If Not You, Then Who?

Our natural areas are shrinking. It’s not hard to spot new development all around us, sometimes repurposing previously developed areas but often tearing into undeveloped land. In my area, even ‘wild looking’ land may have been used for farming 100 years ago, but it has grown back with oaks, pines, native shrubs, wildflowers and grasses (along with a few non-native plants at the edges). It wasn’t perfect, but it was becoming all the critters had left.

Development creates residences and businesses that are swiftly replanted with non-native grasses, perennials, shrubs, and trees. The designers might throw in a native oak or maple, but these designs provide very few ecosystem services compared to what they replaced. Not only the services in the plant material (pollen/nectar/fruit/seeds/leaves) but in other services like: nesting areas in dense vegetation; water purification in dense roots and free-flowing streams; a feast of bugs for birds, reptiles and other insects; even decaying wood, snags, and rotting leaves for the critters that depend on those things.

We have the opportunity to make a difference. We can learn that a sweep of knock-out roses in our yard is not a replacement for the diverse set of vegetation that the bulldozer removed to make room for our house. Knock-out roses don’t support nearly as many insects or birds as native plants. Neither does a crape myrtle. 

We instinctively know that the company selling mosquito spraying contracts only cares about our money not whether bees die too. Throw that advertisement away!

Georgia aster (Symphyotrichum georgianum) is local to my area

We can take steps to learn what might have been growing in our area and what native vegetation might be suitable to add to our landscape. We can research where to get these plants, go obtain them, and plant them. We can do that.

Some of us might remember 1971. In that year, “The Lorax” was published by Dr. Seuss. It was a children’s book with a powerful message represented, I think, in this single quote:  "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." 

Southeastern blueberry bee

This bee is the southeastern blueberry bee. It only forages on blueberries when they are in bloom in March and April. It completes its whole life cycle around this one type of plant - not roses, not crape myrtles, not geraniums. Blueberries are native shrubs that are found in almost every native woodland around me; there are wild ones on my property. They belong here and the bees need them. My landscape needs them and they need to be in landscapes throughout my county.

We can’t wait for someone else to care and for someone else to make the change. Butterfly populations are shrinking, fireflies and bees are fewer in number, therefore birds find fewer and fewer bugs to feed their babies. 

If not you, if not me, then who? It’s time to care a whole awful lot … and spread the message.