Stop and Give Me 70

 

Seventy percent, that is, and actually more would be better. If you know this blog, you already know that I’m talking about native plants. People often ask how many native plants or what percentage should they have. A study by Doug Tallamy and his team* found that at least 70% was required and that even higher numbers are needed to keep bird populations from declining.

The following quote is from the linked article: “As the amount of non-native plants increased in a yard, the birds were less likely to occupy and breed; for ones who did breed, they produced fewer young than birds breeding in native-dominated yards.”

If you’d like to have birds in your yard, or if you’d like to support birds in general, having keystone native plants and a diversity of them is important. Here is a list of keystone plants; you may already have some.

Don’t feel like this is an unreachable number or a huge task. If you have native oak and maple trees in your yard, they are likely contributing in a big way to your total biomass. The number one opportunity for improvement is usually reducing the lawn. My early January post gave some ideas for working through this bit by bit.

This quote from the Science Daily article that I linked in the first paragraph is particularly insightful:

"The important lesson is that use of non-native plants in landscaping has a 'trickle-up' effect," said Doug Levey, a biological sciences program director at NSF. "Those attractive, non-native plants just provide less food at the base of the food chain and thus support fewer birds than native plants."

We can help ensure that birds have a home in our landscapes for years to come if we plant native plants more often and in greater abundance. So put back those begonias, grab some Coreopsis, milkweed, and purple coneflower (take out a section of lawn if you need to). Swap out some of the knock-out roses for winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) or crape myrtle for serviceberry (Amelanchier) and let's get to 70%.

Hummingbird on purple coneflower by Gena Flanigen

* Study details: Narango, Desirée L., Douglas W. Tallamy, and Peter P. Marra. Desirée. 2018. Nonnative plants reduce population growth of an insectivorous bird. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.