By: Frank Zanaboni, ASLA

Earth Day has come and gone again. Did you do anything special or different for ED? I didn’t do as much as I’d have liked to , but I DID get my hands dirty. I actually touched the Earth. I pulled weeds. But on reflection, was weed removal the best thing to do on this special day when we are supposed to celebrate the beauty and power and fragility of our home the Earth? Buckminster Fuller coined the term “Spaceship Earth” years ago to remind us were we really live. We are but a floating spec in the universal scheme of things. He even wrote an Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth to do give us insights as to what we should be doing to take care for our “home” and to guide us to a sustainable future.

One of the key components of sustainability is diversity – biotic diversity. And, now that I reflect on it, “weeds” are a big part of our planet’s diversity. There should be no such thing as a “weed” since all plant life is important to the cycle of life and the cycle of sustainability on our planet. We need weeds and we eventually will see the value in all weeds. So, removing weeds probably was not the best project for Earth Day. I’ll make up for it this weekend - I’m planting flowers for my wife’s birthday – you can never have too many flowers blooming. I’m also planting a vegetable garden. I plant one every year. Some years I seem to grow more weeds than vegetables but there always seems to be a surplus of tomatoes – what do you call too many tomatoes? Tomato sauce...