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June 18 - June 19, 2024
gardeners have become important players in the management of our nation’s wildlife.
They might describe the “sense of place” that is created by using plants that “belong” or the dangers of releasing yet another species of invasive alien to outcompete and smother native vegetation.
costly wastefulness of lawns populated with alien grasses that demand high-nitrogen fertilizers, broad-leaf herbicides, and pollution-belching mowers.
Native plants are well adapted to their particular ecological niche and so are often far less difficult to grow than species from other altitudes, latitudes, and habitats.
our native insects will not be able to survive on alien plant species.
If our native insect fauna cannot, or will not, use alien plants for food, then insect populations in areas with many alien plants will be smaller than insect populations in areas with all natives. This may sound like a gardener’s
We are losing our birds because we have taken away their homes and their food and filled their world with dangerous obstacles that take a terrible toll.
Unless we modify the places we live, work, and play to meet not only our own needs but the needs of other species as well, nearly all species of wildlife native to the United States will disappear forever.
Michael Rosenzweig (2003) calls the redesign of human habitats for the accommodation of other species “reconciliation ecology.”
Beavers have been described as keystone species because their removal from an ecosystem threatens the survival of other species within that system
Paine coined the term “keystone species” to describe the essential role filled by Pisaster ochraceus in the intertidal community and in the maintenance of its diversity and species composition. The clear implication of Paine’s work was that some species are more important to the sustainability of ecosystems than others
Every time a block is removed, the relative importance of the remaining blocks changes. Thus, the role each block plays in the stability of the tower is relative and constantly changing. If ecosystems are Jenga towers, almost any species can play a keystone role under the appropriate circumstances.
biodiversity is essential to the stability—indeed, the very existence—of most ecosystems. We remove species from our nation’s ecosystems at the risk of their complete collapse.
The grassland birds that breed in the Everglades cannot nest in Melaleuca groves, and they find fewer insects to eat because native insects cannot eat Melaleuca leaves
Alligators cannot make their wallows or find food in Melaleuca groves, and so they have lost hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat. Butterflies cannot find their host plants, egrets cannot hunt the fish they eat, and hummingbirds cannot find the nectar they need to survive from day to day.
The broadest definition is also the most commonly employed: a native is any plant that historically grew in North America.
This is why I argue that a plant can only function as a true “native” while it is interacting with the community that historically helped shape it.
The Norway maple (Acer platanoides), for example, evolved in northern Europe. When John Bartram introduced the tree to the Morris Arboretum of Philadelphia in 1756, this species had never before interacted with the plants, animals, and pathogens of North America (Nowak & Rowan 1990). Well into its third century of residence, the growth and reproduction of Norway maples is still influenced little or not at all by organisms native to this country.
Nor have its centuries here been long enough for North American plants and animals to adapt to the presence of Norway maple. Why has its residence made so little difference in shaping Norway maple to the needs of the plants and animals that evolved in North America? Quite simply, a history measured in centuries is the tiniest drop in the proverbial bucket of evolutionary time.
Lesions from the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica were first found on an American chestnut tree at the Bronx Zoo in 1904. Within 50 years, Castanea dentata, the dominant upland forest tree species from Maine to Mississippi—a tree that had previously survived an asteroid impact and at least 20 glaciations during its 87 million years of evolutionary history (Willis & McElwain 2002)—was functionally eliminated from the eastern deciduous forest ecosystem.
It is hard to overemphasize the impact that the loss of American chestnuts has had on deciduous forest ecosystems. Castanea dentata was the primary nut producer of eastern forests, dwarfing the contributions of oaks, beeches, and hickories as wildlife food sources.
Exacerbating the problem is our love of huge lawns. Japanese beetle larvae develop primarily on grass roots.
The answer, of course, is that a healthy woodlot is a collection of plants and animals—producers and consumers—that are more or less in balance.
Somehow along the way we have come to expect perfection in our gardens: the plastic quality of artificial flowers is now seen as normal and healthy.
Instead, it is a clear sign of a garden so contrived that it is no longer a living community, so unbalanced that any life form other than the desired plants is viewed as an enemy and quickly eliminated.
sterile garden is one teetering on the brink of destruction.
It can no longer function as a dynamic community of interacting organisms, all working smoothly to perpetuate their interactions. Its checks and balances are gone.
Even worse, they often turn to alien plants that are promoted as being good for butterflies, the most popular of which, hands down, is the butterfly bush (Buddleja species). Planting butterfly bush in your garden will provide attractive nectar for adult butterflies, but not one species of butterfly in North America can use buddleias as larval host plants.
Butterflies used to reproduce on the native plants that grew in our yards before the plants were bulldozed and replaced with lawn.
Coneflowers and black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia species) also wear two hats in the butterfly garden. Along with their attractive floral display and nectar, rudbeckias support the reproduction of dozens of species of Lepidoptera, including the pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos), silvery checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis), and wavy-lined emerald (Synchlora aerata). Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) is another of my favorites for the butterfly garden.
They won’t appear if you insist on kousa dogwood (C. kousa) from Asia.
provides places for animals to hide and nest. Native border gardens should be as wide as possible and as densely planted as possible. It’s good if you can’t see the ground, because then you have succeeded in providing safe sites for things that need them.
Remember, it is the shrub layer rather than the tree canopy that birds most often use as nesting sites.
The first thing we learned is that it won’t happen on its own. The longer we let an area go, the more the aliens push out any existing natives.
After cutting or sawing through a bad guy at the base, we immediately (that means right away, not 10 minutes later), painted the stump with a Roundup solution using a small paintbrush. This is effective any time the temperature is above freezing. We chose not to spray the entire plant for fear of killing valuable native seedlings that inevitably seemed to be hiding within the alien mess. Once the plants were dead, the biggest challenge was removing the bodies.
Most oaks fall into two taxonomic groups: the white oak group and the red oak group. How each is used in landscape designs depends on the species and the moisture level.
The value of oaks for supporting both vertebrate and invertebrate wildlife cannot be overstated.
