The Way of a Gardener
A LIFE’S JOURNEY
Des Kennedy
Copyright © 2010 by Des Kennedy
10 11 12 13 14 5 4 3 2 1
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Greystone Books
An imprint of D&M Publishers Inc.
2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201
Vancouver BC Canada V5T 4S7
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Kennedy, Des The way of a gardener : a life’s journey / Des Kennedy. ISBN 978-1-55365-417-9 1. Kennedy, Des. 2. Gardeners—British Columbia—Denman Island (Island)— Biography. 3. Authors, Canadian (English)—20th century—Biography. 4. Environmentalists—Canada—Biography. 5. Sustainable living. I. Title.
SB63.K45A3 2010 635.092 C2009-906846-X
Editing by Susan Folkins
Cover and text design by Heather Pringle
Cover photograph by Allan Mandell
Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens
Printed on acid-free, FSC-certified paper that is forest friendly
(100% post-consumer recycled paper) and has been processed chlorine free
Distributed in the U.S. by Publishers Group West
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support
of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council,
the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit,
and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing
Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.
ALSO BY DES KENNEDY
FICTION
The Garden Club Flame of Separation Climbing Patrick’s Mountain
NON-FICTION
Living Things We Love to Hate Crazy about Gardening An Ecology of Enchantment The Passionate Gardener
For my brothers, Ger, Brendan, and Vincent And most especially for Sandy
CONTENTS
five THE TAKING OF VOWS
six EXILE
seven THE WEST
eight REVELATIONS
nine HOMESTEADING
ten HOUSE BUILDING
eleven THE FATE OF THE EARTH
twelve DREAM GARDENS
thirteen WORDS
fourteen GROWING YOUR OWN
fifteen SILENCE AND SOUNDS
sixteen DWELLING PLACE OF THE GODS
seventeen REDEMPTION
acknowledgments
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
I would not change it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
IAWAKEN TO A RESTLESS, MOVING darkness. A high wind is soughing through big conifer trees all around me. The roar is like that of ocean combers heard from a distance or the rumble of a slow-moving freight train. It is a wind from the southeast rummaging through the tree canopy. Slender culms of black bamboo rattle fretfully against the screening of the little summerhouse where my partner and I are lying. We sleep out here for as much of the year as weather allows, exposed to the movements and sounds of the night. Earlier I was awakened by the extravagant hooting of barred owls calling to one another through the woods. Raucous, haunting, antiphonal cries, back and forth, they’re as cryptic by night as the calls of ravens are by day. The oracular chorus completed, the soundscape is reclaimed by the rising
