One of the other parallels I drew from the movie is how the concepts of ecoculture (as mentioned in Wild Plant Culture which I referenced in last week’s post) echo the lessons from the story. Ecoculture, a term coined by Sam Thayer, is “…the ancient practice of cultivating food, medicine, and materials in the context of natural intact human managed ecosystems. It’s food-focused ecological restoration.”

If we look at the movie from a historical perspective as well as a cultural one, these massive manors had and still have (they do still exist) their own productive gardens which provided much of the food for the residents. They didn’t have an Aldi just down road like we do. Otherwise, there would be very little reason for Lord Craven to continue employing a gardener. Not only that, although Mr. Sowerby isn’t mentioned at all, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is involved in the care of Misselthwaite’s livestock.

The only way Dickon would even be allowed to run freely on Manor grounds is if he were employed as a farmhand. I mean, think about it. Some commoner boy just running around the manor grounds with all his animals like he owns the place? This is hinted at in the original text itself. “Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight and on all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there planting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and herbs for his mother.” Mother, as Mrs. Sowerby is often referred to, is a highly respected character by Lord Craven and staff, despite herself being a commoner. It’s likely the herbs that Dickon grew for her were used to make a variety of herbal remedies with which Mrs. Medlock treated the sickly Colin.

Many of the plants we include in our own native gardens today were also medicinal. Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum), which is just now starting to bloom in my garden, is thus quoted in How To Know The Wildflowers by Frances Theodora Parsons (known as Mrs. William Starr Dana at the time of publishing in 1893): “To one whose childhood was passed in the country some fifty years ago the name or sight of this plant is fraught with unpleasant memories. The attic or wood-shed was hung with bunches of the dried herb, which served as so many grewsome [sic.] warnings against wet feet, or any over-exposure which might result in cold or malaria.”

So how does The Secret Garden fit in more within the parameters of Ecoculture rather than traditionally cultivated land? If we look back at the conceptual framework for ecoculture, we can see that it sits squarely between two concepts. At the top of “Human connection to the natural world” and on the side of Responsibility (the base of which is Conservation), we see: “The recognition that high levels of human management are required to achieve the highest standards for restoring habitat and ecological function specific to the local ecotypes.” On the other side of Freedom (the base of which is Agriculture), we see: “The recognition that natural ecological structures have the potential to generate high yields at lower inputs of labor, fertilizer, etc., though lacking the focus on local ecotypes.”

In The Secret Garden, we see both of these at play. For that, we go back to the hints within the movie. The number one clue is the inclusion of wildlife throughout the story. Rabbits are seen, although not mentioned. There’s Ben Weatherstaff’s English robin, who shows Mary the entrance to the secret garden. Later on, we see all manner of wildlife, including a random fawn of a white-tailed deer, a white goose, a fox on the prowl. In one scene where Mary finds a worm and says, “Eww,” and Dickon says, “Not eww, yum,” and he eats it! He then points out that the robin is also feeding them to his young.

As a side note, this part actually shocked me that it was included in the movie. On my Discord server, one of the members recently shared that the EU has approved bugs as food ingredients for humans. The mealworm in the article looks nearly identical to the one that Dickon ate in the movie. Local ecotypic food would not necessarily only include plants, but fauna as well; and, in some cases, this would include insects. This movie was clearly ahead of its time!

The use of pesticides, including extremely harmful ones, was quite common—anyone remember arsenic? If there was anything that could potentially kill the pests in the garden, they would’ve used it. In fact, there’s an old film (an 8-part series from the BBC) about gardening in the UK during WW2 where they covered the use of pesticides. Needless to say, wildlife was not typically welcome within a productive garden, much as traditional horticulture doesn’t welcome it now.

In the film, we also see the presence of dormant plants which have died back to the ground. I don’t just mean when Mary first enters the garden, but even after she and Colin begin working on it. They were far more concerned with clearing out the actual weeds to make room for the flowers to grow rather than what we would think of as springtime tidying. Later on, we find out that Ben Weatherstaff continued to tend to the Secret Garden despite the orders for it to be shut permanently.

The last hint we have, though it was just a few seconds in the film, is when Mary mentions that the pond had been clogged. The pond is occasionally shown in the film, but otherwise goes unmentioned. This means that they had worked to restore it, thus allowing the wetland species to thrive.

When we look at the film adaptation while also taking into consideration the original book’s text, we see a healthy balance in the garden where all are welcome. The characters in the story have a positive impact on it, but only when they care for it, which became overridden with weeds due to neglect. After all, there’s only so much Ben could do on his own in addition to tending to his regular responsibilities. It’s only when Mary and Dickon began working on restoring it that the garden started to thrive.