Honoured to be included and quoted in this great article by Chad Hammond in Briarpatch magazine’s SaskDispatch.
Globe and Mail, May 15, 2021
The Globe and Mail chose Lorraine’s book 100 Easy-t0-Grow Native Plants for Canadian Gardens as one of three gardening books to recommend for the summer gardening season. A bonus was being in the company of her friend Lyndon Penner, whose new book is about gardening and walking the Camino.
Joining a panel to explore how Toronto’s many green policies and strategies are actually enacted “on the ground,” Lorraine pointed to the inadequacies of the city’s green infrastructure and the potential for achieving a “greener” city with thriving ecological health and ongoing regenerative processes based on social justice and equity.
Nature journal, “Nature Briefing,” April 21, 2021
The international science journal Nature, in their daily “Nature Briefing,” chose a quote from Lorraine and Sheila Colla’s article as their Quote of the Day on April 21, 2021. A huge honour and fuel for the work of growing native plant habitat wherever we live and steward land.
Lorraine was interviewed for the March 26, 2021 Novae Res Urbis article on Toronto’s grass and weeds bylaw.
Lorraine moderated this panel discussion that explores the unique story of Tommy Thompson Park and the Leslie Street Spit, and how this landform constructed of sand and rubble on the shores of Lake Ontario became one of the richest ecosystems in a major urban centre through the combined efforts of citizen activism and landscape design. This webinar looks at how citizen advocacy contributes to the health and well-being of the city.
In a radio interview with CJRU’s program Toronto Nature Now, programmed by the Toronto Field Naturalists, Lorraine talks about the ways that grass and weeds bylaws have a chilling effect on habitat gardens and are used to regulate landscapes (and people!) perceived to be violating conventional “norms.”
As part of the SOUL (Society for Organic Urban Land Care) seminar series “The Role of Horticulture in Social and Land Equity,” Lorraine joined host Sundaura Alford-Purvis and panelists Aliyah Fraser and Tiffany Traverse. Lorraine’s slide presentation explored some of the dominant narratives that frame gardening conventions, and offered alternative visions for tending the earth, based on values of care, respect and reciprocity.
Toronto Star, March 31, 2021
In Lorraine’s work as co-moderator (with Cheyenne Sundance and Rhonda Teitel-Payne) of the Facebook group Grow Food Toronto, she was interviewed for this Toronto Star article from March 31, 2021 that looks at the rising interest in food-growing one year into the pandemic.
“The Radical Gardener,” March 2021 issue of Broadview magazine
In this interview published in Broadview magazine, Lorraine was asked by interviewer Christopher White about her most deeply held values in relation to nature, land, and the garden. From a rant about the lawn (as based on a colonial relationship to the earth) to a challenge to rethink the notion of “property value,” Lorraine ends up at the primacy of connection: “at a human and ecological level, we are not okay unless everyone is okay.”
Bylaws for Biodiversity, April 2021
In this second webinar in the series on reforming grass and weeds bylaws, Lorraine joins the panelists to discuss the specifics of recommended changes to the City of Toronto’s grass and weeds bylaw, and Carly Murphy presents the results of her extensive research into these bylaws and her proposed “model bylaw” in support of biodiversity.
In this webinar on grass and weeds bylaws, Lorraine presents a slide show with specific examples of how these bylaws have been used to prohibit naturalized habitat gardens across the country. She joins the panelists in offering ideas about how grass and weeds bylaws are outdated relics of the past and should be reformed in support of biodiversity.
Lorraine was honoured to receive the Ontario Association of Landscape Architect’s Certificate of Merit for Service to the Environment.