“Being an older queer gardener accepted by my very diverse neighbourhood is magical and powerful. My team and I represent trans and non-binary life to our mostly cis-het neighbours. I have daily conversations in French and English with people of all ages: it’s where I became confident in French.”
Coral Short is a sidewalk and alley gardener at Ruelle Esperanza Verde, a city block in Tiohtià:ke / Montréal tended with a small volunteer team called Les Jardiniels (a blend of “jardinier” and the gender-neutral French pronoun “iel”).
Most mornings,
@coralshort is out around 6 AM, deadheading, weeding, caring for perennials, native plants, and edibles, and tending to whatever the garden needs.
A non-binary Irish-Canadian gardener born in 1973 and raised by hippies in the Fraser Valley, BC, Coral began gardening at age 5. Their working-class father passed down a love of plants, and together they rescued perennials from demolition sites. After years away from gardens during a long struggle with addiction, Coral returned to the earth when they got sober in 2001.
Since then, they’ve become a Master Gardener at
@vandusengarden , worked for 15 years as a gardener and designer, and now as a somatic experiencing practitioner. Through Buddhism, paganism, sobriety, and daily tending, Coral’s relationship with land has become a source of grounding, joy, and connection.
Many of the plants at
@ruelle_esperanza_verde come from friends, grants, and the
@sentier_urbain spiral nursery, started in the 90s by two gay men. In summer and fall, Coral offers plant tours in Franglais.
“I used to live as a queer separatist,” Coral says, “but what feels most radical now is knowing my neighbours. The climate crises require exactly that, and for me the garden is where it starts.”
Queer ecology. Neighbourhood care. Plants as kin. Community as climate resilience.
Photos by
@kinga.mi.666 
