Thoughts on the Native Plant Movement

 

If you’re reading this, you are likely one of the foot soldiers of the growing native plant movement. We are a group of people who have learned that using regionally appropriate native plants in our landscapes matters. It matters to insects, birds, mammals, and the whole food chain that follows the one organism that can take energy from the sun and turn it into something that the rest of the ecosystem can use.

Share seeds or plants of black-eyed Susan with friends

It’s frustrating that more people don’t have that knowledge, but it is often a matter of simply not knowing. Small but deliberate actions on our part can help them learn. Doug Tallamy and his Homegrown National Park organization advocate that we can make a difference, one yard at time, by adding native plants to our landscape. We can also make a difference with our interactions with other people.

• Talk to neighbors, friends, and family about the changes in your garden.
• Get your yard certified.
• Offer to be a speaker to a garden club about why you use native plants.
• Point out something of interest: “Oh, look at that tiger swallowtail butterfly! Did you know that is our Georgia State Butterfly and it uses our native tuliptree as a host plant?”
• Share information: articles, books (lend them yours!), photos (post them on Facebook, Instagram, text messages), and share your experiences.
• Give gifts: plants, books, memberships, or even gifts of time to help someone re-do an area with native plants.

My neighbor's buttonbush attracts butterflies every year
and I remind her how special that plant is for them.

You never know when a small conversation, signage, or even a plant might spark an interest. When I’m out in the yard, people will ask about blooming plants or something they noticed earlier. I have given away seeds and small plants to neighbors who admired my red buckeye (Aesculus pavia). I have planted extra plants at my neighbor’s house, my family’s yards, and local schools.

Want to make a bigger impact? Convince your HOA or local government to encourage more native plant use. Even foot soldiers without gardens can help accomplish change.

June 2023 Moment in Nature

She said 'Yes' to the nest! Last week I spotted a bird's nest in one of my potted plants. It was elaborate (it covered up a lot of the plant) but it was empty. I know that sometimes male Carolina wrens build nests that don't get used (the female gets to approve it). Needless to say, I was excited this week to discover that four eggs had been laid inside! I also saw the Carolina wren sitting on the nest at one point.

So my #momentinnature for this month has to be this happy discovery. I look forward to watching these guys grow up and eat some of the bugs in my garden (not because I don't want bugs but because I want birds to have a life cycle in my garden).

Yard & Habitat Certification

The movement to use native plants in landscaping has never been stronger. What is helping to strengthen that movement? It is thousands – even millions – of small actions like garden club talks; social media shares; articles in newsletters, hometown papers, and magazines; and neighbors talking to neighbors. We should never doubt the powerful impact of personal recommendations and stories in convincing others to make even small changes (“I planted milkweed and a monarch laid eggs on it!).

Photo courtesy of GNPS (gnps.org)

When it comes to informing neighbors of the changes we have made, we aren’t outside every minute. Instead we can show intention with signage that is visible all the time. Yard and Habitat certifications are available from a number of organizations. I could tell you all about them, including the one from the Georgia Native Plant Society, but another Georgia blogger did a great job in a two-part series describing why certifying your yard is a good idea as well as describing all the different types of certifications you can consider in Georgia.

I like how she points out that getting your yard certified benefits you as well by connecting you to more resources and helping you think more deeply about what benefits your landscape can offer to bees, butterflies, and birds. In addition, each yard certified strengthens the organization giving the certification, allowing them to demonstrate how much impact they provide as well. The Homegrown National Park organization is collecting numbers by state and by total acreage to showcase how many people are making changes.

So consider getting certified so you can let your yard do the talking when you’re not around.

Whether you are certified or not, you can still get your yard on the Homegrown National Park map. Learn more about their grassroots movement to convince one person at a time here.

Landscape Spotlight: Small Lot Native Plants

Perennial border from left side

I wrote last week about building back diversity into our residential landscapes. With increasingly smaller lots, some folks might think they don’t have room to do it. Or people think their HOA won’t allow using native plants. Well, let me introduce you to my friend, Lynn. Her yard is a showcase that proves both of those assumptions to be wrong.

Almost four years ago, Lynn and her husband Bob downsized from a large and mature garden filled with native plants to a home in a community with single, detached homes; a lot size of .21 acres; and an arrangement where lawns are mowed for everyone by a community-arranged service.

It wasn’t smooth sailing at first. 

Their house backs up to a sunny slope that runs down to a wooded, natural area. First ideas included seeding a native meadow on that slope. The HOA and the maintenance crew nixed that idea. After some negotiation, they now have a backyard composed of a gorgeous perennial border and a diverse collection of native trees and shrubs squeezed into just 50 feet (from patio to their property line). The maintenance crew still mows most of the slope, but the diversity she was able to artfully arrange is a tribute to her own design talents.

Perennial border from right side

Phlox carolina and Coreopsis major

Pussytoes, lyreleaf sage, sundrops, Georgia savory, and amsonia in the front

Natives are not limited to the back; the front garden consists of the two native oak trees that the community planted plus native shrubs and perennials (she replaced most of the shrubs provided by the builder). The 70-foot wide lot leaves just 10 feet on each side but those sides are put to good use. The shady side has an assortment of native ferns and perennials while the sunny side hosts native shrubs like beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) and summersweet (Clethra alnifolia ‘Hummingbird’).

Shady side of the house

Clethra on the sunny side

American lady on milkweed

American lady caterpillar

Her garden provides host plants and nectar plants for butterflies and moths and plenty of insects and fruits for birds. Native trees that she's added include black gum (Nyssa sylvatica 'Wildfire'), serviceberry (Amelanchier), redbud (Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy'), and more. There was a bird's nest in the coral honeysuckle vine. She has bird boxes, bird feeders, and hummingbird nectar as well. The garden was full of life while we were visiting. A stone patio and a screened porch provide plenty of places to watch the wildlife.

Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'

Hydrangea quercifolia

Mixed in with the native plants are pots of herbs for cooking, favorite non-native perennials, and treasured plants from friends. And she's not done yet! Sheri and I brought her more plants, and we talked about things to add into the few spots still open. 

She is a passionate advocate for native plants in the garden. Neighbors have been recipients of her extras: scarlet beebalm and sundrops were blooming in their gardens too. Their patches of barren grass may one day bear more sprouts of her inspiration. I hope that some of you with small lots will be inspired too.

Dwarf iris, foamflower and herbs

What it could have looked like ...

Build Back Biodiversity

 

I read a quote this week from Doug Tallamy that really resonated with me about what we can do as individuals. The quote was in support of International Day for Biological Diversity (May 22). The theme for 2023 is “From agreement to action: Build back biodiversity.” Doug’s quote is (bolding is mine):

“When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, the impacts of our rapidly-growing human footprint were obvious enough, but, like everybody else who was concerned about the loss of nature, I focused 100% on saving the bits of nature that had not yet fallen to the bulldozer. Never once did it occur to me that I could rebuild effective habitat right in my yard.”

We now understand that we can (and should) build back some of the biodiversity (that is, biological diversity) that has been lost. Our residential landscapes are becoming key areas to reintroduce native plants and to bolster the biodiversity that is shrinking because of habitat destruction and replacement of natural habitat with development and non-native plants. The very name of this blog is USING Georgia native plants; we need to be USING them in our landscapes. 

Why do we need diversity in our plants? It’s because we have diversity in our insects, and they don’t all eat the same thing.

The story of the Monarch butterfly’s decline in population has gotten a lot of attention over the last decade, and it serves as a reminder that when native insect host plant distribution declines (which was true for milkweed, the single host plant family for Monarchs), so do the insects that depend on it. This is especially true for specialist insects like the Monarch and Zebra Swallowtail butterflies. When insect populations decline, so do all the species in the chain after them (birds, frogs, dragonflies, etc.).

Add some garden-friendly goldenrod

Regular plant nurseries and big box stores often have the same plant choices and most of them are not native. If we all shop there and plant these same non-native plants in every landscape, our biodiversity is reduced because we're all planting the same plants. It is further reduced because most native insects can’t use these non-native plants to further their life cycle. We might as well be landscaping our yards with plastic plants. Plants that literally add life to your landscape need to be native to Georgia.

96% of birds depend on finding insects for themselves or their babies
Photo credit: Romin Dawson

People can be intimidated by the thought of changing their landscape, especially in large amounts. You don’t have to rip out all your landscaping at once and re-do it. We all have time and money constraints. Adding a simple pollinator garden (6x8), replacing a row of non-native shrubs, adding a native oak to your landscape – these are all steps we can make in a positive direction. My post last year offered some tips on getting started.

There are also some things you can do that don’t require planting right now: You can stop applying pesticides to your landscape; [please!] cancel that mosquito-spraying contract; or simply mow your lawn every 3 weeks instead of every 2 weeks. We can make a difference as individuals and with our own yards. We can build back the diversity that our local ecosystem needs. Don’t wait for someone else to do it; remember the Lorax? If not you, then who?

If you haven’t read Doug Tallamy’s books, I do recommend Nature’s Best Hope to get started. I think you’ll find yourself reaching for your shovel before you’re even done with it.

May 2023 Moment in Nature

I am so glad to have this as a monthly feature because I love sharing the #momentinnature that reveals itself every month. And I do mean reveal because they catch me by surprise - I don't plan them.

I came back this week after being gone for few days and was sorry to see that a silk moth cocoon that I had saved was newly vacant. I was hoping to see the giant moth emerge. I left it where I had it; several days later I noticed that the inside now sported a leafy green re-do! A leafcutter bee had chosen to make an egg chamber in the old cocoon. 

As I write this, it is still a work in progress. I believe she has laid one egg and provisioned it and added one partition. Above are two photos, one is my original view and the second is while she is working.

Landscape Spotlight: American Wisteria

 

In my travels, I occasionally come across a particularly nice display of a native plant in a designed landscape. I usually take a photo of it, but I don’t always have a chance to work that into a blog. So this will be a new and occasional series for the blog to feature good landscape examples.

American wisteria (Wisteria frustescens) is an attractive native vine that blooms later than the invasive wisteria species we see on the roadside. It does very well on a structure in the garden, whether it be an arbor or pergola or just a chain link fence. It flowers after the leaves have already emerged, and the flowers are only lightly fragrant. It is not as aggressive as its cousins and maximum length is about 40 feet.

It is most often sold as the cultivar ‘Amethyst Falls’ which was a wild selection noted for good landscape qualities (deep color, early flowering). Unlike, the non-native species, American wisteria usually flowers in its second year, making it a better selection for that reason alone!

Read more about American wisteria on the Virginia Native Plant Society’s website where they profiled it as their 2021 Wildflower of the Year.