A Garden of Possibilities

Want butterflies? Plant Natives.

The benefits of using native plants in your garden, regardless of where you live and which hardiness zone you garden in, are becoming increasingly well-known.  I attended the 8th Annual SALT Seminar for Homeowners over the weekend at the Connecticut College Arboretum entitled Going Native in Connecticut.  About forty other native plant enthusiasts also attended to hear several speakers, including Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home.   If you’ve never read Mr. Tallamy’s book I encourage you to do so.  Many people will tell you that reading his book opened their eyes to the importance of landscaping with native plants.

 Here’s the bad news about what our current gardening trends, including our reliance on exotic plants and our fascination with larger and larger lawns, means.  We are sterilizing our urban areas, making them inhospitable not only to insects but also a wide array of other wildlife.

Did you know:

• A lawn is the 2nd least productive use of our land.  In case you’re wondering, pavement is the least productive.
• 62,500 square miles of land have been converted to lawn in the US.
• Our love affair with ‘pest-free’ plants for our gardens means insects are losing their food sources.  No insects means no birds.
• One-third of the bird species in the US are endangered (according to a March 2009 NY Times report).

However, not all the news is bad.  The good news is every one of us can do something to reverse these trends.  We can use our gardens to create what Mr. Tallamy calls ‘biological corriders’, ecologically diverse areas that are alive with native plants which act as food and shelter to a vast array of insects (butterflies and moths), birds and other wildlife.  That sounds like a daunting task but it’s actually quite simple to get started. 

Here a few easy steps that can be incorporated into any garden, regardless of its size or location:

• Reduce your lawn.  Make your existing beds and borders wider. Or plant a native lawn-alternative plant in an underused area of your existing lawn.
• Begin to transition away from exotic plants to using more native plants in your garden.  If you’re not sure which plants are native to your area, ask your local nursery for guidance.
• Even though perennials are colorful, woody plants (shrubs, trees and some vines) provide much-needed shelter for wildlife so be sure to add some native woody plants to your garden, too.
• Use plants that are native to your local area.  Beneficial insects need  plants they share an evolutionary history with.
• Not all native plants are created equal in the eyes of insects.  Some native plants host many more insects than others.  Click here for a downloadable list of native plants and the number of insect species they host.

There is a native plant to suit any situation you may have in your garden.  Native plants can add the same color, texture and multi-season interest that exotic plants add to many gardens.  Plus, they’ll bring with them birds, bees and butterflies.   I’ll leave you with a quote from Doug Tallamy, which I find very telling:  Garden as if your life depended on it!