by Hilary Nichols
Water, sun, and soil might seem a simple enough equation for a house plant, but a home garden can be more of an intricate undertaking. Shade or sun, frost or flood, drought or disease—the shifting conditions can challenge any green thumb. That’s when we turn to the experts. Bridget O’Brien and Charlie Brennan of Garden Juju Collective are in a long-term relationship with the earth. “Simple isn’t always quick,” they reminded me. Bridget and Charlie tend the land with both hands and long vision, so that a well-designed fix can be properly applied and nurtured in time. It might take a fleet of earthmovers and months of remediation, but the relationship of the water, sun, and soil can be remedied to become sustainable and self-sufficient, just as nature intended it to be, “on pace with the seasons.”
With 45 years of combined professional devotion to earth tending, Bridget and Charlie have earned their expertise the hard way. It is a passion that comes to these two naturally, but not without sacrifice. “Bridget and I have extremely strong convictions about what we are doing for the world, but it doesn’t come without a cost,” Charlie mused. The work is physical and arduous and not always that well supported. “We give everything we have back into it. But we wouldn’t do anything else. We feel very privileged to be doing exactly what we want to be doing. It’s our life’s work.”
O’Brien was working as a landscaper when clients asked for plantings with little or no maintenance. Her research led her to the discovery of permaculture. The Oxford Dictionary defines permaculture as “the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.” The practice is commonly credited to Bill Mollison and David Holmgren because in 1978 they began to teach more traditional farming methods in the face of the damage done by modern industrialized approaches. O’Brien invested in their books and their belief system. She received her Permaculture Design Certification from the Midwest Permaculture Institute in 2012 and quickly started to expand the notions of permaculture toward her greater life pursuits. “I was coming to this study just as I was moving from a place with a big yard to a little rental property in town. So, I began to consider the practices more holistically, to see how I could apply the principles beyond land use toward my whole life.” Her enthusiasm inspired her first trip to Australia to visit David Holmgren’s work.
With a PhD from Western Sydney University in NSW Australia, and a Masters from the school of Social Ecology/Ecopsychology, Charlie Brennan applies his expertise to more than the soil. His understanding of how place and purpose impacts the quality of our life is a crucial component to his work. In 2016, Brennan came to Ann Arbor to design a large installation and needed some help. Mutual friends suggested O’Brien for her interest and expertise. Their common work ethic and belief systems made it clear that they shared something more than their love of the land. They married in 2018 in a destination wedding in Ireland and have combined their efforts internationally ever since.
They started The Garden Juju Collective in 2019 to weave together all their offerings. Permaculture is a part of their practice but not strictly. “The earth isn’t bound by rules,” Brennan quipped. For a more well-rounded approach their offerings include consultation, mentoring, design, and project management services. All of their work is anchored in a common conviction toward regenerative principals that give back more than they extract. Hosting workshops in Portugal, England, Australia, and in the United States from Wisconsin, to California and Michigan, The Garden Juju Collective is leaving their mark from the roots to the fruit as well as in the minds and methods of earth tenders everywhere.
To further the impact of these principles O’Brien and Brennan developed a card game titled Adapt. The game is a play board and deck of category cards that prompts players “to identify your own genius and unique skill-set for solutions that are more regenerative, rather than mining and extractive,” O’Brien explained. Any life query can be viewed through this new lens, to give players “a life changing shift that considers the co-healing of self, community, and planet equally,” she continued. “The game changed my life, with a meaningful and creative approach to problem solving by design.” Their enthusiasm is uplifting but it is also urgent. “Everyone can live a more sustainable, regenerative, and healing lifestyle, and we all must,” Brennan said. “It is sharing this perspective shift that this work is all about for us.”
The projects that they designed and tend on two continents stand for these convictions. As consultants and designers and now business directors at Gateway Farms, Garden Juju Collective leads a fantastic team towards an innovative and ambitious farm hub vision. Hriday Ericson is on their landscape team. “I wouldn’t work as hard for anyone else,” he lauds their work environment, “I believe in the principles that they stand by. I wouldn’t give that level of labor to anyone else. I am willing to put forth tremendous energy, because of their principles. For the right reasons, it feels great to give my all.”
They took on the Oakhill Food Justice Farm in Melbourne Preston Australia, in the middle of the lock down. “The site was on a super rundown church ground and car lot,” Brennan said. The design plan invited student groups and community organizations to lend care. Now it is a highly functional farm and garden where the kids plant the raised beds and harvest greens to feed themselves and their families.
Closer to home, Plymouth Orchard in Plymouth, Michigan has been thriving for over 40 years, while their petting farm has remained mostly overlooked. The Garden Juju Collective was brought in for a radical redesign. With the installation of a pond, pollinators, and native species they created a heritage area, adding fodder plants in the new enclosures with the animals’ well-being at heart. A playscape for the children welcomes families that come for the cider to stay and play with the frolicking farm animals. Rather than tucked away and overlooked, now the goats are clearly a thriving and enlivening element of the orchard.
“We listen to the plants and the animals, for the soul and intelligence of the land first, and only then do we apply the remediation that allows all the natural elements to thrive in communion, the bees, the trees, and the landowners,” O’Brien explained. “Only then can we stand back and listen for the hum. That is what sustainability is all about.”
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