I first began to develop the concept of conservation in the garden almost twenty years ago while working as a wildlife habitat landscape contractor. I began working with homeowners to develop habitats in their gardens that were attractive to birds and butterflies (and people, too).
At this time there was very little scientific or popular literature on the subject. The information that was available was mostly concerned with building bird feeders or bird houses which, although pleasant for the gardener, did not accomplish anything in the way of creating welcoming habitats or contributing to an increase in biodiversity.
I began to search my local nurseries for these plants with which the original inhabitants of this area were so familiar. Largely, I was unsuccessful in this attempt. I would ask repeatedly what native plants were available, only to be met with blank stares.
The idea that it was important to know the origin of the plants I wanted to purchase was totally foreign to these business owners. Many times I was misled, either intentionally or not.
I learned the hard way that I could not take for granted that the “experts” at my nurseries actually knew the origins of the plants that they were selling. I began to carry field guides of native plants, plant encyclopedias, and “weed” books to any nursery when I was shopping so that I could verify exact scientific names of these plants and determine their historic range.
And then there were the catalogs. Starting every January, these beautifully photographed tomes of wisdom would begin arriving at my door. It used to be that I eagerly awaited their arrival. Such luscious pictures!
As I struggled to find good information in these catalogs, I made many mistakes along the way. These mistakes were made, in large part, because several horticultural catalogs jumped on the “plant for wildlife” bandwagon and began recommending plants such as Autumn Olive, Japanese Barberry, Japanese Honeysuckle, Purple Loosestrife, Multiflora Rose, Oriental Bittersweet, and Silverfleece Vine as being excellent plants for attracting birds and butterflies to the garden.
Many of my clients took this advice and planted these plants, in an attempt to bring more wildlife into their gardens. Needless to say, the majority of my time working in these gardens (and the salary my clients were paying me) was spent attempting to remove these plants, along with many others, that had gotten out of control.
Buyer beware: anything that states such “benefits” as: “fast grower”, “vigorous grower”, or “spreads quickly” should not be planted in your garden. Most of these plants are invasive and have overwhelmed every other plant around them, swallowing trees, smothering shrubs, and choking out perennials.
I began to suspect, since everything that I was struggling to eradicate from these gardens was not native, that native plants were the key to the development of any habitat for wildlife in gardens. When I was designing gardens for my clients, I began to use only native plants, in an attempt to eliminate the extraordinary struggles with plants that had become so invasive, and the removal of which was costing my clients large sums of money.
During this time, I was desperate for information to confirm my ideas of how important native plants were to the landscape. I read every book that came out that had any relation to gardening to attract wildlife. I was spending enormous amounts of time exploring every bookstore that I passed on my way home from each client’s house. Every new client presented also the opportunity for a new bookstore.
I searched through the science section for biology books, trying at first to identify what specific birds needed for their survival. I also searched in the nature section, poring through field guides, and often finding that this section contained the bird gardening books, not the gardening section as I had originally thought.
Most of these early books were devoted to gardening for birds, and most of them spent very little time discussing actual gardening, opting instead to devote most of their pages to bird feeders, bird seed, and special “projects” for the birders garden, such as using cookie cutters to make special shapes from stale bread to hang among your shrubs.
Even so, I was thrilled at each new discovery; hoping that this time I would be lucky; this time I would find the information that I was so desperately seeking.
Almost every time, however, these hopes were dashed as I got my new treasure home only to be disappointed again. Usually each new book only made me angry. The plants that these books recommended were the very plants that I was waging such a war against, often feeling that I was fighting a losing battle in trying to remove them.
I was angry that each new writer continued to espouse the virtues for wildlife of these plants. I was angry that every gardening catalog I received had gorgeous, close-up, voluptuous photographs of these villains with captions such as “vigorous grower”, “fast spreader”, and “grows in problem spots”. I was angry every time I shopped at a nursery that had far more of these plants for sale than they did anything that was even close to native.
This is a very important lesson: do not automatically assume that because a plant is listed in a book by an “expert” that it is appropriate for your garden! Always do a little bit of homework before you buy anything. A quick internet search can prevent many mistakes.
In addition to the dangerous recommendations of invasive plants, I was also frustrated by what I call the Chinese Restaurant menu approach to gardening: pick one from column A and two from column B. I call this a plant zoo.
Every book presented lists of plants as if these were the most appropriate choices no matter where in the country one’s garden was located. The vast majority of these works gave lists that might be appropriate in the northeast, but would be of little benefit to anyone in Arizona, Florida, Texas, California, or Oregon, to name just a few.
This focus on gardens being merely a collection of plants (a mindset of gardening books in general which was carried over into the gardening for wildlife books as well), as opposed to crucial elements in a thriving ecosystem, seemed lacking to me.
This approach did not consider even the way different plants work together, let alone how soil type, soil moisture, insects, birds, and other animals impact the garden’s processes. The information that I was searching for would have defined how these factors worked together.
I was becoming more and more discouraged by the one-size-fits-all approach. While some of the plants from the stock lists used in almost every book that I read may have worked on the sunny south-facing backyard side of my house, they would not have been at all appropriate on the shady north-facing side of my house. Some areas of my garden were quite wet, holding water long after the rain had ended; other areas were quite dry. This led to a distrust of any writer’s recommendations.
I was beginning to feel that we could no longer see our gardens as disconnected from our neighborhoods and region. I wanted to find information about how the pieces worked as part of a whole.
If I wanted birds in my garden, I needed to learn about all of the elements in an environment that would support them. If I wanted butterflies, which ones were important in my location, and what did those butterflies need.
“My” birds were often different from some of my clients’ birds just a few hours away. Did those birds need different things than my birds? As much as I searched, I never felt like the books that I read addressed all the questions I had about how the parts worked together. That is my purpose; to share what I have learned about the ecology of small, managed ecosystems such as your garden.
In addition, I’d like to hear your thoughts. Agree? Disagree?
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© 2009 – 2010, Carole Brown. All rights reserved.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi! Not sure my comments are coming thru, but I’ll leave ‘em anyhow.
Man! Our yard is half the product of my thought to “go with native” and introduce only things I dug up from nearby and half the product of those (SO AGGRAVATING) “fast growers” you mentioned. I’ve totally given up trying to eradicate them — they’ve won. I think I need a bulldozer to fix it now……. :O
@D I know the aggravation! I fight a losing battle here every year with Bishop weed, Sweet autumn clematis, lesser celandine, etc. I pull and pull, and it grows back thicker and lusher. That’s why I wish the stores would do the right thing and stop selling that crap!
Right! I think the pulling and pulling actually makes the stuff stronger and healthier. AYE! Not only should they be stopped from selling it, but they have the audacity to tell ya it’s GOOD and you SHOULD get it! (lousy *@$&)@$*’s)
Yes, lousy what you said!
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