It is summer and I am standing in a large field/garden of native plants. It is one of thousands just like it, and I have seen so many in the last several years – a rangy offering of the usual suspects that effortlessly cements the gardener’s reputation as one of The Good, if not the imaginative.
This time, I am walking with a non-gardening friend who is fully innocent to the industry buzz words and native plant orthodoxies that have built up steam in this country over the last decade. Consequently she is confused by the definition of garden currently swirling around her.
A wildlife habitat lazily riding the zeitgeist.
She is unaware of what she would find attractive and what she would reject, if only she knew better – if only she was better. And she does not understand why her confusion makes her ignorant in the eyes of those who are.
Is she indeed in a garden? Where is the hand of the gardener she asks?
Apart from the official looking sign at eye level designating this space as Good and Just, it looks much like the open space in the back of her subdivision that she certainly enjoys, but instinctively recognizes as a post-wild wildness – a non-managed space in compacted subsoil where native and non-native species battle, pair, or perish. Or evolve.
I smile at her honest assessment and correct her with tongue firmly in cheek. Evolve? Not on our watch they don’t. Not anymore. That’s so pre-1492.
Worthy of love…or hate.
As we walk, she points to a scrubby, juvenile tree, marking a bend in the path. She is once again confused. Why is an evil [Asian] tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), in a landscape dedicated to the eradication of non-native plants?
Because it isn’t one, I tell her. It’s a stag horn sumac (Rhus typhina). We stop for a moment, and I regard this Eastern North American native tree with fresh eyes.
How similar the compound leaves are to Ailanthus at this stage in its growth. Both suckering, both warriors in disturbed and mistreated soils. Both colorful. Both flowering. Both seed bearing. Both fast growing. Both medicinal.
Native staghorn sumac.
My mind wanders to similar pairs… the shade tolerant dominance of Matteuccia struthiopteris and Petasities japonicus. The vining and twining Campsis radicans and Wisteria sinensis. The pollinator magnetism of Solidago rugosa and Foeniculum vulgare.
One aggressive. One invasive. One a saint. One a sinner.
Native Plant Supremacy In a Changing Climate?
We wander further and delve deeper. I cite texts she has not read, invoke the names of prophets she does not recognize, and I suddenly feel uncomfortable with the obvious tone of my apologist patter. I stop pattering.
Her occasional questions now hang in the silence of this space, acknowledged by nods on my part. They are earnest, and curious.
How do species co-evolve if they’re not allowed to begin?
Why aren’t we thankful for adaptive plants in compromised ecosystems?
If xenophobia is bad, why are we doing it with plants?
If the issue is about the human pace of change, isn’t a meteor wiping out three quarters of life on Earth pretty damned rapid?
The last two questions make me smile; but I know we should grapple with them, and many other inconsistencies in a post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment, post-Darwin world. She does not know that it’s so much easier not to ask those questions — that reputations are easily savaged in an age of social media; and being brave (or naive) enough to start a discussion against prevailing thought or powerful groups marks you as a dissenter.
That didn’t work out well for Socrates or for Galileo or Semmelweis when there was no such thing as Facebook or Twitter. Modern heretics beware — on a changing planet, the only constant is human nature. And from the Pagans of Athens to the Inquisitors of the Middle Ages, humans can be vicious when they believe themselves to be morally right.
A Moment of Honesty
So, we walk in silence. She – eyes up, having decided that the cumulus cloud-filled sky is vastly more interesting than the textural homogeneity that surrounds us. Me – struggling with my own honest reaction to this landscape, even as I recognize many plants around me that I value and grow.
We used to call this a meadow – not a garden. And I adored it for what it was.
With no colleagues to please, no egos to stroke, no friends to lose in this moment at least, how do I truly feel about this particular garden that surrounds me — one of so many poorly implemented when good intentions meet lack of skill, and then are elevated by virtue of their virtue?
I am tired of pretending it’s a garden.
In fact, the only way I can call it a garden is by using Britishisms which generously term any green space owned by a property a ‘garden’ instead of an American front- or backyard.
It’s a meadow. A field. A prairie transported. A slice of the [somewhat] natural world. A wildish open space that’s interesting to walk through if the paths are wide enough and the season is late enough. It is a space that looks as if the owner took seed, scattered it to the winds, and mowed paths when it grew.
But I do not think of it as a garden — where at its best, human vision, knowledge, skill, artistry, and stewardship enhance ecotype in a celebration of flora & fauna; and by doing so, create something worth preaching about: an inclusive biodiversity that doesn’t place origin over merit.
And in five years, without an army of interns or volunteers to edit exotic interlopers and aggressive thugs, it will be something very different indeed. I wonder if the owner knows?
A poorly planted eyesore celebrated by virtue of its…virtue.
Qui Bono?
To say the movement has built up steam in the last decade is to vastly understate it. We have swung our pendulum hard — from badly ignoring our native flora, to recognizing their preciousness, to insisting they are always the best, brightest and most beautiful in any given garden. There is even a puritan faction that insists that the breeding of native plants to create cultivars (many of which might hybridize themselves given enough time) is terribly wrong.
And of course there is also a Who benefits? aspect to this new orthodoxy. Trends to be capitalized upon. Brands to be forged. Click-bait content to be created. Names to be made. Grant money to be secured. How can we hope for truth in data, and broad-based research when we begin in the premise that ‘biodiversity’ is synonymous with native plants only?
What a shortsighted statement. How ignorant of the massive geological and climatological changes to our 4.5 billion year old planet, and the simple fact that all co-evolved species — every ‘pristine’ ecosystem — must have a starting point.
MANY starting points in fact.
And yet I have seen it countless times – from government sponsored websites, to advocacy groups, to social media posts. You might as well say biodiversity begins and ends in a box. The parameters of which you have created. The contents of which you have designated.
And you sure as hell better keep that box closed.
Religiosity Can Take Many Forms
Why do we grant one plant moral superiority and damn another by virtue of an evolutionary journey that abruptly ended with an easy line drawn on a four and a half billion-year-old planet? By men. For men.
How long will that line separating angel and demon hold up as the climate shifts? How much longer can the fallacy of native plants as the best-adapted species be shouted from the pulpits when we must fight tooth and nail to preserve and curate so many of them against species obviously better adapted? To our weather. To our soils. To the numerous wounds we have inflicted on the planet?
Our fauna are beginning to adapt – even if we refuse to watch those baby steps. Are we prioritizing our instinctive need for control with theirs to evolve?
Are we conflating our justified horror of industrial development and the loss of wild spaces, with the loss of native species outcompeted in altered environments?
Do we find the underdog narrative too compelling to resist?
What if you had a pollinator study and non-native plants weren’t invited?
It’s well past time to be brave and question the tenets of what increasingly feels like a new faith.
Openly. Methodically. Scientifically. Without bias, agenda, or original sin.
Let’s celebrate our native species. Not sanctify them. – MW
Hester,
Keep this up and they’re gonna make you sew a letter on your purdy frock.
With Appreciation,
J.
As long as the frock isn’t gingham, I’m good. – MW
I neglected to say this when I commented re: Carol Reese earlier- but- Many thanks for your fine thoughts!! It can and does get moral/difficult/fraught/political+++ This comes from a fellow who has been growing/loving/propagating/promoting native plants since the ’80’s… Let’s all keep working and stewarding toward creating “The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.”
Yes! I’ve been saying this (quietly, LOL) for years. Thank you for letting me know I’m not alone. This is all such reasonable thinking!
I have some tentative disagreements with this essay, but I do love a polite heretic! Here’s to undogmatically figuring out what the pros and cons really are.
That’s a great goal Julia – thanks for your comment. – MW
Amen. Thank you. These are all excellent questions that we need to ask. I have a blended garden of natives and non-natives and I enjoy watching both attract pollinators. This holier than thou native shaming is rampant. Having gardened for over 4 decades, I see value in a wide range of plants, both ecologically and aesthetically.
Right plant, right place. But who decides what’s right — humans or nature? – MW
Amen, Marianne, amen!
(love John’s clever comment, heh heh. I know you’d wear that letter with courage and pride).
Well, I would try to. Thank you. -MW
Thank you Marianne – I’ve thought much of what you’ve just said. Though I have lots of natives planted in my Falls Church yard, I’ve started to increasingly worry that if I limit myself to only natives might I actually be wrong. The native plant gurus are quick to skewer anyone who thinks outside their box. I’ve been told to remove well established trees, shrubs and perennials to make way for their native replacements. Not only is this an expensive proposition to even consider, some of those non natives are a food source. The deer love the Gold Dust Acuba and orange ditch lilies, the birds eat the Japanese holly berries and our Thumper appreciates the clover that grows with our backyard grass. So, I will keep my non natives for my reasons but I do find I am increasingly quiet when visiting some of the native plant websites because interactions there can be brutal.
Counseling someone to remove established and healthy shrubs and trees (at what cost, economically & ecologically — and hey, Carbon Footprint anyone?!?) to replace with native specimens that will need resources to establish and [sometimes] maintain, is extraordinarily irresponsible in my opinion. It is throw away advice that takes little effort to proclaim, but results in huge consequences for gardeners trying to “do the right thing.” Glad you are taking it all with a grain of salt. -MW
Wow, Marianne. This is so well said; such an engaging summation. This article felt prescient to me, as I have been thinking a lot recently about so many of the points you touched on and how to talk with others about them. I always enjoy your wit and writing.
Thank you Heather. These thoughts are not only mine – they are the result of too many discussions with people I respect that are saying “What the heck is going on?” I am definitely not a solitary voice, I just have less to lose by speaking out. – MW
I’ve decided not to try to convince anyone who gardens of why one plant is better than another regardless of whether the plants are native.–Doing this is almost political. I’m tired of politics. I haven’t gardened for more than a year and a half. My so-called garden shows it. Some of the natives are invasive as are some of the non-natives. In what will become my new garden at a new location, I see why its former 96 y/o owner loved wisteria sinensis and also why I’ll be killing it.–It has trunks as big as my forearm, and it covers all the trees to their top and the house. Will the former owner come back to haunt me because I have a different view? I hope not.
Well said! As I sit on my porch right now looking out at our garden at the edge of our 25 acre forest in the NC Blue Ridge mountains, I see and appreciate the view of lush lady ferns, cinnamon ferns, Joe Pye weed, ironweed, native hydrangea arborescens, flame azaleas, mountain laurel, rhododendron and sweet shrub, among many other native plants. I also love seeing my beautiful blue macrophylla and creamy ‘Chantilly Lace’ panicle hydrangea blooms, hybrid rhododendrons, astilbe, cultivated azalea hybrids and roses. I have made many mistakes in my gardening youth of 45 years ago, including planting invasive wisteria and throwing end-of-autumn decor bittersweet berries into the woods to populate merciless vines that can and have pulled down some of our beautiful trees. I fought to grow grass and eliminate less showy native plants so my flashy annuals and sun-loving blooms could shine. Now, older and wiser, I appreciate our lush carpet of moss lawns, the native plants that thrive and support our resident animals and insects. That said, I will continue to love my roses and non-native plants that delight both me and the butterflies. I have felt mildly guilty for my love of this garden that boasts the best of both approaches, but your articulate essay helps me feel more comfortable with it. My battle with wisteria and bittersweet continues, however!
What a beautiful description of the land that surrounds you Barbara – thank you. I too battle oriental bittersweet, but I must be honest that I am battling it for the garden I have created and the [current] woods that surround me, not for the planet. – MW
I completely understand why you’ll take the wisteria out Laura – just don’t replace it with fully native trumpet vine. 🙂 -MW
Yes, you’re right.
You’re mis-using the terms “native” and “invasive” if you say a plant can be both.
Hail Brave Marianne!
I am so weary of being bombarded daily with the “native” only assault on one side and the “non-gardeners” request for low maintenance evergreen design on the other. Combined with the fact than most NC maintenance companies do not know how to care (or do not want to) for these “garden meadows” any new install falls quickly into messy, exotic evaded spaces. We need all talking and openly discussing merits of all plant options, natives, nativars and adapting exotics, not shaming each other especially when one of us might love a gardenia!
Many thanks for eloquently opening the subject so thoughtfully and honest.
Cheering you on!
I’m not that brave Margot – just fed up. And I’m becoming more aware of the inconsistencies. Thank you though. – MW
Here in the PNW, any ‘native planting area’, left uncared for will soon be overgrown by himilayan blackberries and scotch broom. It’s hard to get the idea that care must continue or chaos will occur.
This is, at core, one of my biggest issues here. If human beings disappeared tomorrow (and I have had long discussions with people who have advocated such Nihilism), who would curate the specified, static ecosystems ordained?
As an aside, do you watch the broom and blackberries and see what is visiting, and what small function they offer the current ecosystem? I’m curious by the broom in particular. Thanks for commenting Linda – MW
Natural succession would take over. Depending on where the system was and how much climate change had encroached, each area would go through stages which might include invasive species. Gee, that’s not really a problem if no humans are there to complain about them.
ANY stand, taken to extremes, creates more problems than it was meant to solve. I’m not advocating for bringing more starlings or loosestrife into Maine but they’re here now and have been for many years. And I’ve seen bees and flies on loosestrife and starlings eat some insects…so are they all bad? They’ve both reached a balance with the rest of what lives here. Ecosystems change. That’s the fact people don’t like to acknowledge. Humans live such short lives and hence are short-sighted about the complexity of the natural world.
Prescient comments, Kris.
” Humans live such short lives and hence are short-sighted about the complexity of the natural world.” This is so true.
“… but they’re here now and have been for many years…” Yes. My husband and I are learning about a new-to-us wild wood (wild grape as thick as your thigh, multi-flora roses you can’t walk through reaching 20′ into the trees, not to mention the lonicera japonica) and it is interesting to see how some of the invasive plants were introduced back in the 1700s and 1800s!
We’re two years into a project to clean up the woods closest to the house, knowing that opening the canopy will allow all those seeds to germinate. Inevitably, some ‘grape arbors’ (read: the vine goes up into bushes and/or trees and covers them so the host plant can’t grow, and eventually dies and falls) – some grape arbors will be left, feeding various wildlife and spreading seeds. Same for the honeysuckle and roses: they will be left to fill the woods with their fragrance and beauty. I love that!
Also, archaeological evidence indicates ancient trade routes which took seeds to other places. (Example: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.102991) My point is, introduction of non-natives has been happening for millennia. Better to spend that vitriolic energy in doing something practical about the problem you’re faced with.
Happy to see the support this post is getting!
Yes, though it means people are tired of being bullied, and bullying isn’t a good thing. -MW
Right on Marianne! Nothing like some gutsy and courageous garden talk to open up some new perspectives.
Thank you Jennifer, though I wonder if it will. People get angry very quickly now, and for every person that thinks, “wait a minute..I need to examine this more closely.” there are many others that double down. –MW
Thanks for this brilliant critique of the native plant ideology that has a death grip on our gardens and our public lands.
One of many mysteries about the popularity of nativism in the natural world is why it is associated with environmentalism and liberal politics. The same people who are champions of human immigrants are willing to condemn non-native plants and animals to death. The same people who are concerned about climate change demand the destruction of our urban forests of non-native trees. The same people who are concerned about air and water pollution are advocates for using pesticides to kill non-native plants and animals. The same people who fight for human rights and reproductive freedom are demanding that cities and states mandate that everyone garden solely with native plants.
What happened to the “live and let live” mantra of liberalism? Nativism in the natural world is a dogma that is restrictive and destructive. It damages the environment. It deprives us of our freedom of choice and plants and animals of their freedom of movement. It turns liberalism on its head.
Thank you Mary – I would rather leave politics out of this, but I agree that the tenets of classic liberalism not only stand clearly on the right to free and fair debate of ideas, but on the necessity of it. No shouting down, no cancelling, no social media pile-ons and no shaming. That’s Puritan territory and that’s where many of us who work with or socialize with other plant people often find ourselves — wondering if it’s better to speak out, or remain silent.
As for floral xenophobia… in today’s world, I simply cannot understand how this flies — extraordinary. James Wong (in the UK) expressed his own concerns about this several years ago, but people don’t want to touch the subject as it feels like you’ll be put on the proverbial rack. Tempers are high. – MW
I understand your reluctance to view this controversy from a political perspective. You covered the other issues so well, that it seemed the only issue not mentioned by you or commenters, so I couldn’t resist.
I rarely mention the nativists’ xenophobic fear of aliens in my defense of non-native plants and animals because, of all the arguments I use, it provokes the most violent reactions from the nativists. There’s already too much heat in this debate at a time when there’s too much heat on every issue. So, your point is well-taken.
I indulged my anger about being forced to leave the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, and Audubon Society because of their active participation in the poisonous and deadly campaign against non-native plants and animals. Sorry about that.
No need to apologize — as you say, that’s a whole other issue. We are allowed to indulge our anger sometimes – I certainly did in this post. I’m bloody sick and tired of the whole thing. – MW
I’ve often said that one can be a native plant enthusiast without being a native plant fundamentalist…. (ok heard this from Neil Diboll circa 1984….)
Counseling someone to remove invasive shrubs and trees is different from removing non native plants that aren’t invasive. Invasive plants should always be removed and why you seem to have a problem replacing with a native plant is beyond me. Is your Horticulture background preventing you from understanding the science behind native plants and their usefulness?
You’re definitely misusing the term “nativism” if you imagine it applies to gardening. I know what you mean but that’s an offensive conflation. And you have no understanding of the issue of invasive species if you’re only willing to consider the harm of pesticides, and not the harm of tolerating, let alone selling and propagating invasives. You’re being as dogmatic as those you decry by condemning the use of pesticides in all instances. We have to carefully weigh the potential benefits and potential harms of all the tools at our disposal if we want to mitigate the harm we’ve already done.
i think we have to realize that having a “cause” gives meaning to lives and some have seized on the native plant schtick to find that. Those who become zealots like all zealots, can’t see the garden for the so-called weeds.. But the “botany of desire” (taken from title of a great book) will prevail, mankind’s determined intermeddliing be damned.
The bigger world problems that we can’t solve often claim the time we might have given to smaller more personal causes that we could. – MW
Spot on! From here in Northern Colorado – THANK YOU! My yard is a meadow-like half acre blending into the foothills – great place to watch the blown in volunteers from the mountains weave into my planted selections (daylily lover!). Nature ever changing and fascinating! Great post!
Ever fascinating. Thanks Mila. – MW
I have a water garden in my back area with lots of shrubs, perennials, and walkways. In my front area, I have a pathway of Blue Grass and many xeric and Kansas native plants. It took a lot of planning and research and several years of root system growth. I wonder if anyone ever asked the person with the partial native plants if they needed any help. Is this person unable to take care of their garden? Maybe when they started, they had dreams of this becoming a grand space and ran out of means and money to complete this dream. Maybe they are now elderly. The photo makes me want to knock on their door to see if I could do something to help. I love both of my gardens but after the knowledge I have gained from The Kansas University Kansas native Plant department, and now with our critical city water shortage (which could end the life of my Koi Pond), I wonder if that will be the death of my shaded green back area, while my front area thrives.
Connie, you have a kind heart, and perhaps judging a native garden’s success ior lack of such is a premature assessment or due to a number of other factors. Certainly those other factors would also weigh in on the success or lack of with a garden of nonnative plants, and to me, that is the point. It’s not about origins. It’s about good plant selection for that site and meeting establishment needs, no matter what the plant. A garden of nonnative plants selected for tolerance to heat and drought could be more successful than a garden of native plants that prefer cool, moist, shaded sites. In my own landscape, the nonnatives vitex, althea, rosemary and crapemyrtle are unfazed while the native tulip poplars, southern and sweetbay magnolias, flowering dogwoods and blueberries are only alive because I have my own well and can afford to water them adequately. I am sure we both share the goal of supporting our planet and its wildlife and use the tools that work to help cool and normalize our climate. Those tools include both native and nonnative plants. Thank you for being a person that cares.
Certainly any food you grow in your garden is ecologically benenificial (and beneficial to your health) by virtue of that fact that it doesn’t have to be shipped to you, including your rosemary if you use it as a culinary herb. But we should admit that the entirety of the benefit of an exotic ornamental is that it pleases us, not that it contributes significant ecological services, shouldn’t we?
I second Carol’s comment Connie – you have a kind heart. Unfortunately I think many people would be adverse to asking if someone needed help with their garden (as it looked shabby and uncared for) in case they found themselves lectured about wildlife habitats or native plants. In this case, the gardeners are not elderly, they are simply gardening for a cause. – MW
Gardening for a cause is ertainly not the worst pursuit I can imagine. (“averse” in this context, not “adverse”.)
Visited a public garden more than 30 years ago (stunning, well tended) and again last year. It looked like they’d used nativism as an excuse for laziness or budget shortfalls. There often seem to be more $$ for admin and programming than gardening staff.
Thanks for speaking out- both you and your friend with smart questions.
I don’t think my friend knew the affect those questions (and innocence to industry and orthodoxy) affected me. I’ve thought about it for a long time since. This took place a couple years ago, and I’m sad to say that my concern over what I am seeing has only grown. Which is why I wrote about it. –MW
Yer gonna get in troouuble…
But thank you for the rant!
My usual sarcastic ‘defense’ of my yard is “NO! Those are for the Eurasian honey bees that pollinate all of your non native food!”
Wait, what? Oh?!
That look of surprise is priceless.
Also a less aggressive way to open up the discussion past “Native, Good!”
Keep the faith! 🙂
Well, you will too as you’re being so flippant you dirty heretic. Good point about the bees, and the veg, which somehow rarely come up in these discussions. Another inconsistency we should ignore methinks. – MW
Honeybees are not the best at pollinating our non native food. It’s actually the 4,000 different species of native bees we have in the US. The honeybee is not the bee that we native plant lovers are trying to protect at all costs. I’m curious if you were trying to be funny? It came off as ignorant.
The best ‘defense’ should also be factual. Honeybees do not pollinate all of our non-native food (and not all of our food is even non-native), and, what’s more, honeybees, being generalists, do fine with natives anyway.
This site is dedicated to rants, and this post is very much in this spirit. I have followed this issue since Doug Tallamy’s first book about 15 years ago. He marshals a good deal of scientific evidence in support of a preference for native plants, so it would be good to see more scientific evidence demonstrating why his observations are wrong. BTW, Tallamy does not argue for excluding non-natives entirely, but he does explain why native plants are so important. I don’t see this as a “religious” issue but more a question about how best to be a responsible gardener during the brief time that these settings are under my care.
Thank you Ishmael, for trying to be the best steward you can be, and I am another soldier. Like you, I found Tallamy’s mission attractive and have followed his research closely, curious that he was so intent on proving native plant superiority rather than proving which plants provide best in today’s challenging circumstances. My experience as a gardener (I’m old!) jerked my eyebrows upward when I first heard “native insects need native plants” since my mind immediately went to the fennel and parsely so many of us grow for the black swallowtail caterpillars, a specialist insect. I also thought of the thousands of entomologist careers devoted to protecting nonnative crops and ornamentals from insects both native and nonnative and many of them specialists. Taxonomic classification allows us to make note of the many related plants across the globe, so, I concluded, related plants are likely to have the right nutrients, no matter what continent. Of course they all originated on the original land mass of Pangea and only differentiated as they drifted apart, due to differences in climate and topography, so that makes sense. I began to look for evidence of that, and found plenty, even in Tallamy’s own research where nonnatives were occasionally preferred over native. In one, in a side by side of a native compared to closely related nonnative, there was no difference in the 2008 study. In the 2009 study the methods of analysis were changed and lo and behold, this new way of assessing them did demonstrate a preference for native…except in the case of elm, where lacebark elm was preferred over American elm, where a nonnative linden was preferred over a native and a nonnative birch was preferred over a native. If it were my study, I would happily declare these were good additions for us to have more insect rich gardens, but the conclusion of his study was highlighted in its title ….. Burghardt, K. T., D. W. Tallamy, C. Philips, and K. J. Shropshire. 2010. Non-native plants reduce abundance, richness, and host specialization in lepidopteran communities. Ecosphere 1(5):art11. doi:10.1890/ES10-00032.1
It seems to me, a more accurate statement would be that within the species chosen for the study, native species were most often preferred (after he changed the analysis methods, ahem) but three nonnatives were also winners. Let’s also consider that this was a one on one study. If he had compared all native species of maple to all nonnative species of maple, then he could conclude that native maples were preferred, or t…but he did not. He can only say that THIS one native species was superior to THAT one nonnative. Might I find three nonnative species that are superior to native red maple if I looked? Maybe. Why isn’t anyone looking? Forgive my cynicism but I have come to believe it’s because there is big big money in finding reasons to eradicate nonnatives, something like 33 billion dollars annually and money money money drives the research. Dare I mention how much of this is in herbicides? I have several other points to make about how the nonnative versus native research is set up, but not the time or space in this forum. Just be aware that as an academic, I have become painfully aware of how studies are set up to arrive at desired conclusions. Please be a skeptic, and that includes being skeptical of me. I can send you some names and articles that may lead you to others that will provide other interesting viewpoints that challenge the notion of native plant superiority.
Massive hugs- and thanks for the critical advice- be a skeptic!!! More soon, it’s late but wanted to join the conversation, blessings to all.
“Concluding” that related plants are ecologically interchangeable isn’t science. In science, that would be a hypothesis, to be tested. Your certainty of your “conclusion” beforehand is worse than what you accuse Tallamy of, namely trying to skew his testing to get the results he wants. That accusation, like your “conclusion” is baseless.
Respectfully, you’re presenting Tallamy’s research uncharitably. Anyone interested in reading the paper, which addresses many of Carol’s concerns in the discussion, can find it here: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1890/ES10-00032.1
Here’s the low down: the analysis methods were improved in an extremely transparent way. They also did talk about doing similar research with more plant species, and based on the data it would seem that the gap between native and nonnative species would increase (insect diversity on nonnative species reached an asymptote while diversity on native species did not). Lots more I could go into here.
Thank you, Ishmael. There has been a bit too much piling on here for my taste. The fact is, we are undergoing a change in how gardens are grown and seen at a time of planetary crisis. People are understandably feeling the need to do *something*. And I think that it can only be a good thing that many of us are learning about native plants and their linked animal species. Perhaps the more experienced gardeners who subscribe to these rants could help the rest of us learn how to use natives in a way that does not appear lazy or unkempt. I know that doesn’t sound very rant-y, but…
No worries John, you don’t have to have a rant-y comment to comment. And yes, there are many fantastic designers and garden makers out there that use 100% natives and do a damned good job of it. However, the blanket statement “use natives only for biodiversity” that is being shouted with a bullhorn (particularly in Master Gardener circles) gives consumer-gardeners just enough information to create a mess with good intentions, create policy with good intentions and lecture other gardeners with good intentions – and that’s what I’m talking about here.
I don’t think you’re seeing a pile-on here – which would be a lot of people beating up on a commenter (or a writer) for expressing their opinion with civility and respect. I think what you are seeing is a justified common annoyance with a phenomena that has taken over many of our favorite clubs, associations and conferences. -MW
Thank you Ishmael for commenting, and opening up the discussion a little further – and I’m sorry I couldn’t jump in sooner, as I am on the road speaking.
Regarding scientific research on this topic – I have read, and re-read Professor Tallamy’s Nature’s Best Hope and Bringing Nature Home, and have copious notes in the margins of both – especially when he waxes political (!). It has very much opened up new questions for me, and I agree with Carol’s comments here.
We need to look carefully at the research that is NOT being done as well as the research that IS being done – which is alluded to in the tongue in cheek caption on my last photo. This is the extension of what many respected horticulturists and gardeners anecdotally recognize in the gardens they care for, but do not see studied with the same gusto.
As Carol pointed out, we see the phrasing of paper titles and abstracts to accentuate “good” and “evil” plants, and horticulturists mutter in dark corners of restaurants at the end of a conference, but they don’t speak out because they are concerned it might make a difference in their careers or to their networking (or sadly, to friendships) — or they think, “I love many native plants, so what does it matter?”
And it didn’t 15 years ago. But now, as laws are passed and shame is doled out, and money is made, it matters.
There are papers which observe adaptations of native fauna to exotic flora (I link to one on multiflora rose earlier on in the post), but so rarely discussed. Why? Many of us who question the zealotry in nativism in this country are gardeners and horticulturists that value our native flora immensely, but have found themselves silenced in very common sense questions by that zealotry. And I hesitate to say it, but in so many conversations I have had, Professor Tallamy’s name is invoked like a prophet to that same end. I am sure he would not approve of this, as I have it on good authority that he is a good man, but nonetheless, I find it disturbing every time it happens.
You’ll see many assertions of this ‘shaming’ in the comments here – It’s interesting to read them. I’m actually saddened that so many people from so many parts of the country (that I do not know) are indeed feeling the same pressure I feel to conform.
I very much appreciate you commenting and I’m happy to discuss further either here or via email, but I am on the road for the next week, so please forgive my sporadic answers! – MW
I have also read Tallamy’s books and studies. I agree with Carol’s assessment of how his “studies” are designed to reach the conclusion he desires.
There are also many factual errors in his books. For example, in Bringing Nature Home, he claims that many non-native plants are chemically unique and therefore insects are unable to adapt to them. He offers examples of non-native plants and trees which “are not related to any lineage of plants in North America.” One of his examples is the golden rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata). This is the member of the soapberry (Sapindaceae) family to which the soapberry bug has made a transition from a native plant in the soapberry family in less than 100 generations over a period of 20 to 50 years. Professor Tallamy’s other examples of unique non-native plant species are also members of large plant families that contain native members. Professor Tallamy is mistaken in his assumption that most or all non-native plants are unique, with no native relatives.
But my primary criticism of Tallamy’s work is its emphasis on destruction. He encourages gardeners to use herbicides to kill non-native plants, which he calls “chemotherapy.” Please read this article about the deadly dogma that Tallamy promotes: https://milliontrees.me/2023/07/10/dana-milbank-how-i-learned-to-love-toxic-chemicals/
Well, Mary, if you think you know better than Doug Tallamy, please publish, and good luck! (By the way, I’m perfectly aware that some non-natives are closely related to natives. I’m sure Tallamy is not clueless enough to assume otherwise. Also, an instance where a native insect has made the transition to a non-native plant can be observed by anyone who’s seen a native swallowtail caterpillar on a non-native dill plant. But those are the exceptions. Tallamy talks about that.)
It seems you’re focused on one issue–pesticides. It’s a huge concern but it’s not the only one.
Thank you for your comment. Marianne seems not to understand these obvious points.
I’ve heard Doug Tallamy speak at a Master Gardener conference last year and was so impressed that I bought his book. He’s a voice of reason in the wilderness of “native plant only” crowds. We can have our cake and eat it too.
He is a talented speaker. – MW
Yes, he is a talented speaker and has a great mission, but the problem is that he has NOT come out against native purism. He has NOT added great nonnatives to his recommendations for supporting lepidoptera. He has NOT spoken out about the dangers of ripping out well adapted nonnatives that serve wildlife well.
Why has he not geared his research to find the BEST plants regardless of origins instead of trying to prove nonnative plants don’t serve as well. Why would he not design research to determing which NATIVE plants are “bad” for Lepidoptera. Then we could spend billions of dollars to eradiate NATIVE plants that aren’t shown to be useful.
That’s fair, Carol, he hasn’t. But I do think Dr. Tallamy’s work and message really is a result of a pendulum swung hard to one side, and indeed into a place where we find things crumbling ecologically speaking (40% less insects since I was born!) and to find the ‘middle’ , oftentimes, a hard swing in the opposite direction is required before that can occur.
I found your thoughtful comment really interesting. I think Tallamy has done great work and definitely has added to the number of people who now make connections to native plants and native insects. I however think we need to be careful to distinguish between non native and invasive. There is NOT a movement to remove non native plants. But there are most certainly grass root groups removing invasive plants. But in my experience it’s absolutely without the use of herbicides. I don’t see big money in invasive removal. Just the opposite, garden centers and growers are still profiting off of invasives like Barberry and Winged Euonymous. I think we do need to allow room though for the beneficial non native plants like you mentioned to be a part of the conversation.
I’ve spoken with Doug many times and he does decry native purism. He clearly says that there is no need to go 100% native and there’s no need to remove non-invasive non-native plants that you love or that are productive for native fauna. What he does advocate for is, if you have a choice between planting a new native plant and a new non-native, choose the native. Choose a keystone species over one that supports only a very few species.
His primary goal is the conversion of useless non-native turf grass lawns into productive native plant gardens or meadows. Does anyone argue that those are more beneficial than mowed turf grass?
There’s a pretty good reason why Tallamy doesn’t recommend non-natives to support lepidoptera. That is that they support very few. And I can think of a good reason that he hasn’t come out against native plant purism. And that is it’s very difficult to find such a purist. Most gardens that do include natives also include non-natives.
You obviously are not aware of this but gearing his studies to determine which plants are the best plants for wildlife, without respect to origins, is exactly what he HAS done. And what he’s found is that some natives are better than others, and all are better than non-natives. You might want to familiarize yourself with what he actually says before setting up absurd straw men.
Agreed! Very well said.
Many good points, most of which I agree with. Up to this point: there are so many non-native species that have made their way into our lives, and some of them are downright bullies. Kudzu is a classic example of a plant that has damaged many thousands of acres of native trees, but the same can be said of several other invasive vines, like porcelainberry vine, which can grow an impressive 30 feet in a single season. Yes, birds eat the pretty berries, but they can’t digest them so they excrete them randomly wherever they fly, spreading the joy for others. I’ve been battling this monster for five years, and it’s a losing battle, largely because it’s a new invasive that has not been on most homeowners’ radar so far. At some point plants like this vine, and Lesser Celandine, which is choking the woods near my home and drowning out the native spring ephemerals, will end up giving us a monoculture we are not going to like very much.
Some non-natives play nicely, but some don’t.
What you might be describing is what ecologists call a novel ecosystem in disturbed habitat where plant communities are freely comprised of both introduced and native plant species. It is anything but a monoculture and studies have shown these areas can be massively beneficial for biodiversity.
It is nature reinventing itself in real time, as has always, always been the case.
Indeed, Tony. Nature chooses what works. It’s human arrogance to tell her we know best (as we hypocritically devour our meals of nonnative foods in a nation built on the wealth created by nonnative crops.)
Sure, Tony. Over eons. We don’t have time to let novel ecosystems evolve into something that supports anywhere near the diversity of established ecosystems.
Hi Karen, here’s an excellent article that you may be interested in. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kudzu-vine-ate-south-180956325/ When we are battling these invasive vines on our own property it feels so overwhelming, but on a larger canvas, there is often more perspective, and predators…eventually. Time is an important element of this entire discussion. – MW
Yes, time is very important. What we’re talking about when proposing we let nature fix the damage we have done to her (by introducing kudzu for example) is more time than we have.
Amen to that, Marianne. There is nothing morally wrong with planting non-invasive adapted plants that bring people joy or serve a purpose. I would add that the homeowner associations that require the use of non-natives to skirt foundations are equally as obnoxious as nativist moralists. Absoluteism is not how we encourage people to become joyful gardeners.
Yes, I totally agree Jenny. But you know how I feel about HOAs 🙂 – MW
Such a timely, courageous and beautifully written piece M! I’m full of admiration.
Thank you Charles. Plowing through comments at Way-Too-Late-Oclock and that’s a lovely sentiment to come across in my cross-eyed stupor. xoMW
I’ll make the same comment here as I did on Ben’s post: folks look for rules as a substitute for thinking. 🙂
It’s much easier to lay blanket rules (“natives are good, anything else is bad”) than to actually sit and observe and think and weigh things out for what they actually are. I get it, we’re all tired after a long workday and many people don’t realize how cognitively intensive gardening can be. It’s even worse when you encounter sanctimonious types who want to preach about this-and-that, and you know that they’re at least partially right.
It’s tough, but it’s worth taking the time to reconcile all these competing things. I fall on the side of gardening first for myself, secondly for the environment, and I am not at all dogmatic about natives, though I do include them. I agree with you that “native only” spaces are often not what I would call gardens.
I agree Sarah, blanket rules are way too easy for complex systems. Thanks for the comment. – MW
Thank you, Marianne. I am learning about natives and I am grateful. I’m also at peace now that I have removed myself from social groups that harass. I will continue to plant what pleases me aesthetically, and is willing to grow in my space. I am fortunate to have enough room for both
But how idiotic and wrong that you should have to remove yourself from a gardening group simply because you feel differently. I truly wonder if many of these fanatics have ceased to believe that there is an opposing viewpoint because a) they are so strident; and, b) most people don’t want the confrontation – on Facebook, at the dinner party – at the conference. Enough of that over a long enough period of time and the nativists might just come to the conclusion that everyone is of the same [right] opinion – after all, no one’s speaking up. Keep gardening for joy my dear! – MW
Excellent ranting, Marianne. Where I might differ is in the appreciation of wilder style gardens that despite outward appearances, are in fact, very much designed and tended but just not in a traditionally manicured manner. This is still something relatively new and worth aspiring to.
At their most purposeful, such wilder gardens can provide meaningful habitat in urban environments, as much for the structural complexity of their plantings, as anything related to the provenance of the plants.
They can also be breathtakingly beautiful.
Without doubt, the zeitgeist has shifted this way over the past generation – first in Europe and the UK and latterly in the US, Canada, right down to Australia and New Zealand. The best examples are design aware. Here in North America, many of us are still stuck on the righteousness of the ingredients vs. actually cooking up the recipe for a garden. And aye, there’s the rub;-)
Ah, but we’ve walked enough gardens together (and soon to walk more in Asheville), and discussed gardens enough that you know I love a wild design. And I hope you recognize that I am drawing a very definitive line between good design and good intentions. That’s the difficulty with these posts – there is so very much to be said and clarified, but I’m pushing the word count as it is. So, a huge YES! to those designs that make my heart soar and my mouth fall open, but I really don’t want to walk through another “native plant garden” that is simply a meadow of scattered seed. Nor will I pretend that the latter is equal to the former. See you in Asheville! – MW
As one commenter mentioned I too garden for myself first! I certainly include plenty of natives but even if I didn’t I would not care what others had to say about my yard and gardens. Perhaps I am lucky that I live in a rural area – so I have no neighbors walking by to give opinions nor do I have a home owners association – thank goodness!!
I also agree with another commenter – finally a rant that is actually a rant!! Thank you!
Gardening for oneself, what a novel concept these days! Keep it up, I have a feeling you’re doing a lot of good elsewhere too. Thank you. – MW
I know lots of life-long gardeners and gardening communicators who’ve felt the sting of attacks from judgey purists and are sick of it. Public gardeners, while working, are criticized by visitors for growing plants the visitor doesn’t approve of. Same for visitors to private gardens (I can attest.) I’ve heard reports of ugly divisions within garden clubs caused by the same extremism. It’s sad and disheartening to see so much fighting within the plant world, even among people who agree on 95 percent but that other 5 percent (strict nativist purity) somehow makes them enemies.
Hi Susan,
Sigmund Freud identified this syndrome, describing it as “the narcissism of small differences”. I rather think that shoe fits here.
I have also been told that I am exaggerating the issue and being too sensitive (mostly by those who a) have a dog in the fight; or b) want to ignore any possibility of confrontation. Had I written this post 10 years ago, when I first picked up the faint whiff of Puritanism, perhaps, but now? No way. Too many professionals I know (including you) are fed up to the back teeth with it. Thanks for the comment Susan, and for all you do to bring this issue to the public’s notice. – MW
Native species evangelism seems to have been a backlash to the highly manicured, chemically-managed non-native landscaping of the 1950s-60s, and I think climate change may be ushering us into more reflective, science-led choices in our gardens now. But ultimately, each gardener has their own motivations (as the comments here suggest), and as Carol pointed out, nature has the last word. I’m just happy so many people like to grow things in their space!
I think you may have a very good point there Anne – MW
Agree, Anne. I mentioned the same. I live in a town in AB Canada that I just getting the first introduction to natives now. So no one has really had time to get exposed to the purist aspect. They’re a bit behind the rest of the world. This is a topic relationally subjective to how integrated trends/ideas have become.
Saying what you said shouldn’t require bravery, but it absolutely does these days. So, thank you for your bravery! I see the natives fundamentalism online and here in our local native plant group, which I had been a member of for decades. Since I started gardening nearly 40 yrs ago, I have always appreciated and included many native plants (which has certainly gotten easier to source in recent years) in my gardens. As a wildlife biologist for many years, one thing I focus on in my home garden is its usefulness to wildlife. But I see habitat value in many plants, not just native ones, and I also value beauty (to my human eyes & other senses) in garden settings (which are, of course, different than wild/natural settings). However, in recent years, I started to feel like a heretic when at the native plant group’s events and outings, because I don’t subscribe to the current dogma that our gardens should all be wholly or mostly native plants. I do not appreciate being proselytized or shamed for advocating more inclusive gardens –using natives AND non-natives (as long as they aren’t invasive in the particular area one gardens in). As a result, I have “dropped out” of the group’s activities, though I absolutely support incorporating native plants in our gardens and, of course, protecting native habitats and engaging in restoration of native habitats.
I am genuinely saddened to hear that you have dropped out of groups that could use your perspective, but I completely understand. Thanks for sharing your experience. – MW
Marianne, You are onto us! The native plant movement is secretly a cult! I was indoctrinated by the High Priest himself, Dr. Doug Tallamy back in 2007 when I first read “Nature’s Best Hope.”
The cult is rapidly gaining converts because we don’t have to welcome any pesky “foreigners.” Plus we get to sit back in our repurposed car seats with a cold brew of Sambuca Kombucha and let our no-mow lawns do ALL the work.
Gee, I wish it was that easy.
Marianne, there’s a lot to unpack in your Garden Rant, but I fear that no one will read this because it requires a bit of science (no religious indoctrination required!).
So I’ll begin with the points where we do agree: I HATE untidy gardens.
Your first example is a home garden that clearly doesn’t care much about design or how the plants are edging into the street, interfering with pedestrians or car sight lines.
You imply that ugly, neglected yards are the native garden norm.
My husband is an architect. I’m a media maker. We love design and beautiful things. That’s why our native garden is an intentionally designed space with clear edging, paths that invite exploration, plenty of seating. We don’t plant tall native plants close to the sidewalk or street. We get plenty of compliments from our neighbors who say they choose our street for walks because of our beautifully designed garden.
You chose another example of what looks like a public garden space with a straight mowed path through the center. Another design failure! Unfortunately, most people encounter native plants in spaces like this: large rectangles of meadow set aside by towns; poorly managed other than a bi-weekly mow of a boring, straight path. Put up a “pollinator habitat” sign and call it done.
Large rectangular, unbearable-in-the-summer meadows with no shade or seating and the threat of ticks do NOT help people fall in love with native plants. [Of course I’m glad that any effort to support biodiversity exists. And I know town budgets are limited.]
So what made me a “fanatic” native gardener? There was no puritanical conversion event. And it was years before I read any of Dr. Tallamy’s books.
It started with clear-eyed scientific facts:
• Native plants are the basis for a healthy ecosystem.
• Native plants co-evolved with other species.
• Where I live in New Jersey the mix of native plants and the species that depend on them co-evolved since the last ice age about 10-thousand years ago.
• Plants from outside an ecosystem’s region do not have the same checks and balances on them (they are not edible).
• Some exotic plants can be beneficial (hello agriculture!)
• Some exotic plants have so few checks on their growth that they invade an ecosystem to such an extent that they outcompete the native plants that are part of a region’s web of life. These plants are called invasive.
But don’t ask scientists how this all works. Ask wildlife. How are they adapting?
Birds, insects and other wildlife are declining in astonishing numbers. According to conservation scientist, Ken Rosenberg and his team at the Cornell Lab or Ornithology, the population of North American birds alone has dropped nearly 30% since 1970.
Marianne, you says native plant gardeners are against diversity….but you’re omitting a big fact: evolution is slow as….
… the retreat of a glacier. Where I live, New Jersey, the mix of plants and animals ave been co-evolutionary partners since the last ice age, about ten thousand years ago. {https://www.usgs.gov/youth-and-education-in-science/cenozoic}
Sure an exotic plant can have some benefits (after all we once all shared the same continent. No immigration in Pangea!
But the heavy lifting of supporting an ecosystem is done by native plants.
I began to garden back in 2011 after years working as a media producer for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It was my job to translate the scientific research into compelling media. I made plenty of videos that made the connection between biodiversity loss and habitat loss.
So back in 2011 when I first began to garden I chose to garden with native plants. Simple, rational decision.
I completely fell in love with native plants as soon as they began to attract birds, butterflies, bees, dragonflies, lighting bugs. That happened really quick too! Bird finds caterpillars and nest where there used to be a rectangle of lawn. It fills me with wonder to be connected to birds and other wildlife like that.
And gee, there is no need to be a beauty-hating puritan. Any gardener would be proud to grow beautiful Cardinal flower, New Jersey Tea or Sweet pepper bush…just a few of the beauties blooming right now in my garden.
I hope Garden Rant is more supportive of native plant gardening in the future.
Sarah, I am glad that you find wonder in our natural world and chose to become a gardener. However, I’m afraid you will not win me over when you begin in the assumption that few people will read your comment because it requires a bit of science. How exquisitely condescending. And that, fundamentally, is the problem.
When your conclusion is the premise of your argument, you’ve got circular reasoning on your hands. You might want to go back and look at your list of ‘cold hard facts’ and take out a few.
Native plant gardeners are not against diversity. They want diversity on their own terms, using lines they have laid, with species they recognize to be good and just, and by taking human beings completely out of the planetary equation. How far back shall we go Sarah? 10,000 years? 100,000 years? 1 million years? More Sarah? I trust you don’t mind me using your first name, you seem to use mine a fair bit.
I think you have completely missed the point of my entire post, and indeed of the numerous commenters from all over the country (who I did not cajole, or solicit) who feel shamed and judged in their gardening by people…well, by people like you Sarah, as you have so aptly demonstrated. – MW
I don’t travel in garden clubs. Not my world. Most people I know wouldn’t know a native plant from a hole in the wall.
Naturally we can’t know what the world will be like without us. But I do know my native plant garden is full of life. And yes it’s a garden. I maintain it vigorously, whether it matches certain aesthetic criteria or not. I intervene as an upright primate. Oh and I do have peonies and verbena and a few others.
The suspicions about Tallamy’s motives I find odd. Is the idea that all the big money in plant science is about natives, so that’s why he argues as he does? And I say, too: hmmmm…
I’m surrounded by lawns and pesticides. And people who are utterly uninterested in this issue. Lawns and the familiar are big business. I hardly think we’re confronting a native plant corporate takeover. And trees are coming down around me to make way for development, not because native plant mavens with torches are chasing innocents admiring their peonies.
We have big problems to solve. Here’s to too much enthusiasm for doing the right thing when for all intents and purposes we’ve lost the ecological battle.
Yes! Good comment. If anything, promoting native plants and straight species instead of cultivars is the opposite of anyone making money. And why would an entomologist have anything in the game?
If anyone feels shamed and judged, they are missing the big idea. Either that, or the shoe fits and they don’t want to wear it. It’s not about us, it’s about the insects and birds. Native plant enthusiasts are some of the nicest most willing to educate, encourage, and help people I have ever met, and they’re all about the end goal, not shaming people.
That’s been my experience too Lianne.
Sarah I applaud your love of providing sustenance in our gardens and fully agree, as this has been a principle that has guided my landscape choices for decades. May I ask you to take a deep breath and give a clear eyed look at some of your statements? Marianne did state that some native plant gardens are well designed, and I am glad to hear yours is one of those, but more importantly, let’s take a look at the sustenance issues and see if your statements are accurate. Also please read my response to Ishmael above.
SG• Native plants co-evolved with other species.
Let’s make this a more accurate statement. All plants co-evolve with other species. You mentioned Pangea, and surely realize that many plants and insects on other continents are still closely related, and as long as the proper nutrition is still in that plant, it can serve those insects. Even Tallamy’s (et al) research states this and if you like contact me for links to those journal articles. I wonder if you grow fennel and parsley for black swallowtail caterpillars, for example?
SG• Where I live in New Jersey the mix of native plants and the species that depend on them co-evolved since the last ice age about 10-thousand years ago.
Yes, and how many times did the plant and animal palette change and co-evolve over that time? Are you able to say that NOW is the only correct relationship of co-evolving species, or is it always and always will be a moving target as it has been for aeons?
SG • Plants from outside an ecosystem’s region do not have the same checks and balances on them (they are not edible).
NOT edible? Someone should tell the thousands of entomologists with careers in defending plants native and nonnative from insects native and nonnative! Perhaps if you had a garden with nonnatives you would observe with your own eyes, the evident bountiful edibility of nonnative plants. I should qualify that by saying SOME nonnative plants are edible just as only SOME native plants are edible to insects. Again, a lifetime spent observing wild spaces would confirm this, and again, Tallamy’s research confirms that he et al found that only 14% of the native plants in our wilds support caterpillars, the celebrated choice of birds.
SG • Some exotic plants can be beneficial (hello agriculture!)
CR Gee thanks. Yes, okay for us to eat exotic plants but not okay for insects?
SG• Some exotic plants have so few checks on their growth that they invade an ecosystem to such an extent that they outcompete the native plants that are part of a region’s web of life.
CR Yes, some do, I have also had to rip out some native plants that were destroying my web of biodiversity. However, many studies are now showing that insects are adapting even to those aggressive nonnatives, which brings me to another point that we were taught, and now know is not true. Evolution does NOT move at glacier speed. Evolution moves quickly, especially at the insect level. I will attach links at your request and hope you will doubt me and pursue the researchers that study this fascinating and fastmoving issue.
A statement of yours that is absolutely true is that our insects are in calamitous decline! Frighteningly so, but surely you must accede that nonnative plants in our gardens are scapegoats in our gardens as compared to overdevelopment, pollution, pesticide use, loss of wild areas, etc., especially if you consider the proven edibility of many of the nonnatives, and the nonedibility of the majority of the natives!.
My hope is that we all bond on using the best plants to provide for our collapsing food webs NO MATTER THEIR ORIGINS. It’s crucial that we stop eradicating useful nonnatives, that we stop spending billions in herbicide to eradicate useful nonnatives that our wildlife has found extremely useful, nonnatives that have demonstrated their adaptability to our current stressful overpopulated environment, andwe should fight the purists that are choosing native plant dogma OVER wildlife needs.
Lastly, if you think nativist fervor is exaggerated? I’ve been accused of not caring about wildlife, only about commercial sales of exotic plants, of working for “big turf, big hort or Monsanto” because of my pleas to use all plants that work for a better climate. I have been “dis-invited” to speak at a large conference because the nativist crowd promised to rally a boycott of attendance if I were one of the speakers. I have lost three friends over the years that refused to defend my character, though they knew me as a lifelong lover and supporter of wildlife and preservation of wild spaces.They all owned native plants nurseries and I had sent them innumerable customers over the years. That hurt.
It’s important that you take a moment to note that what Marianne described is what hiappened when she posted this Rant. While many lifelong gardeners agreed with her including those who are the biggest players in the native plant movement (research Dale Hendricks background for example, you and others denigrated her stance.
Marianne knew this would happen. She felt compelled to speak out, knowing it put her in the line of fire. Veering back into the world of politics, I hope everyone reading this has the courage to speak up even when it is difficult. I hope we have decided we call out anyone who is discriminatory. America is supposed to be about judging individuals on their merits, not on their origins. Lump statements are prejudiced statements whether about plants or people.
A few links for your perusal and I hope you will pursue more in your efforts to best benefit our planet.
https://www.nature.com/articles/474153a
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0509279102
https://sutroforest.com/2012/08/14/insects-dont-prefer-native-plants/
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1890/es10-00032.1
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19565-4
Everyone knows non-native members of the Carrot Family support native Swallowtail Butterflies. But that is exceptional, and native Apiaceae would do just as well. Grow dill if you want to use it yourself, otherwise look for the native host, and chances are you’ll have something rare (in gardens at least) and wonderful.
Everyone who knows anything about plants understands that plants have relatives on other continents. But the relative is usually not as beneficial to wildlife as the native is. A European oak will not host nearly the number of species as an American oak in its native range. (We can expect the opposite also to be true: An American oak planted in Europe will also not be as supportive to local wildlife as a European one planted in its range.)
You seem to be quite oblivious of one of the chief selling points of exotic ornamentals–that they are “pest resistant”. Yes, that means inedible to our native insects. Citing exceptions does not disprove this point because the exceptions are relatively few. Oh, and our own studies do show that evolution moves too slowly for us to benefit from not undertaking to reverse some of the damage we’ve done to our ecosystems by introducing exotics, some of which have become invasive. Plants that have been here for four hundred years STILL host only a tiny number of species, if any. Again, exceptions don’t disprove this because there are very few of them.
Landscapes with no native plants provide almost no habitat to native insects. This is simply an empirically observable fact. Pesticides are a huge problem too, but native insects still need habitat. Like you, I hope we all use the plants best suited for our objectives. When the objective is feeding ourselves, we’ll probably have to keep using a lot of non-natives. Where the objective is the provision of habitat we already know native plants are best and it’s not even close. You’re quite mistaken in continuing to insist that there are non-native plants in significant numbers that are as useful to wildlife as natives, or that there are natives that are useless.
“Nativists” is a term for xenophobes, not ecologists, and your misuse of that term is ignorant and offensive.
I love your response and couldn’t agree more. I’m a garden designer and I use plenty of native plants and can still create a curated, aesthetically pleasing space. So yes, to your point, we can have the best of both worlds and still create healthy habitats and build gardens that support food webs, and have beautiful native (or mostly native) gardens.
Sarah,
You wrote a thoughtful reply. Thank you. Neither Marianne nor GardenRant is “against” natives or Doug Tallamy. The irritation appears to be, instead, about being lectured with moral overtones. Your reply wanders into that neighborhood.
John
John, I know that GardenRant is not against natives. My comment was to point out two things: 1) not all native gardens are ugly, 2) scientific evidence (and the decline of wildlife) show that native plants better
support our ecosystems. No moralizing. I Even tried a bit of humor. —Sarah
You did, and your points were excellent.
S.,
Thanks. 1) is acknowledged. My guess is that a well-designed and maintained native garden takes just as much thought and maintenance as a traditional garden.
My second guess is that there are MANY causes of the decline in wildlife. The imputation that gardeners planting non-natives is a root cause is, is . . . well, I wish to remain civil.
And, evolution has not stopped. And, with climate change, we may find that non-native variations become essential for us, for some wildlife., and for gardeners in the future.
While well-intentioned and including humor, your thoughts feel like a lecture. Irritation with being lectured seemed to me to be a thread among responses to Marianne’s article.
I agree John, the decline in wildlife over the last 70 years cannot be primarily attributable to the “loss” of native plants if that loss apparently began 500 years ago. Welcome to complex systems. – MW
Yes!!! The loss of biodiversity/insects/native plants has much more to do with herbicides/agriculture++++ than it does with exotic plants+++ PS Love the “Welcome to complex systems”!! note re: I implore people to “resist authoritarian oversimplification” re: Health, landscape, cows, fire, Carbon+++ PPS I just spoke on a bit of this at the 40th anniversary conference of Native Plants in the Landscape in Cullowhee (Western Carolina University) Perhaps chat sometime? Blessings
Thanks for all this input Dale, and for all you do (and have done WAY before it was cool) to celebrate this palette of plants. Yes, I’d very much like to chat sometime soon. – MW
The decline of insects can certainly be attributed to a loss of habitat. That’s not even controversial. The native plant movement invites us to make up for some of that loss in a gratifying way. It’s not about selling books or shaming Marianne Willburn, and you’d have to be pretty cynicle to ween that it is.
Well said.
Sarah, I loved your thoughtful reply to this ridiculous article. However, the point needs to be made that the vast majority of insects cannot reproduce successfully on non-native plants. Do those of you who think it’s all a moral argument understand that? It’s called science.
This is the key reason for having a majority of natives in our yards and gardens. And the difference between simply a beneficial garden and a truly biodiverse habitat that supports the entire lifecycle of insects and everything that depends upon them.
Our gardens, and the plants we select to put in them, can serve many purposes. We should choose wisely – it is not mutually exclusive to choose natives OR aesthetics. And in regards to what one person finds beautiful, another may not. Personally I much prefer the “ugly” and “messy” native garden of the “lazy” gardener to my neighbor’s cropped, sterile, monoculture lawn that he spends countless hours on. Not to mention all the pollution from the mowers, trimmers, blowers, fertilizers and pesticides used to keep it that way.
I am willing to listen to those who maintain a 100% native mindset and am also willing to look at what the plant breeders are coming up with to counter so many pests and diseases that are wreaking havoc on beneficial plants. The science so far says (in most cases) that the straight natives are usually more attractive to pollinators. And more significantly the biochemical analysis of the nectar and pollen shows that a few cultivars are of equal nutritional value. Unfortunately most cultivars have lost some of their sugar, fat, or protein content compared the straight species. So while science continues to expand the understanding of plants I continue to gravitate to straight species as much as possible. But there are some non native ornamentals that earn their place for other reasons: food, shade, moisture retention, emotional attachment, or just plain too gorgeous to not include. Room for a bit of each.
Grow well, and be well.
The trouble I have with this is that most cultivars in the native plant trade are selected for things like growth habit and size, to make it easier to include in gardens, without compromising their usefulness to pollinators. While I’d never advocate for using cultivars in a restoration project, there are some good ones for gardens. I think it’s a disservice to say they’re all bad.
Jeri, I think what you meant to say is, “It’s called Science™ ” The kind of science where we stop testing hypotheses, adopt a narrative, narrow our studies, find our tribe, and berate those who disagree with us. A very different scientific approach than most of us are comfortable with. – MW
Why are insects finding such difficulties in the USA when they don’t in the UK? Is it perhaps because they need time to adapt to different plants?
Personally I don’t know. I’m not a scientist. But I’m delighted that we have adaptable ones here.
This problem is world-wide.
I am battling bittersweet and wisteria for the forest and garden that surrounds me, as well. That, and because I feel responsible for having introduced them! Our property will be passed on to our sons and grandchildren, and I don’t want these vines pulling down trees through the generations.
This is a rant in the worst sense of the word–contrived, dishonest, slanted, and misrepresenting both the science and the state of things in the gardening world. It is totally lacking in nuance. The casting of native plant advocacy as religious fervor is offensive. Plus, the weak and incoherent attempt to evoke evolution in defense of humans moving plants from continent to continent is laughable. The following organizations all stress the importance of planting native species in our gardens: The Smithsonian Institution, The Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy, The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, The National Wildlife Federation, The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, and The United States Fish and Wildlife Services, to name just a few. All Science-based, not deliberately seeking out specific examples to “prove” a point. I’m sorry if some people think a garden’s only function is ornamentation and are offended by any plant or planting that does not fit into their aesthetic. I’m sorry if the Asian Plant Apologists feel bad when someone tells them that their beloved crape myrtle is a food web non-contributor. I’m sorry if the complexity of these issues send you screaming and running to your computer to fabricate a screed that avoids deep thought. I’m even sorry I read this–it wasn’t worth my time.
In defense of our non-native urban forest in a place that would otherwise be treeless, there is one particular argument native plant advocates use that betrays their ignorance. They are typically proud of the fact that they don’t read any criticism of their dogma.
In fact, some are even proud of their reliance on their astute observational skills, which don’t require any reading. Defenders of our non-native urban forest were called liars by a native plant advocate in a public meeting, so we read directly from the published “management plan” in defense of our objections. The accuser replied, “I haven’t read the plan and I don’t intend to. We know what to do and we just want to be left alone to do it.”
I have attended every conference of the California Native Plant Society and the California Invasive Plant Council for the past 10 years and I read all of their publications. I have given them every opportunity to convince me that what they are doing is benefiting the environment and its inhabitants. More often than not, the message is about the failure of their projects, some after over 20 years of effort and thousands of gallons of herbicide.
If you decide to read anything about this controversy, please start with reading about evolution, which will ultimately ensure the survival of life on Earth. Otherlands would be a good start: https://milliontrees.me/2024/03/01/let-evolution-lead-the-way-to-adaptation-and-survival-of-life/
What a shame then Jacquelyn that you wasted further time fabricating apologies. I have found through the years, and after having children, that the phrase, “I am sorry if…” rarely represents contrition, or the ability to see an issue through the eyes of another. It is a statement instead of self-righteousness and obstinacy.
I can assure you the post is not fabricated, or dishonest. My friend is real. Our walk was real.
And looking at the comments of so many others all over the country, they too feel the affects of this Puritanism deeply. That does not make them haters of native plants, or wild gardens, or planetary ecology, or the many concerns we feel as gardeners facing a changing climate.
For too long our concerns, expressed in more nuanced terms, were ignored. I no longer have interest in making nuanced arguments. I will be clear. It is obvious that many parts of this movement have taken on a religious bent, and I utterly reject such hive-,mind thinking. -MW
Yep – I’m sorry I read your comment. Discussion and understanding go down the plug hole when abuse moves in.
It’s coming to a country near you too Anne. The UK’s discussions of native flora reminds me of ours 10 or 15 years ago. –MW
SO agree. I commented, too.
I burst out laughing. This proves Marianne’s point so very, very well that I wonder if this is a crafty bit of satire.
Jacquelen M.,
It’s called “GardenRant”, not “GardenTantrum”.
Tastes great! Less filling! Tastes great! Less filling!….IT IS BOTH! IT IS BOTH! Come on folks, there is room for BOTH. There is room for natives and non-natives. Messy and meticulously tidy. Variety! Our real attention needs to focus on the overwhelming majority of yards that are nothing but a bare lawn. No trees, no shrubs of any kind. Nothing!
BINGO!
And making a transition from one to the other might involve…BOTH!
Yes, of course there is room for both! I have no objection to native plants. I encourage everyone to plant whatever they wish. I am only asking that native plant advocates quit destroying everything they don’t like on public land that is owned by everyone, particularly using pesticides.
I have several neighbors who are native plant advocates. Their yards are butt-ugly about 9 months of the year. That is their business. I wouldn’t dream of criticizing their preferences, yet they are happy to lecture me about my choices.
I went to the website where you advocate against what’s happening in San Fran, and I observed that you never reply to comments noting possible misrepresentations of what’s occurring. Why?
I agree with Anne, BINGO. Thanks Greg. – MW
Whoa! A rant??? No…just insults based on ????? I sure hope you never go to the High Line (that is in Manhattan, the island in the big city in New York State) or Lurie Garden (you may need smelling salts) smack dab in the center of Chicago in Illinois.
As a gardener and designer and author and lecturer – – and decades-long supporter of the National Wildlife Federation – – I will certainly ignore this post and not share.
Well, I assume that Pope Leo X didn’t share Martin Luther’s 95 Theses either, so it’s not a terrible loss.
I will close my eyes to your condescension and share a quick aside — The brilliance of Lurie and the High Line have much to do with a thoughtful, exceptionally talented designer who looked (and looks) at the function and form of the plants that he uses to bring joy to both two-legged and multi-legged visitors.
You will not find an all native palette in either, but an exceptional response to the wounds of industrial development that champions pioneering species and expands human consciousness. – MW
I’m a designer who cares very much about aesthetics especially when I’m using all native plants in a design. I also don’t think when people let aggressive native plants grow in the hell strip we should celebrate that. But I did find your article to be very divisive, and made sweeping generalizations. So while I usually don’t agree with native plant purists, I certainly side more with them after reading your article. Tom Christopher’s response was spot on.
Wow, who thought a gardening opinion column could stir up so much angst and hostility? I naively thought those emotions were mostly elicited by discussions of pesticide use and whether nandina berries poison birds. Regardless of the movement to push the “native plants only” crusade, I will continue to cherish my peonies, roses, lilacs, foxgloves, macrophylla hydrangeas and much more in my cottage garden on our 25 acres of 99% natives. I garden for my satisfaction and love of beauty. I have integrated many more natives into the cottage garden but I have no regrets about including the non-natives that I love as long as they aren’t thugs. I don’t understand why this approach can be seen as detrimental to the ecosystem. We have a multitude of birds, frogs and toads, gray and also beautiful snow white squirrels, iridescent dragonflies, newts, butterflies, moths, and even the amazing and rare blue ghost fireflies in our Blue Ridge mountain cove. Right now, I’m porch-sittin’ and watching hummingbirds feed from hosta blooms, bright goldfinches on the purple coneflowers and verbena bonariensis, and a spotted fawn nibbling the torenia (ugh!).
I also support the NWF, the Nature Conservancy, and other environmental organizations, but I’m not a soldier. I’m a passionate gardener and Extension Master Gardener of many years, an experienced beekeeper (also not native insects to the U.S.) and a retired public health and nursing professional. I know how to read and vett science publications. That said, I’m not a botanist, entymologist or biologist. I do my best to be a responsible caretaker of our acreage and the planet, but I refuse to apologize for my inclusion of some plants whose beauty makes my heart sing. I don’t understand how intolerance for that approach can be so intense.
Because it has crossed the line into religiosity Barbara. Thank you very much for your comment and for your work nurturing and celebrating this beautiful world. – MW
Ms. Hobens,
I’m puzzled. Really. And, sincerely.
Piet Oudolf’s gardens represent the best, IMHO, in naturalistic design incorporating both native and non-native plants . . . no orthodoxy in play. The maintenance of the High Line and Lurie is meticulous. These gardens seem to me to be exactly what I believe Marianne was, by implication, favoring.
I don’t understand why you perceive insults or antagonism. Or, is it that I am missing what you are saying?
Regards,
John
Thank you so much…. whe I read the words “xenophobia” and “religiosity”, I smacked the counter and hollered…. I have been called so many names, my very existence bewitched by the “faithful” for years, now, for talking about this…. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy reading *sound ecological perspectives and common sense* as opposed to what I now refer to as “The Doctrine of Invasives”. Can we petition David Theodoropoulos to get another print of “Pseudoscience” out? I had to scratch and claw to get a copy and several other people have asked where they can find one for under $100….
*besmirched… not bewitched… thank you autocorrect 😉
Although David Theodoropoulos wrote the first critique of invasion biology in 2003, many others have been published since. Here are some I can recommend:
Fred Pearce, The New Wild, Beacon Press, April 2015
Mark Davis, Invasion Biology, Oxford University Press, 2009 (written for academic scientists)
Emma Marris, Rambunctious Garden, Bloomsbury, 2011
Ken Thompson, Where do camels belong?, Greystone Books, 2014
Tao Orion, Beyond the War on Invasive Species, Chelsea Green Publishing,, 2015 (with an emphasis on the use of pesticides in the war)
Chris Thomas, Inheritors of the Earth, Public Affairs, 2017 (with an emphasis on climate change)
Sonia Shah, The Great Migration: Life on the Move, Bloomsbury, 2020
BTW, I have read an equal number of books/article/studies by native plant advocates and academic invasion biologists. It’s only fair.
Thanks Mary – I heartily recommend Fred Pearce’s The New Wild. He is an investigative environmental journalist who does what few do – goes back to places that were the poster children for invasive horror stories 25 and 30 years ago and documents the adaptations that have happened since. Fascinating — humans get so caught up in both the now and the modeled future that we forget to go back and see if we were right after all. Easier to move on to the new future horror. – MW
Thanks for the additional resources, Mary. I’m not a professional in the invasive biology arena. I found this review of Theodroropoulus’ work in the Annals of Botany:
https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/94/1/196/223385
There is also a related discussion, including the above, on Reddit which was helpful to me. I find the discourse enlightening, (and more substantive than the vitriolic lapses sometimes encountered in exchanges among gardeners).
Thanks for the link. I thought David Theodoropoulos’s book was solid. However, because it was early in the discourse, it didn’t have as much material to work with as later books.
I’ve met David and I’ve heard him speak. I think he is a thoughtful and compassionate carrier of the message, not given to accusatory diatribes. Unfortunately, because he isn’t an academic, he was easily dismissed by the ideologues (who aren’t usually academics either).
David is a “plantsman” who sold seeds for a living, many imported. His business was threatened by early versions of plant nativism that aimed for a “white list” of plants that would be the only plants allowed for import.
I’ve seen discussions of invasion biology on Reddit, but not one that I would describe as “enlightening.”
The “native plant ONLY” narrative is quickly disintegrating. It does not hold true as a possible feat in our world today for gardeners. Like an idyllic childhood, we cannot go back to the time when 580+ plants, in Pennsylvania alone, were not extinct, extirpated, threatened or rare. Nature’s best hope is to be flexible and resilient at best. In our wildest dreams, we will never be able to reestablish or see the resurgence of these lost plants again. Wake up! This idyllic viewpoint is hopeless and should be addressed as fact. Nature will have the last word regarding which plants survive the tampering of faddists on a mission. In the words of a great lepidopterist , Robert Michael Pyle who stalks, looking for evidence, of the obscure, non-existent, never to be seen again, species, he says, I quote: “ Butterfly gardens and green spaces will keep common species common.” So many are lost, forgotten and gone with the atrocities of time that has marched on. We who had our eyes closed and slept through the unyielding reality we’re in now are crying out for answers. To those of you tossing belligerent and rude remarks : they are not constructive.
It is an underdog narrative – and human beings are drawn to it, looking for causes to believe in. I agree – the condescending and rude comments on the post only illustrated my point. To that end, I could not have written some of them any better myself. -MW
The only one who is condescending and rude seems to be you.
But how many people are saying 100% native plants or else! I’m a garden professional and I don’t see that. Are there purists in garden groups? Sure, but so what?! They care about our ecosystems and want to know that something they can do will make a difference. I don’t understand this counter argument. Planting native plants is only helpful to our environment. So the more the better. Does it have to be 100%? I’m home gardens, no because most of us love some non native plants that are still beneficial. But in public spaces where it’s just large areas of useless monoculture grass? Yes, what wouldn’t we want more native plants?
No one is advocating going back in time, though that’s an often repeated canard. We’re advocating for a future with more life, not less, by planting in such a way as to support what we have left. Rare plants can be made less so. Extirpated species can be reintroduced. Honestly, I can’t see the benefit of saying, in effect, oh, well, we broke it, so let’s not bother to fix it.
Wonderful discussion. The goal of ecological sustainability seems to be a worthy one. I’ve wondered for over 4 decades if a sub/urban garden with vegetables for their owners to consume is more or less healing for the world and I can’t seem to find information. I think a balance is the most logical approach. If client finds a Japanese Maple more emotionally calming than a Sugar Maple (native where we are), then perhaps that too needs to be factored into a holistic discussion. I admire anyone advocating only the use of native plants in their garden provided that in the entirety of their lives they live with the same sense of purity. No car, no flights, perhaps no single-family dwelling, no use of plastics etc. Few likely live this way and thus to focus on a garden with only native plants, seems to simply be selective empathy. Here are some related thoughts.
https://www.oala.ca/ground-63-why-messiness-matters
I appreciate your point. I have often thought of the cognitive gymnastics necessary to overuse plastic containers and dump them into a ‘recycle bin’ to be shipped to countries far away; but at the same time not keep a compost pile – the surest way to recycle. Human beings are full of inconsistencies eh? Thanks for the comment. -MW
The bottom line, in my understanding of native plant gardening, is this: the goal is to have plants which will host the larvae of (preferably) native insects. These larvae are crucial for the feeding of baby birds, not to mention the insect’s existence as food for many many other animal species. Since insect larvae are often very specific in their needs, and (for example) baby birds have voracious appetites, the native plants these larvae evolved to depend on are the basis for a healthy ecosystem. If we don’t want a total ecosystem collapse, it is necessary to do what we can to reverse the process we began when we stopped supporting their growth and started growing plants that would only (maybe) support generalist pollinators and not any insect’s whole life cycle. That is the moral issue that seems to have been left out of the article. That being said, there is no reason we can’t be better stewards of the native plant populations we do start.
It is a moral issue, and your position is inherently, deeply immoral, not just because of your selfishness in preferring exotics, but also because of your ignorance in posting this rant with zero scientific support or evidence. Half of your claims here are just lies, the other half are misleading. Delete this post. Plant native.
Thank you Marianne Willburn for bringing this topic to the foreground! As a landscape designer for the past 30 years (40+ in ag/hort experience) I see this play out with every client I meet. To me, the question comes down to how do I integrate my clients into Nature? No, I do not expect my customers to tear their houses down and live in a tent. But trying to overcome the mental barrier that we are somehow separate from Nature seems to be at the core of how we got to this point in history and why your rant is so relevant. Yes, we have a design goal of no less than 25% native plants (50 is better) but the larger goal is how do we make the outdoor space the favorite “room in the house” (so to speak). When our clients come home, we want them in their garden experiencing things about Nature they enjoy and hadn’t noticed before. Drinking their wine, snacking on peas in their garden, picking blueberries before the birds get them, watching the hummingbird try to get nectar from the Star Jasmine, and smelling the pollen in the air, are all ways to inform them that they are part of Nature. Blessings to you Marianne, and Doug Tallamy, and the zealots out there that demand we pay attention, and the gardeners that question how we are told to live — we are all needed right now. The sooner we realize that we are fully dependent on Nature and She could care less if we were here, the sooner we will heal ourselves and in the process Nature will head back to Her center balance point — a point we look at and call beautiful!
Biology is infinitely more complex than many people realize, and it is always a warning sign when someone is too fixed in their views and unwilling to listen to a more nuanced perspective. The issue I have with the rigid, natives-only viewpoint is that native plants alone will not and cannot solve the complex ecological disasters that we are dealing with. Pandora’s box has been opened and all the frantic pushing and stuffing in the world isn’t going to cram what we’ve done to our planet back into the box of a pristine, self-sufficient wilderness. Along with all of the non-native plants we now have in every single ecosystem on the planet, we now also have non-native insects and microbes. Gone are our ancient forests of American chestnut, a distant memory wiped out by chestnut blight. American beech is suffering due to heat, drought, beech bark disease, and beech leaf disease. But wait, there’s more. White pine blister rust. Dutch elm disease. Emerald ash borer. Thousand cankers disease. Dogwood anthracnose. Bronze birch borer. … As an experienced horticulturist, plant pathologist, and scientist I could list hundreds, if not thousands of these invasive pests and pathogens that are killing our native plant species and destroying our natural ecosystems. How is relying on a natives-only stance going to work when so many of our keystone native plant species are already compromised? Not to mention the thousands of acres burning across the West right this very minute. And, this doesn’t even begin to touch on the native plants and animals that are no longer adapted to where they originally evolved because climate change has passed them by. Right now, as I look out my window, I see millions of acres of our native bigleaf maples, Oregon ash, Western redcedar, grand fir, and dozens of other native plant species dying due to a decade of hotter, drier summers (and being replaced by the much better adapted cheatgrass, Canada thistle, Scotch broom, and Himalayan blackberry). This is not to say that attempting to save our natives is a bad idea, nor that they shouldn’t be included in our plans moving forward. But, restricting ourselves to a natives-only approach belies the true scale and complexity of our situation.
I think you’re missing one of the major points of planting native plants. If you go into it planting for yourself in an ornamental fashion, then it might not be crucial to plant all or even mostly native plants.
On the other hand, if you’re planting for birds and insects, then you need to plant mostly native plants. While birds might eat seed from your feeder they almost to a species feed their babies insects and caterpillars. Those insects and caterpillars (most of them, anyway) need specific plants to lay eggs, feed larva, create cocoons, etc. You’re just not going to get the variety of insects that birds need if you don’t have a variety of mostly native plants. You’re also not going to get the pollinators necessary for a lot of the world’s pollination if you don’t give those insects a way yo reproduce.
This type of gardening isn’t for you, it’s for them – insects, birds, small mammals, etc. If it comes across as religiousity, it’s probably coming from a place of distress over the major biodiversity crisis we’re experiencing now. Read anything by Douglas Tallamy and you’ll better understand how all these connections work and how and why they’re a crucial part of rebuilding our wild spaces.
And it is possible to do this in a formal way to make a yard look “presentable” to observers. It’s really not about that though for a lot of people worried about turning this massive tide of biodiversity crisis in the other direction.
Thank you for being brave, Marianne. I, too, think that the current trend of ‘natives’ has hit an almost cult-like level in the USA – not so much here in Britain (yet). Saying that.. I love natives! I welcome plenty of them in my garden—many of which are intentionally planted, but some that are self-seeded. However, the non-native plants (both edibles and ornamentals) have just as important a place and are often favored by local pollinators. I feel that everyone should grow what they love and spend less time proselytizing. Nature always finds a way.
No, nature does not always find a way. Or rather, it does, but that way does not necessarily include species that are currently existent. That includes us. I don’t know what the bird populations in Britain are like, but here they’ve been declining sharply. We have a responsibility to do something about that, because we are the direct cause. That means planting native plants.
No, that means stop using pesticides and destroying useful habitat,
Not planting native plants, and instead planting lawns or non-native plants which play only one role (providing nectar) in the ecosystem (if you’re lucky) DOES destroy useful habitat and does require pesticides because heaven forbid you should find a native bug munching desperately on your pretty garden plants when you’ve removed all the vegetation they would normally be eating. Pesticides are also necessary for agriculture, both organic and conventional use them. Unless you want to actually pay for the manual labour it would take to weed and de-bug the crops you eat, and let fungi destroy them also. Integrated pest management is important. We have to feed the world and yes, by all means do it in a more sustainable way.
It’s too late to just “stop” destroying useful habitat. We now have to restore it. That means planting native plants whenever it is possible. The situation for the birds is dire. And if it is dire for them, it is also dire for us.
Yes, this! It’s shocking people don’t understand the importance of native plants and the relationship to insects and food webs. They can still embrace native plants and keep some non native plants.
Brave? What’s brave about her arrogance and misinformation?
Probably better if I refrain from how I feel about being ‘told’ what to do as a professional designer.
Back when I was writing, lecturing, seminars etc., pretty much all of it became sorta controversial.
But we must walk are own path as professionals. Sure there are certain technical aspects, horticulture procedures, correct soil base. Construction principles etc. to follow. But the art is my art. Not anyone else’s art.
Beautifully written, thoughtful and So on-point. Thanks. One of the best Garden Rant posts ever.
This is by far the most arrogant and condescending article I’ve read. I was so pleased to see Tom Christopher’s response but I think your arrogance doesn’t allow you to see yourself clearly. How dismissive you are because people are finally interested in the health of our planet, and supporting food webs, and yes, native plants help to achieve that. I’m a garden designer with a focus on Sustainable landcare and I create gardens using 100% native plants (like a Bioswale) and gardens that are partially native plants. My own garden has plenty of non native plants that I love and will keep. And how evident it is that you’re threatened by people like Doug Tallamy. Are you afraid your books will no longer sell? Your traditional services will no longer be wanted? Possibly!!
What this rant completely ignores is the real reason to plant natives. We don’t grow natives to create a museum of lovely plants. We grow them to support insects, which are the base of food webs. We are at the beginning of one of the worst extinction events the Earth has ever seen. Insects are disappearing at an alarming rate. We don’t have the luxury of time wait for newcomer plants and insects to co-evolve together. Insects need their native habitat NOW. Or they will die. If the insects are gone, the ecosystem collapses. If ecosystems collapse, WE are gone. It’s that simple.
The primary goal of the native plant movement is not to replace non-native non-invasive ornamental plants. The goal is to reduce invasive non-natives and to reduce non-productive mowed turf grass lawns by converting them to native plant gardens or meadows. Stopping the sale of invasive plants is one way to reduce invasives. If you don’t want to remove them from your property, fine. Let them run rampant. Watch them take over the landscape like phragmites and bamboo have. But to expect local fauna to adapt to them in the time it takes for them to get out of control is unrealistic.
The bigger goal is reduction of mowed lawns. They serve no ecological purpose. That’s the primary goal of people like Tallamy. Reduce lawns by replacing more of that space with native plant gardens and meadows. If you’re creating a new planting bed, why not start with native plants, at least for the majority of what you plant? Even Doug doesn’t say that 100% of what you plant needs to be native. If there are non-native, non-invasive plants you love, especially if they do support local native fauna, go ahead. But know that native, especially keystone plants, will, in most cases, be more beneficial today for the insects and wildlife that forage in the garden or meadow. Sure, they may evolve over time to benefit just as much from all the non-natives, but they’re in crisis today. Populations are in drastic decline today. Some species don’t have time to evolve. They need native plants today.
Bravo to the author for your courage in calling out the plant-fascists (I won’t go there with the other word that I call them personally). Your cogent writing makes me want to return to reading the Rant regularly. The comments of some of the hardcore blinkered set is why I no longer belong to any gardening group, let my blog lapse into obscurity, and have a selection of great friends that I talk plants with. All the plants (except goutweed, japanese knotweed, and a few other problematic species here in Nova Scotia.) I have a mix of native and introduced perennials, trees, shrubs and grasses in my garden, a no-pesticide zone. It’s filled with pollinators of all sorts, especially native bees and a host of butterflies. It’s not a formal ‘design’, but it makes me, and those who visit it, including all the birds and pollinators etc, happy. The blinkered set discourage gardeners and to me that is a far bigger crime than planting a wisteria.
Interesting discussion and revealing that many native proponents somehow gain a false sense of accomplishment in that they can reverse significant threats such as climate change, wildlife extinction, and pollinator decline simply by using native plants rather than introduced species. There is actually credible peer reviewed research on the topic explaining it some detail. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281751812_Nonnative_noninvasive_woody_species_can_enhance_urban_landscape_biodiversity
More on the topic of native vs introduced species in this article.https://gardenprofessors.com/how-many-plants-are-native-to-urban-areas/
Very interesting commentary.
I’m disturbed by comments claiming this is a “moral” issue when our lives are overrun with bureaucracy not rooted in morality. What is moral to you may not be moral to me, and who said you could be the morality police anyway? This is how NIMBY-ism and the “Karen” stereotype started… this morality that is ever-changing and ambiguous to everyone except the morality police.
I do 60/40 natives/non-natives and I get frustrated with myself when I notice fewer pollinators and beneficial insects, so I learn and the next season I try to fix what I did wrong the previous season. People will say we don’t have time to learn season to season, which I think is egocentric. The destruction of “native” ecosystems by homo sapiens started 15,000 years ago. You think one season of non-natives will mean the end of man?
The one thing that wasn’t mentioned in your article are the native-plant enthusiasts who claim your lawn is the problem while using AI tools like chatgpt, eating avocados grown by cartels, and snacking on non-native veggies grown using pesticides! AI data centers use more water and energy than golf courses; on average one data center uses 5 times more water per day than a golf course uses in a week! Plant natives, get rid of your lawn and, for goodness sake, think about the impact of your choices. In my city, all the native plant enthusiasts work in corporate tech and fly around on commercial airplanes a dozen times a year.
I’m not the morality police, just clocking the hypocrisy.
It’s easy to apply arbitrary morality rules to someone else’s garden, but hard (or impossible) to apply those same morality rules to individual lifestyle choices.
Native plants are generally more expensive, and the disdain for non-natives seems rooted in class attitudes in my city’s gardening community. “I’m better than you because I can afford native plants!” Of course not all native plant lovers/advocates are like that, but this attitude is overwhelmingly present in my community. It’s frustrating, especially since the moralistic attitude turns off well meaning gardeners like me. My city has a native plant/wildflower park and when I’ve shopped their sales, all the plants die. All of them. The natives don’t survive our freezes because our climate has changed! When I’ve asked the native wildflower center about this they say that’s just how it is. I’m working class and can’t afford to buy new native plugs every year that will die when we get a hard freeze, for goodness sake.
Our wildflower center wants to ban all non-native plants from being grown in our county. I can’t even imagine what the bureaucracy of that would be — how would that even be regulated and how much would it cost to regulate? Their “superior moral position” is reinforced by the hundreds of thousands of grant dollars they receive from the government and donations from wealthy donors. (The wildflowers only bloom for a few months of the year then it’s 10 acres of grassland for the rest of the year, and there isn’t much to be learned from their programming for 2/3 of the calendar year.)
The best thing the native plant zealots could do is advocate that big box nurseries (Lowes, Home Depot) stop selling “problematic” plants. That alone would have a bigger impact than finger wagging at fellow gardeners. My local Home Depot sells the highly invasive chaste tree, for example, and reaching an agreement where HD does not sell this plant would be more effective than banning all non-natives, and attempting to regulate that somehow.
Thank you for your comment Casey. You are echoing the experiences of so many serious plant people across the country. High ups in this movement are ignoring this frustration and labeling these experiences as anecdotal — but after personally hearing HUNDREDS of unique experiences nationwide, and experiencing many myself — including downright nasty attacks upon my character, writing, motivation, possible sponsorship by corporations (!) and intelligence, I think it’s clear that a new religion has emerged. I am thankful that they only have a keyboard to work with and not stones in their hands. What a damn shame we decided to venerate our native plants instead of celebrate them.
Here’s something truly anecdotal, but interesting, nonetheless. Last week I went to a “Garden Fair” for Mother’s Day aimed at the general public. The vast majority of the ornamental plant booths were native plant vendors as the organizers had made it clear that they preferred that native plants were sold (I asked an organizer). The few booths that were not selling the same 25-30 plants that we all know by heart at this point were swamped, and it was very interesting to look at wagons being wheeled around the grounds and see what people were actually buying. Lots of veggies, lots of herbs, lots of colorful annuals and non-native perennials.
I hope you will not let the zealotry of condescending moralists put you off growing the native plants you love, or cause you to tar all native plant vendors and enthusiasts with the same brush. There are enthusiasts out there that have gently and beautifully held up these plants without judgement for years. – MW