Welcome to the next edition of the Ecosystem Gardening podcast series!
In this installment, I’m talking with Doug Tallamy, one of my Heroes of Ecosystem Gardening, and author of Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens.
Dr. Tallamy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how these interactions determine the diversity of animal communities.
Listen now as Doug Tallamy shows us why native plants are so important for creating welcoming habitats for wildlife in our Ecosystem Gardens:
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Here’s the summary:
Our traditional view of gardening has been to treat plants as if they are merely ornaments and to ignore their ecological roles. Your garden is part of the greater landscape, and each of us is responsible for becoming a steward of our properties as a healthy contributor to the environment around us.
Native plants support local food webs. Invasive plants disrupt local food webs, and ornamental plants offer very little in the way of contributing to the local food web.
Some interesting facts:
- 30% of the plants in our natural areas are invasive plants. In fact there are over 3400 species of invasive plants in this country
- 92% of our suburban areas is lawn, which does not contribute to local food webs
- 79% of what is planted in our suburban areas is not locally native
- 600 square miles of lawn is added in this country every year
When asked about the claims that the new cultivar Dwarf Butterfly Bush “Blue Chip” Buddleia, Doug expressed his skepticism. He discussed how Bradford Pear was marketed in the same way, with claims of low seed set and sterility, but when this plant was cross-pollinated with other new cultivars, the plant became quite invasive, and now we have a horrible problem with Callery Pears invading natural areas.
The same claims were made for a supposedly sterile form of Purple Loosestrife, but when it is cross-pollinated, it reverts to being invasive, too. My vote, it’s not worth the risk!
Top two tips for contributing to the local food web in your Ecosystem Garden?
- Add more native plants, especially woody, structural plants which support a much higher level of biodiversity
- Reduce your lawn (remember that 92%?), and add more plants, the more the better
To make this easier, check out these resources based on Doug’s work:
Top 10 Woody Plants for Wildlife in your Ecosystem Garden
Top 10 Herbacious Plants for Wildlife in Your Ecosystem Garden
And if you haven’t yet read Bringing Nature Home, I highly recommend it!
Have you seen Doug Tallamy’s presentation about Gardening for Life? I’d love to hear what you thought.
Check out my new free online course Ecosystem Gardening Essentials, 15 free lessons delivered to your inbox every week, teaching you to garden sustainably, conserve natural resources, and create welcoming habitat for wildlife in your garden.
© 2010 – 2013, Carole Sevilla Brown. All rights reserved. This article is the property of EcosystemGardening.com If you are reading this at another site, please report that to us
About Carole Sevilla Brown
Hi Carole, Doug is one of my heroes, too. He was a keynote speaker at our Florida Native Plant Society Conference, and my life has never been the same. He just illuminates the subject of food chain, interdependence, the role of insects and the importance of suburban land being planted with natives. I recommend his book in all my talks. I got to take him to the airport! I know he would laugh if he knew that was being used a bragging point. I think that Bringing Nature Home is truly a seminal work. Thanks so much for this post.
Very good interview on a fascinating subject. Tallamy’s “Bringing Nature Home” has encouraged me to work harder at converting my yard to native plants. His emphasizing that native plants feed the insects that feed the birds is a good incentive to a bird lover to get more native plants.
Doug Tallamy is my eco-hero as well, ever since I heard him speak at a master gardener training about 4 years ago. I was already into native plants, but his talk put some pieces together that I hadn’t though about. Since then I’ve talked his work up whenever I get the chance, written book reviews, and was able to persuade the organization for which I work, the American Society of Landscape Architects, to invite him to present an education session at our annual conference. I’m so glad his work is becoming more widely known, but there is still a long ways to go!
Rachel Shaw recently posted..All the leaves are down
Rachel, sounds like you are doing your part to help spread Doug’s excellent message! My copy of his book is very fragile and falling apart now because I’ve read it so many times, and I keep referring to it when I write. The way the book is arranged makes the importance of native plants just so logical. It’s easy to see the connection with having more wildlife when you have more native plants.