A professor’s beloved garden will continue to inspire and educate as new EcoLab

By Elizabeth MacDonald 

Bill Freedman walked his talk. A passionate ecologist and long-time Dalhousie biology department chair, the late professor believed that all change starts with a first, small step.

Or in his case, a garden.

Through his years of field work, Dr. Freedman had seen first-hand the damage caused by modern horticultural practices and other human activity. “By introducing invasive species, destructive insects, pesticides and pathogens into our ecosystem, we’ve done serious, often irreparable, harm to our native ecology,” explains his widow, George Anne Merrill.

So over ten years, until his death in 2015, Dr. Freedman gradually replaced all the grass on his South Street property with native plants he’d collected while doing environmental impact assessments. To the untrained eye, these 100 plus species from across Atlantic Canada and beyond — many of them rare – didn’t immediately fit the image of the standard landscaped property.

“Yet it’s so beautiful and quite wild looking, as that’s how Bill liked it,” says Merrill. “Our naturalized garden flowered from May until fall, attracting bees and birds, and required next to no watering, unlike lawns.”

When Merrill decided to downsize and sell the family home, she worried a new owner might not appreciate the unique collection of native species. “Bill really loved his plants, so I wanted to find the right home for them.”

And thanks to the initiative of biology instructor Allison Schmidt (BSc’02, MSc’06, PhD’13), that home is right here at Dalhousie.

The new EcoLab, destined for the courtyard space outside the Life Sciences Building, will include Dr. Freedman’s beloved plants, along with native trees, rocks and minerals, and be organized into sections, representing the various ecozones of Nova Scotia. Dr. Schmidt hopes the project will be ready by the fall of 2018.

“By bringing a bit of the province’s bio-diversity to campus, this naturalized landscape will create an experiential learning space for various disciplines like Biology, Earth Science, Environmental Science and Geology,” says Dr. Schmidt. “We hope to incorporate the EcoLab as an active part of the curriculum.”

Dr. Schmidt also hopes the natural garden might inspire conversations within Arts and Social Sciences about the human link to the environment and our shared history.

Ultimately, though, Dr. Schmidt sees the space serving as an oasis: a place of contemplation and inspiration on a busy, urban campus.

“The new EcoLab will speak to Bill’s way of thinking. Our natural environment is full of beauty: untamed, intricate beauty. It’s already all around us. All we have to do is look.” – Dr. Allison Schmidt

And what would Bill think? “He’d be pleased,” says Merrill. “Bill always wanted to show how it’s possible to create a beautiful urban environment, not only for humans but also for the other beings who share the earth with us.”

“With the EcoLab, I hope people will continue learning from his garden, because that’s what was important to Bill: that people learn…and change.”