a byproduct of the culture that they live in where it's not promoted, it's not taught in school. There's no prize for a person who achieves enlightenment, and it tends to be depressive. The journey itself can cause people to take their own lives, for example. So it's not for everyone at the moment, but I think we're getting closer and closer to a world where it is for everyone.

Lezley (00:47:02):

Yeah. I mean, if you have the support, all it takes literally is a couple people who understand what you're going through. That's all that's required. I don't know who would take their lives over enlightenment. That seems like so terrible, and what a waste and what a sadness, but I also know

Bogs (00:47:26):

What I think it can be very difficult because when you're enlightened, you see the world for what it's, and you see what's wrong with it, and you also have to reconcile with the fact that you as an individual probably can't do anything to change it.

Lezley (00:47:41):

It's true. Okay. I get that point. That's awful.

Bogs (00:47:46):

Yeah.

Lezley (00:47:48):

Thank you for reminding me of that part, and I just have to say, what brings me back from the brink of depression for that is that there's more going on here than we see from my own experience. There's much more powerful things happening than just what you and I can create alone. Yeah. I mean, I have faith in that.

Bogs (00:48:39):

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of traction. Even in the plant native planting, native gardening sphere, it's starting to blow up. A lot of people are starting to realize that the old way of gardening is out, and the new way is creating wildlife sanctuaries and fostering biodiversity in your yard. And one of my cousins who's like a son to me, he was telling me just today, he was like, wow, this native plant thing is really taking off. How did you know about it so many years ago? That's cool. Yeah. I just felt for the past couple of years, I've felt a little ahead of my time, but it's like ever since Covid, it's feeling like people are aligning with me faster and faster.

Lezley (00:49:41):

That's great. Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you're sharing because it's making the call out for those that are looking for the information makes you available for those who find you and who need what you have to offer, who need what.

Bogs (00:49:58):

I'm really hoping to one day be someone who can actually design people's gardens. I've seen a few people who are working in that sphere and they charge maybe like $75 for a garden design that the person then diy. I thought that's a great affordable option for someone who just wants an idea of how to design their garden.

Lezley (00:50:22):

Yeah. Oh my gosh. No. Please don't hope you do that. That's what I need. I need that. We've talked about that. It's so overwhelming to try and do it yourself. It's so overwhelming. I need someone to help me with that. I need to hire someone. Please, please, please.

Bogs (00:50:48):

I think a lot of people are in that situation, which is good for me since I'm taking the steps to get into a position where I can take advantage of that market. Take advantage. Sounds bad, but I'm sure

Lezley (00:51:04):

I knew. No, but I totally resonate with your reaction to that. Take advantage of the market is awful. It has such a terrible,

Bogs (00:51:15):

It gives me the,

Lezley (00:51:16):

It's ick. Oh my God. Yeah. How about I can align with the needs of that market?

Bogs (00:51:23):

Absolutely. I like that a lot better.

Lezley (00:51:26):

Me too. Oh gosh. Because I hated that. I hate that phrase. It's so awful.

Bogs (00:51:36):

Now I'm sort of in a phase right now where I'm just figuring out how to be CEO, how to, I just did my taxes for the first time, so good. Native is a year old.

Lezley (00:51:51):

Is it really good for you? Congratulations.

Bogs (00:51:54):

Thank you. I submitted my zero revenue taxes and it was super

Lezley (00:52:00):

Stressful. Zero revenue is okay to start.

Bogs (00:52:05):

Yeah. Zero revenue means zero taxes.

Lezley (00:52:09):

Yeah, it's true. Good for me. It's true.

Bogs (00:52:11):

And I'm going to look into perhaps getting registered as a charity for the future, because right now I'm a nonprofit corporation. The only thing that scares me a little bit about being a charity instead is charities are legally obligated to spend a certain amount of money on their charity, and I don't quite know what that means. My envisionment of what to do with any money that I get from the company is to reinvest it in hiring more people and spreading native plants even further. So as people hire me, as I get donations, I'll be able to bring on new people, train them, and then have mini mes, sort of salespeople. I have big dreams of having a remote call center just filled with people who are passionate about wildlife, who are talking to people and trying to convince them to plant native and generating leads and selling them seeds.

Lezley (00:53:21):

Interesting. You could have a hotline for people who want to call because their city municipality or whatever has vast areas of grass that they want to convert. This is me in my own city. I'm like, I want to call on this stupid green area that needs to be converted to Meadows. And

Bogs (00:53:45):

Yes, I want to appeal to Gorilla Gardeners too. I don't want to condone illegal activity, but if you want the right seeds to Gorilla Garden with, I definitely want to help.

Lezley (00:54:00):

Oh my gosh. You could offer a packet that could we buy seeds from you

Bogs (00:54:06):

Right now, I don't have seeds myself. I'm more of a seed shopper, so if you hire me, I go out and I pick out the seeds and I buy them from the supplier and I ship them to,

Lezley (00:54:21):

Okay. It would be neat, just spitballing to be able to buy gorilla packets from you for seat bumps, and then we could just go for a walk and then check them into the parks.

Bogs (00:54:41):

I follow this guy on TikTok who keeps seeds in a salt shaker, and he just walks and he salt shakes the ground.

Lezley (00:54:50):

I love that. That's great. Super. I have a question about your business. If it's okay, if I could ask, you've set it up as a nonprofit and maybe as a charity. Are you able to live from this, or is this kind of a side thing that you want to do? I ask that because I have concern about people in your position maybe not being able to support yourself in this work. No,

Bogs (00:55:30):

It's a fair question. At the moment, I can't support myself. I have a part-time job that I live off of, but my goal is I did the math and I need to have eight one hour bookings per week in order to pay myself the same salary that I make at my current part-time job.

Lezley (00:55:57):

So

Bogs (00:55:58):

If I reach a point where I have those eight clients, then I'm going to officially add myself to payroll and I'll start using the money that I get from bookings in order to actually pay myself, and then I will immediately quit my job and put more hours into it. But for now, it's a passion project

Lezley (00:56:21):

And most of them start as passion projects from the spiritual avenue. There's a lot of discomfort, I guess, about being paid for spiritual work, and I mean, I don't think there's never a payment that will ever pay for spiritual work, but bills are real. You know what I mean? You have bills. I mean, what you're doing is very, it has a very deep spiritual aspect to it, but it's also very material. Like you're doing a very material thing that obviously has cost to it, and your education has cost to it that you need to be reimbursed for and compensated for.

Bogs (00:57:16):

Yeah. So it is my dream to pay myself and then after myself, I want to hire my cousin. I want to hire a gaggle of my cousins right now, one of them, he's not interested, but I know I can convince him once I have money coming in, come be my personal assistant, come be my social media marketing person. I want to at the same time use it as an opportunity to bring the members of my clan out of poverty.

Lezley (00:57:55):

Yeah, that's a great opportunity. I think it's such a valuable offer as well. It's so valuable.

Bogs (00:58:08):

And then next after that, I want to target Indigenous students, so I want to find more Indigenous youths who are interested in protecting the environment and then bring them on as seed salesman, for example, in other positions like that.

Lezley (00:58:27):

Interesting. Seed salesman. How much is the seed choice dependent on having a proper soil sample tested?

Bogs (00:58:51):

I think the soil test is helpful, but it's not as important as people think.

Lezley (00:58:58):

Okay, good. Okay, good.

Bogs (00:59:00):

There's a lot of plants that I can pick that are good in a wide range of soils. So if I didn't know the soil type at all, there's still a lot of recommendations that I could make, and I would even recommend planting some things that are only good in specific soils to test. So there's a few plants. Hope it

Lezley (00:59:23):

Doesn't do well, then. Yeah,

Bogs (00:59:24):

Exactly. If

Lezley (00:59:25):

It doesn't

Bogs (00:59:25):

Grow, we know, or if it does grow, we know.

Lezley (00:59:31):

It's part of the reason why I'm hesitant to do anything on my own is because I just don't want to harm. Hey plant. Oh, I really fucked that up. Now I'm just, I'd like to avoid that. Get an expert to tell me what,

Bogs (00:59:51):

The more I've learned about gardening, the less worried I get about killing plants. When I first started a few years ago, it was like, oh, every cutting I'm going to propagate. And then the more, at first, I would feel really bad if a plant died, but the more I got used to it, the more I just like, okay, trial and error. Some of it will do good, some of it won't, and it's sort of the exact same way in nature where not all plants are going to survive.

Lezley (01:00:22):

Yeah, it's true. I still have the sads, it doesn't matter. It's been years and years. I still have the sads. I'm terrible at certain things like thinning seedlings. How come I have to choose, find it out amongst yourselves. You decide who's going to win and who isn't, but it doesn't work out that way. You just grow a big clump.

Bogs (01:00:50):

Well, if you have a community network, you can thin out your seedlings and then give them out to people.

Lezley (01:00:57):

It's true. I do a little bit of that. A lot of people are, I don't have a lot. I don't know a lot of people who garden or who need my seedlings. They're like, I'm good. I have a lot. So how are we doing on your notes? Do you got more?

Bogs (01:01:19):

I went through everything.

Lezley (01:01:20):

Excellent, excellent. Okay. I always find it a little bit with you. I don't know what to ask until you, you're talking, and then I have a whole bunch of ideas and things that I want to talk about because I want to know what, I'm so happy that you're going to do a meetup because I think that would be so great to have you on a platform to share.

Bogs (01:01:56):

Share, yeah, share. I was also thinking of creating a course that people can pay for where it's Indigenous gardening 1 0 1 or something like that. Hell, and then people could sign up for the course, and then I just got to figure out the technological aspect of it, which is daunting for me.

Lezley (01:02:18):

But

Bogs (01:02:19):

Yeah, I'm not a tech savvy person. Put me in the woods and I can probably find my way out, but give me a website and tell me to improve it, and I'm like,

Lezley (01:02:33):

I'm not an expert by any means, but I have a lot of years of experience with websites and stuff, so if you ever have questions, please reach out to me. I'm happy to give you whatever help I can with that. Thank

Bogs (01:02:49):

You.

Lezley (01:02:50):

Yeah, no problem. What is stopping you about having an online class? Because that would be great. It would be great for everyone, but also great for you to be able to put the work in and then have it there generating revenue for you without having to do anything else.

Bogs (01:03:19):

Yeah. I thought it would be super sweet to just have a recorded coursework and then people can buy it, and then I don't have to schedule meetings and really automating the revenue. The only thing stopping me right now is I'm so busy with my course load at McGill that I don't have time to really make it.

Lezley (01:03:40):

Oh, yeah, yeah. Your whole school, your whole full-time education,

Bogs (01:03:48):

But as soon as I graduate, I'll have more time. And I have a special deal at my work where they gave me a part-time schedule. I went to them and I told them I wanted to go back to school, and my manager was like, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to make a one-time exception to turn your role into a part-time position. You're going to be the only one who has this deal, and we're just going to keep you on. Thank you.

Lezley (01:04:17):

Lucky. That's great. Yeah. Wow. They're keepers.

Bogs (01:04:22):

Yeah, they're really great. And I think one of the reasons they did it is they have this really old computer system, and I'm one of the last people who knows how to use it.

Lezley (01:04:35):

That's funny.

Bogs (01:04:37):

Yeah, it's funny. I guess they don't want to lose me yet.

Lezley (01:04:46):

No. Okay. So I want you to share with the people what you have to offer right now and where they can find you and who it's for.

Bogs (01:05:03):

Okay. So right now, my minimum viable product is just my consulting services. So I'm offering consulting services on seeds so I can advise people on, we'll interview with them, talk about their land a little bit, and then advise them on what seeds to put where. And then I can also go out and purchase those seeds for them, and I can also act as sort of a contractor and reach out to landscapers and help negotiate a deal with a landscaper to have someone come in and do it for you.

Lezley (01:05:44):

Okay. Interesting. So if someone who, oh, sorry.

Bogs (01:05:49):

This is really for someone who, oh, go ahead.

Lezley (01:05:52):

No, go ahead. You go. You go.

Bogs (01:05:56):

I was saying this is really for someone who wants to start planting with native plants, but doesn't have any knowledge on ecology. So I really want to bridge that gap between the average landowner and Indigenous plant knowledge holder.

Lezley (01:06:13):

Yeah. No, I think it's really valuable, especially if you, from my own point of view, I'd like to know what the land that I have can become for ecologically, what I can be offering for the web of life, so to speak. I mean, that's a big draw to know that in this piece of land I can be helping these creatures and being part of this cycle and this food web was great. I love your verbiage on your social media. To me, it's very spiritual and emotive. I have a very perfect emotional connection to it.

Bogs (01:07:07):

Good. That's my plan. My plan is to trigger emotions about these plants.

Lezley (01:07:14):

Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. If someone wants to learn about the seeds, do they have to provide you pictures of their yard or what's involved in having a consult with you about seed?

Bogs (01:07:32):

Well, pictures of the yard are helpful. We would talk about things like, what's the soil type? If I can help you go do an at home soil test if you're interested in doing that. I would also want to know what are the light conditions? What are the shade? What do you have that's casting shade, for example? What direction is your house facing? Do you have any trees in your yard, any big fences, things like that. And I also want to know things like, do you have small children or pets? Because there's certain plants that are sharp, and I wouldn't want to plant them in an area where a dog is going to be running, for example, or where a child might get scratched.

Lezley (01:08:17):

Right. Okay.

Bogs (01:08:23):

The most important thing for me to know is the province of residents, because there's some plants that I work with that are only native to Southern Quebec and Ontario, for example, and not New Brunswick and yeah. Right.

Lezley (01:08:38):

We're not trying to cause more harm. And I'm sorry, I keep asking you this. Everything that you're telling me sounds so close to actually doing the

Bogs (01:08:54):

Designing right

Lezley (01:08:55):

Design. I'm just confused about what more do you need to, I know that you don't feel comfortable yet, and that's fair, and I accept that fully, but I'm like, okay, I could talk to you about what I've got and how it looks and where the shade is, and you can tell me what to plant and where to plant it. I'm sorry. How is this not designed?

Bogs (01:09:21):

It's true. The only thing is I don't have any experience in design yet. So if someone did want me to design their yard, they would be taking a risk. I do have artistic skills, so I probably am able to draw up a garden design, but I don't want a client to be my first, my mom has a front yard. I would rather she be my first than someone who is paying me.

Lezley (01:09:57):

Okay, okay. No, hundred percent. I want you to design both my front and my backyard. I've wanted this for years and have no idea how to do it or where to go or anything. Yes, please. Yes, please. 100%. Okay.

Bogs (01:10:18):

Alright. Well, we could work out a plan. I would need to figure out the direction that the house is facing, where the sun's rising, maybe get an aerial view from Google satellite, if you can get one of those.

Lezley (01:10:32):

Okay. Yeah. If you give me a list of what you need from me, I will send that to you. If you want to tell me how much you want to get paid, then I'll send you that and whatever you need from me, this is, I am so fucking happy. I'm fucking super excited about this. What I do want to make clear though, is expectations about the amount of work that I can do at a time on my yard. We're renovating the house right now. I have this side hustle too, so I fit the gardening in where I can, which is why this would be an ongoing process for me.

Bogs (01:11:16):

Okay. Well, yeah. When someone is DIYing their garden, I recommend that they do it in manageable chunks and take as many years as you need.

Lezley (01:11:28):

So

Bogs (01:11:31):

Maybe in the first year, just focus on the front part of the yard and creating maybe a medicine garden or something that you'll use often. And then the second year you can expand it and start incorporating more plants and then set up maybe some sort of plan to have your full front and backyard done in maybe five or six years. And slowly build yourself up to that point

Lezley (01:12:01):

That feels so reasonable and doable. I love all of this. Okay. I'm excited. I'm serious. Let me know what you need and what is required to get this rolling because I am down when you're like, oh, well I'm going to take a class in fall. I'm like, alright, I can wait now

Bogs (01:12:23):

Then. Okay. Well, the best time to plant is in the fall, actually. So we would have all of the summer to prepare. Okay, good. Whether we find seeds or live plants is up to you. Live plants would be a bit more expensive, but you would have faster results. They also should be planted in the fall.

Lezley (01:12:47):

Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm not sure. I'll have to see how I feel about that. I like live plants. They're easier to manage. I know what's happening, but I like seeds too, man. There's nothing more exciting than when a seed sprouts, I swear to God,

Bogs (01:13:11):

I find it so magical, magical about native plants because you plant them in the fall and then you wait months. You wait through the whole winter and you're out looking at your yard. Are they going to sprout? What's going to happen? And then in the springtime they poke their little heads up. Its so magical.

Lezley (01:13:28):

It's magical. It's magical. What scares me though is me not being able to necessarily identify what I have planted and want to grow and what is decided to come along and grow. Anyway,

Bogs (01:13:43):

Volunteers.

Lezley (01:13:46):

Volunteers, yes.

Bogs (01:13:50):

There's an application that I recommend, it's called Picture This, and it's a bit annoying because they always ask you to pay for it, but you can use the service for free and you just click out of their ads, like close the ads when they pop up

Lezley (01:14:06):

Really.

Bogs (01:14:07):

And some unofficial studies been done about it and picture this is one of the most accurate apps for native plants.

Lezley (01:14:17):

Interesting. Okay, thanks. That's golden.

Bogs (01:14:23):

So you can actually use that to go around your yard and see what's already native and let know. And we might want to save space for the native plants that are already there. So I think the first step would be to set up an interview where we really talk about where you are, what your land is like, what you're looking for from your garden and things like that. I would say maybe it would be 30 minutes to an hour long and when you come to the meeting, you could come to me with an idea of what your budget is and things like that. Whether or not you want to do the work yourself or whether or not you want to contract a landscaper.

Lezley (01:15:09):

I'm definitely doing the work myself.

Bogs (01:15:11):

Okay, that's good. It gets your hands dirty.

Lezley (01:15:15):

Oh yeah. Everything that gets planted here has to be with my own hands. It's how we make relationships together.

Bogs (01:15:26):

Yes. Are you interested in also having a food garden at the same time or just native plants?

Lezley (01:15:35):

Well, I grow food on my deck in pots right now, so I am not against food being involved.

Bogs (01:15:46):

Okay.

Lezley (01:15:47):

To be honest, I don't know what I want to have. You know what, that's not true. What I want to have is a garden that will take very little effort from me once it becomes established, so that I can go and I can hang out with them and visit with them, but not have to do a lot of work with them. I want to enjoy them and watch them grow and come in. Perennials only perennials, annuals or Yeah, once I put them in, I don't want a whole bunch of ongoing work

Bogs (01:16:32):

Fair. Yeah. So one thing that's pretty cool is if you have an established system of perennials, you can actually chaos seed a few edible annuals like cabbage and things like that. And you could just plant them among your perennials and then harvest them at the end of the growing season. And because the system is so biodiverse, it tends to eliminate pest problems.

Lezley (01:16:59):

This is great. These are things that from my own experience, gardening I have no idea about because I grew up in gardening in, my mom was a farmer. Her family was farmers, monoculture farmers. So you can imagine what the garden looked like. It was not a diverse garden. So yeah, I'm happy to do all the things. That's a stupid thing to say. How does that,

Bogs (01:17:32):

All of the things.

Lezley (01:17:33):

All the things. Thanks Leslie. Thanks

Bogs (01:17:37):

For

Lezley (01:17:37):

Participating.

Bogs (01:17:38):

Do you have a homeowners association that might cause

Lezley (01:17:41):

Problems? Nope.

Bogs (01:17:43):

Thank goodness.

Lezley (01:17:44):

Yep. Nope. I can go full on meadow. Amazing. My neighbors have tolerated the ridiculous situation that's been right now because I don't know what to do. So I'm very meh. I hate the grass. So it's pretty raw right now.

Bogs (01:18:06):

Yeah. Me, I'm always sort of arguing with this about my mother because she's so scared of the local neighborhood association that she mows the grass and I'm always like, don't mow the grass. It's better for the pollinators. Look at all these native plants that we have that I didn't even plant. They were just there. acis and St. John's wart.

Lezley (01:18:29):

Yeah. I think no one really complains as long as it looks nice. Do you know what I mean? And there's a lot of things that can look nice in lots of different ways. Yeah.

Bogs (01:18:44):

There's also variation in how much a native plant garden looks like a garden. So you could make it look like a meadow with pathways

Lezley (01:18:55):

Or

Bogs (01:18:55):

You could make it look like a garden with swaths of the same species of plant in little ornamental patches, which I think is very beautiful.

Lezley (01:19:06):

Yes.

Bogs (01:19:07):

I dunno. And I've been reading some research and that's actually very good for the pollinators to have little swaths.

Lezley (01:19:14):

Oh, okay, but the swaths, yeah. Okay. I like swaths. I think my husband would not be down with the whole meadow just because if it looked pretty, he'd like it though. I like the swats and I like the idea of being able to walk around and do you know what I mean?

Bogs (01:19:37):

Create a pathway

Lezley (01:19:39):

And create a pathway so I can go and visit with them and spend time in there with them. And it's not just a meadow that I observe from the outside.

Bogs (01:19:47):

Right. Okay. Yeah, no worries. But yeah, so at that meeting we'll talk about what your land is like and what you want from your garden, and then at the end I'll give you a quote.

Lezley (01:19:59):

Okay. Sounds good. This is exciting. Thanks. Thanks again.

Bogs (01:20:04):

It was good seeing you. Very good conversation.

Lezley (01:20:07):

Even better than last time. It was really good. I really enjoy talking to you.

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