This post is long. It is a culmination of growing concerns that voices gentler and more knowledgeable than mine have articulated for some time; but that nevertheless continue to be ignored or reframed. The issue is complex, and it deserves meaningful discussion. I hope we can have it. -MW
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On its face, ecological gardening is a marriage and a movement made in heaven – the joining together of ecology and horticulture to inform the creation of gardens bursting with life and beauty. But when one spouse is always the loudest at the dinner table, and aggressively subverts the aspirations and perspective of the other, a marriage suffers.
While many gardeners, including myself, have been eager to embrace a deeper understanding of the complex systems that underpin our artistic endeavors in horticulture; we are deeply concerned that this sea change, for all of its positive overtones (or perhaps because of them), is having a net-negative effect on responsible gardeners and gardeners-to-be who increasingly view gardening not as a joyful pastime, but as a never-ending performance review — a moral obligation by which they will be judged and found wanting.
We are slowly losing our voice at the table as gardener-artists. Do we have the courage to stand up and reclaim it?
The Bully Pulpit.
If you’ve been to a horticultural conference or attended a webinar in North America in the last five years, picked up a magazine, sat quietly in the back during a Master Gardener meeting, or witnessed the social media evisceration of someone who dared challenge the new hive mind, you too may be:
- Feeling as if there are more rules than ever before in your gardening life;
- Self-censoring for fear of being judged;
- Puzzled by conflicting studies fueling viral memes;
- Exhausted by the buzzwords;
- Amused by the corporate opportunists using the exhausting buzzwords;
- Annoyed by experts redefining subjective concepts like ‘beauty’;
- Suspicious of exclusive biodiversity & dogmatic nativism in a post-Darwin world;
- Wondering why human beings are treated like alien visitors;
- Confused because you thought that uptight gardening and pearl clutching went out with the last millennia; and,
- Genuinely wondering if there’s space for you anymore…
If so, you are not definitely not alone – though it may seem like you are. Welcome to what fellow GardenRanter Susan Harris terms the “Just Stop Gardening” Movement. A new space where the gardener’s perspective is subjugated to favor the ecologist’s perspective; and which saddles everyman gardeners (whether they wished to grow Hemerocallis or fill a raised bed with herbs) with the burdens of past and present ecological damage to our planet, the saving of species from extinction, and the reversal of climate change.
That’s a heavy lift.
A BEAUTIFUL BEGINNING
Horticulture and Ecology
Let’s travel back a decade or two and define two related terms as we used to understand them:
- A horticulturalist practices the art and science of gardening – cultivating and managing plants for ornamental, edible, or medicinal reasons.
- An ecologist is a scientist concerned with the complex web of relationships of organisms to their environment.
Leaving everyman gardeners out of the equation for a moment, formally trained horticulturists & ecologists are called to their disciplines for different reasons. And they see gardens differently.
- Whereas an ecologist can find a garden beautiful, they are much more likely to find it fascinating – an object of deep study where the aesthetic desires and practical needs of the human gardener who tends it are secondary to the creatures that inhabit it.
- And whereas a horticulturist can find the complex systems of organisms within their garden fascinating and helpful, their interest is weighted more heavily toward the practical and aesthetic manifestation of the garden serving their lives and the lives of those in their families and community.
Gardening is fundamentally subjective just as ecology should be fundamentally objective.
You can visualize this as a Venn diagram of sorts. Two sets of people drawn to Nature for different reasons. And where they overlap, characteristics that are common to both sets fueling a synergistic exchange of ideas.
Professor Nigel Dunnett of The University of Sheffield (of The Barbican and The Tower of London SuperBloom fame) beautifully expresses the synthesis of these two perspectives as an opportunity to “captur[e] people’s imagination” in a conversation with Gardens Illustrated editor Stephanie Mahon:
“…being in a natural place where you feel that you’re part of something bigger…to me, that’s the power of what a garden can be. It can create this world that’s separate from everyday life. And I think it liberates childlike feelings of joy and just kind of, well, ‘liberation’ is the word. It just takes away the constraints of everyday life.”
In the beginning, gardeners like myself recognized this exchange and welcomed more of it, naively confident that the priorities of each discipline would be respected – not redefined.
Now it feels more like the diagram below – the gardener’s voice subsumed by the ecologist’s. Except the aggressively emotional portrayal of complex systems, anti-human rhetoric, and strident native plant dogma from dominant voices in the ecological gardening movement have sadly called into question the objectivity of the new “objective observer.”
The Before Times
Not too long ago we understood the difference between a gloriously wild or post-wild space – province of the ecologist and naturalist; and a cultivated garden – province of the gardener; and we loved both in equal measure — differently.
Smart gardeners who worked with the complex web of life in their gardens and who studied their plants’ ecotypes had a leg up in creating a breathtaking garden rich with life and energy – whether formal or wild.
Smart ecologists who opened the garden gate and studied the adaptations of native organisms to a gardener’s more exotic palette in a changing climate could similarly have their minds opened to research that mattered when dealing with public lands and restoration projects.
Those of us who gardened, unapologetically gardened – especially as expectations of perfection, and pesticide-heavy guidelines relaxed as we neared the end of the 20th century. And we had media heroes to guide us and commiserate with us – the Henry Mitchells and Allen Lacys, the Anna Pavords and Beth Chattos.
One of my beloved garden heroes — the late Pam Harper. (photo credit Daniel Weil)
A Welcome Synergy
Many engaged gardeners were fascinated by the organisms that inhabited our gardens, but we were not ruled by them. We were allowed to dislike the sawfly larvae that defoliated our dogwoods; or delight in our mother’s joy at her Buddleia covered in swallowtails, as we walked barefoot on the mown grasses and weeds she happily called lawn.
The more curious amongst us looked to the native lands of the plants we loved, studied their communities, and attempted to match them where we could. And at the same time, this was not a period without difficulty. We had little in common with consumer-gardeners who sprayed first and asked questions later; and the real effects of a changing climate on our gardens made our jobs more challenging.
But a lot of us put our heads down and navigated a new era with flexibility, adaptation, curiosity, commiseration, and a certain amount of positivity.
That was – wait for it – okay.
A SUBTLE SHIFT
Plus ça change
The mainstreaming of a more ecological approach to gardening accelerated around 2007 with Dr. Doug Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home, which linked the use of native plants to the support of insect and bird populations.
Tallamy was a respected entomologist and professor at the University of Delaware, but his name quickly became shorthand for a massive gardening movement. The fact that I can mention him by last name only to a group of inexperienced gardeners, and see instant recognition in their eyes; but need to explain who Dan Hinkley or Fergus Garrett is, tells me a great deal.
The fact that they can invoke his name to end a discussion tells me more.
Tallamy had many good things to say that made a great deal of sense. Here’s one from his third book and New York Times bestseller, Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard (2019):
“Gardening is like cooking. It is tempting to cook only with the goal of achieving great taste, with no thought of healthy eating, but that often results in tasty concoctions so full of fat, sugar, and salt that they are deadly in the long run. Similarly it is tempting to garden only for beauty, without regard to the many ecological roles our landscapes must perform.”
I’d swap out ‘could’ for ‘must,’ but the analogy was a good one, and the lesson, clear: Be responsible. Many gardeners shared his concern for the steep declines in bird and insect life — including me. I was a GenX kid who remembers windshields gruesomely splattered with bugs before the expansion of no-till herbicides and Roundup-ready corn in the 1990s transformed American agriculture.
But although Tallamy lamented dead fields and development, the overall message of remediation and responsibility was instead directed at gardeners to use primarily native plants in their landscapes to “save Nature.” And “to set an example, maybe even proselytize a bit” to convince their neighbors to work within the concept that “life begins with natives (and ends with aliens).” (from Bringing Nature Home)
“What if each American landowner made it a goal to convert half of his or her lawn to productive native plant communities?” he proposed in Nature’s Best Hope.
Tallamy’s wish was beyond aspirational. Most engaged gardeners would be dancing in the streets if 20% of their neighbors stopped treating their lawns with chemicals and planted a small non-native tree — much less replaced the lawn with a native plant community that required skill to implement successfully.
Some of us carefully read Tallamy’s imperative- and pejorative-laden books (curiously at odds with his gentle demeanor), and justifiably wondered what would happen if gardeners continued to be guided to use chemicals sparingly; and the indignation, research, and activism was instead directed at bigger fish.
Specifically — the corporate agricultural practices that chemically deaden tens of millions of acres of green, buzzing life in spring; genetically modify the subsequent crops and their pollen; and finish with yet more chemicals in autumn to desiccate cereal crops.
That’s a lot of Dead. In May.
What if we stopped focusing on old Mrs. Taylor’s desire to plant an exquisite Wisteria floribunda ‘Alba’, or use a teaspoon of glyphosate to paint a resprouting stump because she couldn’t afford the help to dig it; and instead focused on the 200-gallon vats of glyphosate, Dicamba, and 2,4-D killing everything on the farm next door?
Tallamy assured us that, if the task of converting our gardens was beyond us, we could simply hire someone who was an expert.
“There is a multibillion-dollar landscaping industry ready to do whatever we ask to our properties if we are not interested in puttering ourselves.” he wrote.
Poor Mrs. Taylor.
Who Would You Rather Persuade?
Compassionate gardeners are a much easier target than BigAg when building a big, new, movement. (FYI Tallamy’s latest book is How Can I Help? Saving Nature with Your Yard.)
For one, there is that multibillion-dollar landscaping industry that Tallamy mentions and Mrs. Taylor can’t afford, just waiting to push the next trend on those who can afford it. And another multi-million-dollar herbicide industry is very happy to paradoxically pivot, and provide ecological gardeners and policy makers with righteous vats of the stuff for the invasives Tallamy confidently terms “ecological tumors.”
That’s quite a price tag.
But it’s more than that. Not only are gardeners intrigued by the natural world and navigating a changing climate in real time, their individual voices are much smaller than Monsanto’s.
Old Mrs. Taylor is easier to influence; and probably content to do less gardening and more observing anyway. Her 35-year-old granddaughter who loves birds and butterflies and never liked topiary is excited to be part of a good cause. Gardeners in general are anxious to do the “right thing.”
And what is the “right thing?” Good question. In Nature’s Best Hope, we found out.
New Math for Gardeners
Building on broader ideas generated from his work with graduate students in the Mid-Atlantic, Tallamy shared a study conducted by one of his students researching one species of chickadee in 159 nest boxes placed during the nesting season in the Washington DC metropolitan area. The three-year observational study utilized data collected by technicians and volunteers and concluded that the Carolina chickadee achieved replacement rate in yards with less than 30 percent introduced plants.
The study hasn’t been replicated, and several confounding variables that could bias the results existed, but that did not prevent an energized audience specifically tasked with proselytizing from creating a new math assignment for gardeners.
From that point a 70/30 natives to non-natives guideline (Epic Gardening gushingly calls it a ‘rule’), began to surface at every Master Gardener meeting from Oakland to Philadelphia. Never mind the fact that, even at a broader Level II perspective, California gardened in four ecoregions as close to Washington DC’s Southeastern USA Plains, as Chile was to Belgium.
Gardeners were now tasked with creating a minimum of approximately 70% native plant biomass (by cover or composition) in their suburban, urban and rural landscapes to sustain breeding bird populations as a whole, prevent the sixth mass extinction, and prevent censure from their peers.
Raise your hand and question the new math as an experienced gardener with a buzzing, but inclusively biodiverse landscape that featured many non-natives, and you were assured (often with a big smile), that it represented great compromise. After all, if life ended with aliens, you should be happy you had 30% to play with.
“I’ve heard somewhere that there’s a 70-30 rule. You know where that 70% figure came from? My lab. So yes, I agree, there’s room for compromise. No compromise on invasives, they’re ecological tumors. But you can have your ginkgo tree, just don’t let it dominate your landscape.” – Dr. Doug Tallamy in conversation with Zane Irwin of GRID.
How gracious. Later, in 2023, in the Growing Greener Podcast with author and Ranter Emeritus Thomas Christopher, Tallamy would back up a little, discuss keystone species research, and admit that it might not be as simple as a reductive ratio:
“…we have found that it’s not just native versus non-native, it’s particular natives versus everything else. I could build a 100% native landscape that supports very few insects because there are a lot of natives that just don’t support a lot…86% of our [native] plants are not driving that food web.”
But the horse was very much out of the barn by that point.
Plant This! Not That!
With the new 70/30 super formula, an onerous and moralistic goal was laid in front of any gardener who had the temerity to plant something non-native that excited them – only to find that, not only was it not recommended, it was frowned upon. Gardening became a homework assignment, and there was no shortage of catastrophizing instructors with red pens in hand.
If you were determined to plant it, “you should consider” planting two times as much of something else that you had no interest in growing in order to offset the ecological harm you were obviously causing to the entire planet.
And again, ladies and gentlemen, please avert your eyes from the browning field across the road.
Nothing to see here. Literally.
Garden columnist and podcaster Margaret Roach unintentionally illustrates the gardener’s new burden in her bio for the New York Times.
“As our climate evolves, and with it our environmental awareness, the art and practice of gardening are evolving, too. Once a subject that emphasized the ornamental, gardening now increasingly pursues ecological goals, requiring plant and management choices that are not merely aesthetic.”
It should be noted that Roach does not specify “ecological gardening”, but “gardening.” That’s an important omission. And ‘requiring’ is a powerful word.
Wait….what just happened?
Then social media got involved, and nuance went out the window.
Further guidelines spread virally in easy-to-share memes from big organizations — messages such as ‘Leave the leaves!’ and ‘Leave the stems!’ And while both were compassionate ecological statements fully justified in post-wild spaces, and with merit in garden situations (particularly for those with bigger properties), they were not universally applicable.
They were also less workable than it first appeared. Recent observational research has suggested that you may need to leave stems a lot longer than you thought, and that there is no magic moment when everything evacuates the leaves smothering your lavender. That’s not a problem for the ecologist, but another source of guilt for the gardener.
All of this of course makes it impossible for gardeners seeking a quiet life and a butterfly bush to argue against new rules for maintenance, new authoritative policies, new definitions of beauty, and new motivations for gardening that have ever-so-slowly edged the actual gardener/artist out of his or her own painting — even if that painting happily included native brushstrokes and organic methods.
To garden for oneself and one’s family is to be obviously selfish, irresponsible, ignorant, uptight, out-of-touch, and, most recently, privileged – with all the subtle and not so subtle implications therein. Who has the stomach to go toe to toe with that?
A TROUBLING NARRATIVE
Condemnation is good for clicks
Over-exaggeration? Here are just a few quotes from New York Times writer Margaret Renkl’s 2021 piece “What you may not know about those April flowers.”
“The typical suburban yard is actually worse than a wasteland. It’s a deathtrap.”
“In the American South…any tree or shrub that is greening up or blooming [in March] almost certainly doesn’t belong.”
“It’s not too late for you to do the same [plant native trees/shrubs] in your yards and in your towns.”
Or Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, from his 2023 article “I’m no genius with genuses, but your garden is killing the Earth.” (No really, that’s the title.)
“I did almost everything wrong.”
“I am part of the problem.”
“I am sorry to say that if you have a typical urban or suburban landscape, your lawn and garden are also dooming the Earth.”
Renkl goes on in her piece to angst over all the plants given to her by her late mother that once gave her joy but which must now be destroyed when she can work up enough righteousness to overcome pointless sentimentality.
Milbank spends 1000+ words in a struggle session worthy of Mao, and follows up later with another extraordinary article “To save the birds, I’m killing my farm” where he directs a drone flying at 30 feet to deliver a dose of poison to those “ecological tumors” and every other living creature within range of the nozzle.
Including — amusingly — himself.
Now Milbank’s property can look like this too.
Mary McAllister documents the evolution of this political writer gone native plant ideologue and proselytist much better than I have done here on the website Conservation Sense and Nonsense. I urge you to read her summation, his article(s), and more importantly, all the comments — many of which betray a deeply disturbing religiosity that I and others have commented on in the past.
But wait! There’s more…
That’s just legacy media. In new media, we’re in for more focused self-flagellation (presumably using whips made of native species such as Salix nigra or Cornus sericea).
Author Benjamin Vogt from his piece “On Daffodils, Climate Change, and Colonization” on his former blog Monarch Gardens:
“We need a deep, deep rethink and daffodils, at least in the hort world, often become that flashpoint as we reckon with how hort is a part of our privilege, and how our identities are so wrapped up in it we feel we need to defend that privilege because we assume we’re being personally attacked when larger systems are being critiqued”
Question the new orthodoxy and it proves your complicity. Guilt awaits no matter how you answer. Brilliant. Though Vogt’s piece assures us that the daffodil police aren’t coming to arrest us, he gives us the distinct impression that if it were up to him, they would.
Deeply disturbing. Or something.
Or writer and “ecologically obsessed horticulturist” Rebecca McMackin, who provides her readers with plenty of pejoratives and politics, right along with horticultural information, in her Grow Like Wild Substack newsletter; and adds a trigger warning for the Rutgers University link that helps gardeners find pollinator-attractive plants. “Be warned.” she tsks, “The database also contains exotic plants.”
A need for transparency in research
Shockingly, Rutgers meant all of the pollinator-attractive plants, regardless of origin.
Or at least it does for now, until enough pressure is applied from loud, ‘concerned’ ecological gardening voices within and without academia.
Then it might go the way of Penn State’s “Center for Pollinator Research”, which has evidently scrubbed the idea of objectively studying non-native and native plants as part that research, or making it transparently clear that this is what they are doing.
Their extensive “What to Plant” materials for gardeners makes no mention of this fact, and provides only native plant species without divulging this key (and usually lucrative) variable. Hmmmm. From the website:
“The Center for Pollinator Research has created taxa-specific plant guides for gardeners that want to support pollinators. Plants were selected for a high degree of attraction in most temperate North American landscapes, using data from entomologist Charles Robertson (1887-1916). Each guide includes herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and deciduous trees. Planting a variety of flowering plants will support a diversity of pollinators.”
What if you had a pollinator study and non-native plants weren’t studied?
Objectivity and trust goes out the window when you create and study a subset, then package data as if you aren’t. They need a rebrand – may I suggest “The Center for Native Plant Pollinator Research?”
A JOYFUL REBALANCING
What does the responsible gardener/artist do?
If they’re not naturally cynical, gardeners subjected to this unrelenting message begin to feel that perhaps they should spend the rest of their gardening lives:
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- Eradicating non-natives and invasives;
- Planting natives. Any natives;
- Encouraging all wildlife (such as white deer, rabbits, gophers, tics, & sawfly);
- Redefining their deeply flawed perception of beauty; and, most critically,
- Making others around them do the same.
How’s that working for you?
And I suppose, if most were truly happy in this strident place, it might make sense to lose one’s voice, trade in one’s heroes, and join them. But it is patently obvious that this is not the case.
Instead there is a preponderance of negative emotion suffusing the literature, the memes, the forums, the newsletters, the comments, the lectures, the podcasts, the books, and the webinars – anxiety and unease draped in a thin veil of professed joy. Much like a stressed employee smiles through clenched teeth.
If you specifically question the joyful despair online or across a table as I have, you’ll likely encounter another circular argument –
“Of course I’m despairing, not enough people are following the rules…”
“Maybe you’ve made too many rules…?”
“Because our very existence is on the line, and people need to follow the rules!” etc. ad nauseam
Meanwhile, many of the laudable pioneers and often moderate, truly joyful, voices in the native plant, organic lawn, and ecological gardening movement lose out – because there’s no traction in moderation. Their important message of stewardship and synergy is tarnished by the bad data, bad journalism, and catastrophizing of others.
And it makes it that much harder for them to reach once-curious gardeners who feel as if they have been backed into a corner; and who have no desire to practice or preach the “existential multitasking” now required of them — regardless of the speaking fees it commands.
Stand up. Speak up.
There is another way.
When we choose to garden with optimism, curiosity, and resilience, we don’t have to pretend to be joyful. We just are.
We can welcome the valuable perspective, observations, and research of an ecologist, and create something truly special in that synergistic space. But we can also reject absolutes and political labelling, study adaptation, call out bias, question inconsistencies, and refuse to engage with botanical xenophobia – moving toward a more balanced ecological gardening movement that many of us were happy to sign up for in the first place, and which still has gentle, knowledgeable, leaders.
When you speak up, you’ll find that it breaks the internal, uncomfortable, tension between what you want to question and what you feel you cannot question – allowing you to find more nuanced answers, no matter where they lead. Don’t let others redefine that uncomfortable tension as evidence of your inherent selfishness. Or treat your questions with condescension or contempt.
The gardener’s voice matters. It celebrates the artist, just as it champions the steward; and it deserves respect in a world that is increasingly artificial, anti-human, and littered with distractions. If we do not defend it, we will lose it. And we run a great risk of turning off gardeners who were once turned on. I entreat you to speak up with courage in your gardening circles – your voice empowers others who do not know how to reclaim their own. – MW
An excellent defence against the hardliners of ecological gardening while also remaining balanced and objective. It would be so to try and counter one type of extremism with another.
The argument that gardeners must embrace natives to save the world has a huge flaw; it keeps the efforts to curtail environmental destruction with gardeners instead of encouraging efforts to protect real habitats. It’s perfectly fine to drain a swamp rich with protected species to built a petrol station (gas station), but if someone grows a daylily in their garden then the world will end. Gardeners cannot save the world.
The other interesting thing is the hypocrisy. Natives have sovereignty right up to the point when a non-native organism benefits people. You cannot grow non-native flowering plants because they will destroy the planet, but feel free to grow apples, tomatoes, potatoes and carrots. Protect the natives in the margins of giant fields of non-native wheat. Of course we should grow things to eat, but why is it not conceded that very few edible plants that we grow are native to our continents, let alone our countries? The answer to that is that nobody wants to admit that people can be very selective in their arguments.
Thanks Ben — couple thoughts. In North America, the heavy native plant restoration efforts are focused in post-wild places too, sometimes to the detriment of new ecosystems which are removed wholesale to hubristically restore them to what is considered a more pristine environment. Chemical companies are only too happy to provide aid in what I have read termed “holy work.” Mary McAllister (in the blog Conservation Sense and Nonsense) details what this looks like in California — a lot of well researched info there. She took me to see one of these spaces and I was horrified by what had been done.
As for the edibles — yes, this is yet another very justified rabbit hole, but I had so many other things to cover and examples to give of the mainstreaming of the movement that I just didn’t. (Though I mentally lumped it in with “question inconsistencies” at the end of the essay.) It is a blind spot that, when questioned, is often justified by saying that these are (mostly) annual non-natives that are not invasives. And that would be one thing if the conversation in ornamentals (whether annual or perennial) wasn’t so stridently anti-nonnative. The issue with edibles also, is that, where one can be shamed for the frivolity of wanting a butterfly bush, it is harder to make that shame stick against the desire to feed a family. And, of course, there is also the inconvenient truth of tens of millions of acres of edibles now under chemically dependent agriculture. –MW
AMEN!
Wow. A lot to digest and think about. An amazing piece of journalism. I am on the front lines in a garden center that also does garden design and installation. But I started 43 years ago as a horticulturist and lover of plants. I really respect what Doug Tallamy has done to open my mind to ecology as I was taught garden design based on beauty not ecological function. But I am a self-proffessed plant geek with an insatiable curiosity and love of plants. I try and blend the two and lately have been focusing on a return to basic design principles, especially in native and pollinators gardens. People come in to the garden center and play “native shaming” with me. It is infuriating, especially when their knowledge is often from the internet, not experience. I preach balance. Give up lilacs, peonies, dahlias, even pollinator rock stars like Heptacodium… nope. As with everything in life, extremes get out of control. Balance is key. Thank you this deep and brave and thoughtful article. Nancy
Thank you Nancy — balance is key. Many movements in this world start out with good intentions, but end in rigid places. I respect Tallamy’s work too and I believe that he very much cares about what he does. However, having re-read the books that started the movement recently, I am very aware that he was not blameless in inciting the proselytist’s fire that spread all over the county. As I said in the essay, his imperative and pejorative (and sometimes political) tone is curiously at odds with his demeanor, as I have heard him speak twice and found him very charming in person. – MW
First time commenter, longtime reader who felt compelled to finally speak out — thank you, thank you, thank you.
I work at a local garden center/landscaping company and it has given me purpose and joy. However, discourse around natives and non-natives with customers, especially in the last 5 years, has become so judgmental, militant and gatekeeping. I’ve had customers who are so intimidated that they visibly slump with relief when I assure them they can plant whatever makes them smile whether it attracts “good” insects or not.
I’ve had customers who insist on not planting anything with a name to it because “they are not native,” despite evidence to the contrary. Don’t get me started on honeybees.
Gardening for this milennial has been an artistic outlet, healing for an anxiety disorder, and just a refuge from a world that has let me down over and over again. I depend on gardening to recharge and renew my spirit. I will praise catmint until I die, along with serviceberry.
I have bookmarked this article and will be returning to it over and over as the season begins again and I am confronted with the gamut of emotion versus reason. Thanks for letting me ramble and thank you for GardenRant.
Hello Meg — thank you so much for commenting, and for your perspective as a Millennial who has come to the garden for solace and healing. You are doing your customers a great service when you gently let them know that there are many knowledgeable people (far more knowledgeable than I) who are deeply uncomfortable with the way this new movement has been framed, and who have remained silent hoping it will get better. It hasn’t. A young gardener/journalist who interviewed me two years ago told me she was told by an ‘expert’ that “if you plant a non-native plant, you might as well plant a plastic plant.” She was (like many of your customers) visibly relieved when I told her that such talk was beyond nonsensical. Have a wonderful season ahead and thanks for reading GardenRant! – MW
If you can tolerate the condescending lectures of the Nature Police about your “duties” as a gardener, you still have to contend with the constraints of the native plant palette.
In 2023, native plant advocates in California nearly succeeded in getting a legal mandate to require 75% native plants on all public and commercial property in California. Fortunately, the nursery trade stepped up to prevent this law from being passed. Plant California Alliance published an editorial about the proposed law in an agricultural newsletter. The editorial explained why the goals of the proposed law were unrealistic and based on mistaken assumptions about California native plants:
• There aren’t enough native plants available for sale to meet such a requirement. California Native Plant Society claims nursery sales are about 6% native, but two large wholesale nurseries estimate their stock is not more than 1% native.
• “…there is also the fundamental question of why a native plant mandate is included in a water conservation bill at all. Not all native plants are low water plants…Sometimes a non-native plant is a better choice when designing a drought resilient, low water garden.”
• “And, what about native plants’ impacts on fire? Unfortunately, some California native plants are not considered fire-resistant, and some are even considered fire prone.” Most wildfires in California occur in native chaparral and native conifer forests. When wildfires occur in residential neighborhoods, the homes themselves are the primary fuel for the fire. Everything burns in wind-driven fires, regardless of the native origins of plants.
In 2024 the City of Oakland (where I live) proposed an Urban Forest Plan that made a commitment to maintain our diverse urban forest. Native plant advocates lobbied to revise the plan. They wanted a commitment to destroy most of our diverse urban forest and replace it with only native trees. They weren’t successful because the pre-settlement vegetation of Oakland was 98% grass, shrub, and marshland. There were only 10 species of trees (several are more shrub than tree) that are native to Oakland. There are now over 500 tree species in Oakland. In other words, there wouldn’t BE an urban forest in Oakland if it were confined to solely native plants.
If you are willing to accept the dictatorial mandates and the constraints of the native plant palette, you still have to accept the destruction of functional, diverse landscapes—usually with herbicides—that are the first step in native plant “restoration” projects. That’s a lot to ask. No wonder there’s some push back to the native plant movement.
Mary – going through many of your articles on Conservation Sense and Nonsense, and the amount of information and sources you process to thoroughly examine these policies fills me with hope. Thanks to researchers like you, we may yet muddle through this hubristic place and come out wiser and more in tune with the new connections and adaptations that characterize vibrant natural forces reacting to the Anthropocene. -MW
Hi, yes, I have seen Doug Tallamy speak many times. In fact, he is speaking at the CT Flower and Garden Show in CT again (he spoke last year as well) and I will be introducing him. He is a very kind and wise man. But folks have taken this concept and gone to an extreme that I also find disconcerting, to say the least. After I wrote my original comment, I thought about so many plants in my own nearly two acre yard that I adore and that are not native. And I thought about all the varied plants we sell at my garden center. And yes, we sell tons of natives too. But we also sell Geranium ‘Rozanne’, Allium ‘Millenium’, a gazillion unusual annuals, lots of bulbs, roses, irises, panicle hydrangeas, all sorts of unusual evergreens, hybrid winter blooming witch hazels, and so much more. When I started in the 80’s, you couldn’t sell a native plant no matter how you tried. Now, they sell themselves. Perhaps we will come into balance as the newest group of gardeners falls in love with plants as I did when I was in my 20’s. Nancy
So true, so hard to wrap your head around the idea of natives only. Gardens only to fulfill approved purpose. When I’m asked what kind of garden I have (48 years in the tending) I reply, ” I have a pretty garden.” It brings me joy, song birds, butterflies, and bees. I have fountains for music and softening the sounds of traffic.
I see this trend similar to the push for STEM education, learning the hard subjects, the ones that have payoff. I detest the belittling of the arts, and suggest STEAM with arts in the middle of it all because without beauty and creativity what is life? No artist can create without a knowledge of measurement, proportions, perspective, and more, all taught in the surrounding subjects. I won’t be growing all the food I need to eat, but growing some vegetables helps me appreciate the misshapen tomato, the crooked carrots.
Gardening for beauty, respite, renewal is my goal. Now I will go walk around my garden to reaffirm my joy.
Doesn’t sound as if you need any help reaffirming it! Thank you Linda. – MW
Thank you, Marianne, from all the “Mrs. Taylors” in the world!
You are very welcome. This is one of the places where I have the most difficulty keeping my temper. The complete lack of awareness of not only the resources it takes to transition one’s landscape (particularly a mature one) to a 70/30 mix, but to do it well and with skill, is baffling. It is an onerous burden, and the kindest and most gentle amongst us are likely to feel that burden deeply — much more than the suburban consumer-gardener with resources to burn. One of my many second home neighbors has just put in a native plant landscape, complete with a sign that proclaims the garden’s virtues (and of course advertises the designer’s services for other second-homers). Instant (pointless) landscape in the woods that the deer and landscaping crew visit much more often than the residents themselves. I cannot imagine how much it cost. Or how much it will cost to replant. – MW
I had been wondering why it wasn’t important to make the gardener as happy as the wildlife. Thanks for this amazing article.
Thank you! A cogent and much-needed “rant” against absolutism and extremism – which have never proven to be the right path. Yes, we have excesses to correct, but throwing ourselves over the cliff from guilt isn’t the answer. Your comment on the lack of recognition of Fergus Garrett and Dan Hinckley is spot on – heaven forbid that anyone look beyond the current hype and acquaint themselves with the rich experience of those who gardened before the digital age.
Thank you, Marianne, for making the argument I have been having with gardeners for several years now. My garden is a joyful mix of non-natives and natives alike. I see pollinators covering all the plants in my gardens. I have an abundance of birds, insects, and all other critters making a home and raising their young on my property. I plant for them, but also for this gardener’s soul.
Well-said! In my own garden I try to be constructive rather than destructive, but recognize that everything I do is artificial, and intended primarily for human enjoyment. Some of that enjoyment includes native plants, and a some of it doesn’t. Regardless, the insects and birds (and regrettably a number of animals) have seemed to enjoy the result, without a lot of concern over the national or geographic origin of the plants they’re consuming. I’m not saving the world, nor do I think I’m destroying it, maybe making my small patch of it a bit better, certainly not the barren lawn it was when I began. No shame in that.
Your garden is a net positive for your entire neighborhood Tim — and for others online and in lectures who can learn from your experiments and successes. Hope the icy snow melts so I can see all those snowdrops soon. – MW
“there is no traction in moderation”….that is brilliant, and applies to so much more than just the native plant debate. Unfortunately, it seems to be the way society operates now: activists latch onto a cause and then lecture and shame the rest of us into submission. They claim an academic or scientific “consensus” that they use as a cudgel, but which inevitably unravels after a few years. The cause du jour eventually loses steam, people come to their senses, and then the activists move on to the next thing.
It really doesn’t seem like native plant zealotry can survive long-term. Gardening as an art will survive!
I really enjoyed this piece!
When the native plant movement got a firm grip on the public parks in San Francisco in 1997, I remember thinking the same thing: “This won’t last…surely, it’s just a fad. People won’t tolerate the loss of our non-native urban forest.” I was wrong.
The movement is as strong today as it was in 1997. When Doug Tallamy spoke in Oakland, in November 2024, he spoke to a sold-out audience of 200 at the Oakland Museum of California. He was greeted like a rock-star, just as he was at the 2018 conference of the California Native Plant Society, when he started his presentation with a slide of a wooly, orange caterpillar with the caption, “Make America Native Again!” In January 2026, Tallamy spoke to the San Francisco Commonwealth Club, “America’s oldest, largest and most active public forum—a nonpartisan, nonprofit home for ideas.”
The nativist ideology is not going to die of its own dead weight. That’s why standing up to it, as Marianne Willburn has today, is necessary. Thank you, Marianne.
Thank you for this important article. I’m a very good container gardener, and over the years I’ve often been asked how to start. I tell them to plant what they like, and try not to use too small a pot. That’s all they need to know. Why on earth would anyone pour cold water on a beginner by whipping up all of this eco nonsense? That approach drives people away fast, and we need more gardens and gardeners. But it does satisfy the ego, and we live in a time of narcissism. Also, I agree with Tim that gardens are for people. The idea that we can somehow force our gardens to go back to nature is more nonsense. If people would take the time to read William Cronin or any of our other fine landscape historians, they would see that human impact on the land began long ago — it is measured in lifetimes. But as you say, people want controversy and quick hits of emotion, not book length arguments. I feel for folks like Nancy who are on the front lines at the garden center, trying to untangle this mess. Go Nancy! Carry on Marianne!
Thank you Helen. I often liken the issue to helping a child cook. If you start with all the rules, continually say “no, not like that”, and make the cake look the way you have decided it should be, instead of letting the child play in creativity, you will quickly lose the spark that inspired them to pick up the wooden spoon. Add a moral layer — “why would you want the cake to look like that?” and you’re done. Child turned off. – MW
I am so glad I live where I do and not in some suburban desert. My “gardens” are such a mish-mash of natives and non-natives that I hardly remember which is which. And I love every one of them. That brings me to who decides what is “native”? Is it a plant that has been here since the Ice Age? One that has moved north (or south) in the last 50 years due to climate change? It was “native” in Massachusetts but is in Maine now, so is it “invasive”? Why does it matter? Dandelions came over with Europeans 400 years ago, are they still non-native? Tell all those non-native honeybees they shouldn’t use them for early spring feeding! I guess you can tell that I don’t give a flip about what the so-called pundits say. I grew up in the 60’s, college in the 70’s so I was a child of the ecological movement. I heartily agree that BigAg is more of a demon than Mrs. Taylor’s buddleia. Leave her alone to enjoy the color and movement that comes with that. Nice work, Marianne. This article should be published in a major magazine but probably wouldn’t be accepted – it’s too long for a “sound bite”. Thanks for being a voice of reason. Keep preaching and maybe more than the choir will hear you.
Thank you Kris for your perspective — and great questions about the designation of native — many of which I talked about in my last post on native plants as a moral issue.
Yes, I struggled over the length of this essay, but there is so much that needs to be said that I relaxed our normal post parameters. I don’t think that many people understand the origins of the 70/30 rule, because it is always parroted at me to end a discussion when I deal with the subject with more brevity. It needed a thorough airing. Also, it’s important that readers are shown just how many very mainstream voices are involved (and I could have added so many more), because critics of this new stridency are hushed with the accusation that we cherry pick to make it look worse than it is. This goes way beyond Facebook groups and your local Master Gardener meeting — legacy media is fully on board. And that means that people who don’t even garden are aware of the new rules. Keep gardening in the beautiful mish-mash! – MW
That’s a great piece. That synergy space in your Venn diagram is indeed a very slippery slope. I’m reminded of this quote from Thomas Rainer: “I don’t understand divorcing asthetic and ecological concerns. At the very least, the bugs first, bugs only philosophy will have limited appeal to the broader public. Can’t part of the message include, hey, this is great for wildlife, it’s beautiful, AND it’s pleasurable to us. Yes it’s a higher bar to set.”
Speaking of forgotten names, Doug Tallamy’s disciples would do well to remember Sara Stein who wrote several very popular books in the 90’s about native plant gardening and faded largely, in my view, due to bad design.
So very well said! Great post, insightful, entertaining and so true!
ps…my compliments on this quote of yours: “In new media, we’re in for more focused self-flagellation (presumably using whips made of native species such as Salix nigra or Cornus sericea).”
Marianne, you have taken the time to voice in wonderful detail thoughts that should be obvious to those who really enjoy gardening. I would only add that in some cases we are growing plants that are disappearing from their original environments because of worldwide poverty and urban development. This has been particularly the case in the British Isles where they have rescued many species over the years. Thanks for sharing…
That’s a good point John. Thanks for making it! – MW
I’m astounded at the hostile attitude expressed in this rant starting in the introductory sentence. I am a lifelong gardener, and for years I planted (and designed for others) pretty gardens full of Asian and European plants. Gradually I learned about and sought out native plants, but found limited availability. It wasn’t until I attended my first Doug Tallamy talk 20 years ago that I really understood the evolved co-dependency of native plants and animals. I have been working since then to replace imported plants in my garden with native species. I have also contributed hundreds of hours to the removal of invasive plants in local parks, and witnessed the return of native wildflowers from the seed bank, which now carpet the ground where bush honeysuckle and garlic mustard once reigned. I have delighted in discovering many beautiful native trees, shrubs, vines, and perennials and bringing them into my garden! Through my garden club and other groups (including Wild Ones, a national non-profit that promotes native plants and natural landscapes), I have promoted native plants and encouraged others to grow them. This has been a joyful and fulfilling journey, and I don’t experience any of the negativity that flows so thickly through this rant. But converting our chemically drenched lawns to vibrant communities of native plants, insects, birds, and other animals is absolutely the right thing to do. Home gardens are ‘Nature’s Best Hope’, and I feel a deep satisfaction in doing my little part in creating a ‘Homegrown National Park’ of native plant gardens across the country.
Your sense of satisfaction with the work you are doing is very clear in your comment, and I think it is admirable that you are personally committed to gardening in an ecologically focused way. You and I agree that chemically drenched lawns are terrible — we would differ on how best to ‘solve’ that problem, and what makes the most practical sense for the vast majority of homeowners and gardeners. However, I think you will find that the negativity, and often, hostility, that flows through this essay comes directly from the media sources I have either quoted or linked to throughout. Though I am often sarcastic, I am rarely hostile.
What you do sense from me is frustration, and a deep and growing concern (based on many years of watching and listening) that gardeners are not being listened to. The comments here and on my previous articles from diverse voices all over the country would bear that out. Thank you for your comment Jacquelyn — I appreciate being able to further clarify my position. –MW
You say, “I have promoted native plants and encouraged others to grow them. This has been a joyful and fulfilling journey, and I don’t experience any of the negativity that flows so thickly through this rant.”
The hostility described in this article is experienced by gardeners and horticultural professionals who don’t “promote native plants and encourage others to grow them.” You don’t experience that hostility because it is only directed at those who don’t promote native plants.
Speaking for myself, I encourage all gardeners to plant whatever they want. I don’t lecture those who prefer native plants about their preference and this Garden Rant article doesn’t either. We only ask that you respect our gardening preferences, as we respect yours. (I DO, however, object to the destruction of useful vegetation with herbicides that often accompany the preference for native plants.)
For the record, I will add a comment on this article that is posted to Garden Rant’s Facebook page that I hope will help you understand the abuse that is often inflicted by native plant advocates:
“I recently decided to leave a local and very active FB garden group – where I was the de facto “expert” because I got hammered – again – by a millennial know-it-all for defending Arum italicum.
“She had made a post about it being the scourge of the hemisphere and it HAD to be eradicated at once for being non-native and invasive.
“I pointed out that it’s a garden plant that in our area couldn’t really do much damage to the local native ecosystem (given that we live in a big city and there really ISN’T a local ecosystem anymore), that it’s a beautiful and choice garden plant and that we want plants to spread and that because it’s summer dormant it lacks much ability to outcompete other plants.
“I was accused of all kinds of societal horrors and dismissed for being an irrelevant old white man and basically offered up as proof that people like me are responsible for the removal of native people, the subjugation of woman and minorities and the destruction of all good things everywhere.
“My comments were removed from the post by the admins because they said they wanted to honor and respect all opinions – regardless of whether those opinions are based in science or experience or logic.
“I am glad to not be constantly engaging in these silly battles with dumb-asses any longer but I hate that the thousand or so people in that group are left to the pushers of disinformation and fake moral dogma with no one to push back.
“Most of them are just first time gardeners who are looking for guidance with their efforts and instead they get discouraged by all the dogma.
“A garden is a man made thing in a man made habitat. It is not nature.
“It is fundamentally a creative expression of the gardener and the drive to create a garden comes from that creative place that is personal and unique to each of us.
“The constant barrage of censorship and finger wagging and hostility that has infected the art form has been very destructive to the art form.
“(As evidenced by all of the really ugly “native” landscapes being designed and installed in public spaces all over the country by landscape architects who know very little about planting design and lean on the native plant crutch as a way of compensating for their lack of ability as good designers.)
“And now our nurseries and publications bow to the pressure so that the entire art form is diminished and great plants are being abandoned for another cone flower.”
Dear Marianne,
My condolences on your need to be a responsible adult with a legitimate voice in the gardening industry.
I simply go on the attack. “What keystone species are *you* growing already?” “How many different species of milkweeds are you growing?” “What other native host plants for butterfly caterpillars are you already growing?” “What native plants have you found to be the most visited with different pollinators?”
After establishing my own “eco warrior bona fides”, they have more patience to listen to some common sense.
“Not using *any* pesticides in your garden is the hill worth dying on.”
That includes spraying airborne insecticides for mosquitoes!
I cannot repeat this comment enough.
My gardenias, daffodils, crocus, fatsias, camellias, fragrant sweetbox, evergreen Japanese ferns, Japanese reblooming azaleas, rohdeas, a few roses and a few hydrangeas are not going anywhere. They feed my soul. The pollinators will have to share.
Then a lecture from me about leaving a few inches of leaves and composting the rest in a pile. And that no mow May is just stupid marketing of a clever but wrong slogan.
And Right Plant, Right Place.
And that a lot of primarily Asian yard plants have native cousins that work just as well. Hexastalis is a personal favorite.
A few of the worst people seem to use native plants gardening as a replacement for religious fervor. The type of church people that use the Bible as a weapon instead of a source of grace.
The majority of new gardeners simply want to do the right thing. For many of them, that is helping to fix the ecology. Locally I suggest they start by looking at the southeastern Virginia keystone species list. It is large enough and diverse enough to more than fill the average suburban yard with trees, shrubs and beautiful flowers. And I remind them that it is okay to plant some things from their family gardens. I have many memory plants from various friends and family.
Avoiding non native invasives gets a huge mention, as well as which natives might as well be non native invasives because they will strangle everything, native or not.
For the angry and aggressive ones, I find that having the right questions to immediately cast shade on their own eco warrior bona fides is the fastest way to get to an intelligent conversation about gardening. On a wonderful day I even get to learn something that they knew that I didn’t. 🙂 Always a pleasant surprise. Sadly, very rare.
Keep fighting the good fight. Your assistance is badly needed.
Thank you Matt — I think you are right. Question — not for the sake of it, but for more details, and to determine how deeply the knowledge goes. Question in good faith, and you may be met with good faith back. -MW
Thank you for this wonderful contribution. As a professional soil scientist who has long worked on environmental remediation and conservation in the Chesapeake Bay and its 64,000 sq. mi. watershed, Ms. Willburn’s comments resonate. I am also a Board Member of the Four Seasons Garden Club in the Maryland, District of Columbia, and Virginia area. We recently had Rachel Floyd, an ecologist for Quarry Gardens, speak to us about restoring an area in Virginia. It was an amazing talk and is available to the public on our YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHyZf_YokXVR5LRkUczLX6w. You will see the complexities that ecologists face, and the difficulties of what they are trying to restore the land to. Is it when John Smith, and an English White man first explored the Chesapeake Bay in circa 1608? Is it what we current inhabitants have learned from the indigenous peoples about how they managed the land? Either way, it is not what I want my garden to look like. I want blooms of multiple shapes, colors, and sizes. I want birds and blooms, not a native ecology. I will visit the wonderful Quarry Gardens or one of our many state and national forests and natural areas for native ecology. The goals are definitely different and I refuse to be bullied into setting up an ecological experiment when I want a lovely place to be on my 1/3 acre in suburbia. I have always grown roses and other plants without chemicals and will continue to do so. The newer rose varieties are much more disease-resistant, but are not “native”. That is fine with me. It means no chemicals and robust plants. Let’s respect that there are different goals for different people.
Thank you Olivia — and thank you for providing that link to readers! – MW
Thanks for getting us all looking honesty at what’s happening. What’s struck me most in this post and the comments are the personal attacks being wielded, often IN PERSON, on people in the industry. People working outdoors in public gardens have told me they’re stopped and asked to defend plants grown in the garden the pious visitor doesn’t approve of. Makes me furious on their behalf! I’ve been attacked by visitors to my own garden, but thankfully I can tell them to leave if I want.
Susan I can best answer that with a timeless quote from Aldous Huxley. “The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people that they will have a chance of maltreating someone. Men must be bribed to build up and do good by the offer of an opportunity to hurt and pull down. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
It sounds terribly harsh, but it has shown itself to be terribly true, and it can pervert the good intentions of any movement. -MW
Another comment – how does Penn State (or anyone else) defend omitting all nonnatives from its list of pollinator-supporting plants? (And esp not even naming the list correctly as natives-only.) What possible harm do zinnia and lantana do? Or nepeta? Yet Penn and other restrictive sources DO include native plants that support generalists only. How is this unscientific bias justified?
I’m asking sincerely coz I’ve never seen an answer.
I find the Penn State Pollinator Study and associated materials particularly egregious, as it takes advantage of the good faith of gardeners anxious to plant for pollinating insects.
I remember when I visited the study several years ago, walked the paths and looked at the plants and started to realize what I was, and wasn’t, seeing. I went back to the sign, scanned it to make sure I’d read what I thought I’d read, snapped a pic and went to the master gardener/Xerces Society table at the entrance of the study to query it. When I asked the volunteers why there were no non-natives in the mix, one of them gave me a tight, one sentence, beautifully circular answer. “There are only natives here, as they are the best for pollinators.”
Right. Set up a ‘study’ not to prove a hypothesis, but to reinforce a premise. VERY scientific. And sure enough — that’s the way the materials for gardeners are packaged on the website. I honestly think it was from that point that I really opened my eyes to the idea of performative “ScienceTM” – as different from the scientific method as apples are to oranges. I can no longer be shamed by that crowd — I’ll read their papers, not their abstracts, and go from there. But others can be shamed, and so we have to speak up where we see this kind of thing. – MW
Marianne, the strain of horticulture vs. ecology is exacerbated by social media as you mention. I’m not surprised, especially in a country where, for example, 30% of the people still believe Trump won the 2020 election. I’ve had civil in-person conversations with proponents on both sides that never seem as fraught as they are online. As a friend from Lancaster, PA once said: There are good Amish and bad Amish. Thank you for your well-researched and thorough essay.
Very true Allen — Most conversations in person are much better than they are online. However, the ones we have online can and often do destroy the relationships we have in person.
For my part, I’m working studiously to keep politics out of the garden — it is a place of refuge for so many — including me — who are rightly sick and tired of the red team/blue team frenzy and lens we have created to divide ourselves in places where there shouldn’t be division. -MW
Such a well written article Marianne. You’ve given a voice to many of my inner thoughts about turn the garden community has taken. There really seems to be a weird hyper focus on natives only right now that makes it hard to miss some parallels happening elsewhere. Will be interesting to see how “sustainable “ it all is in the long run. As in many things, the ability to think critically will serve us well
I agree Jennifer. Must keep our eyes open! –MW
May I say that, for me, most native plant landscapes are much more beautiful than the common gardens that I see featuring introduced plants? I find that the colors and textures integrate more successfully into the broader landscape. Evolution, over thousands of years, has done many fabulous things, creating not just interrelationships between insects and their host plants, but also reddish matte compound leaves for certain climates and glossy little grayish ones for others. I have lived in Oakland, California and in suburban Connecticut, and in rural Missouri, and in small town New York State. Outside of cultivated landscapes, these are tremendously different aesthetically, and I appreciate the difference.
I also love the wild abundance of plantings in these new landscapes – they are not stripped down so drastically as other gardens because diversity becomes a guiding principle when ecological function is considered.
My neighbors don’t share the same aesthetics. Explaining to them that I plant for the sake of birds and butterflies has been more successful in deferring their judgment – because it indicates that I am working hard, which is valued – than convincing them that my idea of beauty is allowed to be different from theirs.
Thank you Ivy, for your honesty and perspective. Were we to walk through a garden together I have no doubt that we would find many elements to agree upon. While it is impossible for me to agree that “most native plant landscapes are more beautiful than common gardens with introduced plants” — it is only because I cannot make that kind of generalization on an art form so influenced by the skill of the gardener, any more than I could say the opposite is true. Walking through Mt. Cuba on an April day is very close to heaven on earth, but an unskilled gardener could use the same plants and create something very different. I’m not willing to give that effort an A+ simply because of the plants used. I very much appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this issue. — MW
To save the earth, we need to keep this logic going. I say we kill off the honeybees. They’re not native; they compete with our native bees for pollen, and they pollinate and exacerbate the spread of invasive plants. Then let’s go for the house cats. They’re exotic, they’re invasive, and they shed and ruin furniture. They’ve killed more birds than all barberries combined. They eat native mice! Oh yeah, I almost forgot, they spread fleas and ticks.
As soon as the bees and cats are gone, I’ll agree to cut down my Acer griseum.
I think you’ll have a while to wait Timothy. 🙂 – thanks for the comment. –MW
Thank you so much for articulating what I have been thinking the past few years. I am a retired landscape designer having worked for a large profit-driven company, but apart from plants my other passion has always been the natural environment. When I became aware of the native plant movement in the early 2000’s, I went to professional seminars to learn and started growing a few native plants in my shady yard dominated by 4 large beautiful oaks. When family needs caused me to move about 12 years ago, I chose a sunny location, anticipating growing sun-loving native perennials. After much editing and physical labor, I have had to do some reckoning with native plants.
Quite a few of the native plants I tried were not host plants, had a very limited bloom time and also became garden thugs, making more labor for this aging gardener. I wanted blooms, texture, multi-season interest and of course, to help support native pollinators and birds. I wanted it all! Many non-natives also provide these. Rather than compost the thugs, I gave them away on Facebook Marketplace with the advice that they could become aggressive. There were many interested takers. I had been rebuffed by a well-known local native plant group, of which I am a member, when I tried to give away plants to them but were rejected due to their store-bought provenance.
Currently I am focusing on natives or nativars, chosen with the criteria that the inflorescence and leaf color does not detract from their pollinator attraction. I also plant many sun-loving non-native perennials that simply give me joy. I also added in some scorned, non-invasive structural evergreens to contrast with the wilder look. My native trees remain of course.
If I had a larger property where I could experiment, I would likely seed a large meadow planting to learn from the progression. As it is, the numerous drainage problems have finally been mitigated with raised plant beds, a rain garden, rock swales and very limited lawn that contrasts nicely with the beds. Joy is not often mentioned as a criteria for plant selection.
Thank you Marjorie for such a thoughtful reply. You beautifully illustrate the middle place where so many gardeners (including myself) find ourselves — open to ecological concepts in gardening, then bemused by the growing extremism, and after enough time, fed up with it.
I was thinking a few days ago what these limitations and good plant/bad plant boxes can do to our psyches if we let them take hold deeply. I would like nothing more than to live in an oak woodland as I adore oaks, and they are what Doug Tallamy describes as a keystone species. However, in this stream valley, I am surrounded instead by hundreds of native tulip poplar, and sycamore (P. occidentalis) which he isn’t as thrilled about as they do not support as many species – native or not. Where exactly does that leave a gardener like me — or indeed any gardener who stops looking at the forest for the trees? -MW
As the very esteemed and very ecology-conscious plantsman Ed Snodgrass once reminded me, human happiness and engagement are also ecosystem services. It isn’t mandatory to remove them from any equation. When I lecture, I make sure to remind my audience of that, and to feel free to factor it into their landscapes.
“When we choose to garden with optimism, curiosity, and resilience, we don’t have to pretend to be joyful. We just are.”
This is the line for me. With our planet collapsing, we need to get outside and be amazed by what remains. After adding native plants, the wildlife arrived and it’s been a daily delight!
LOVE this! Thank you. I’m keeping a reference to it.
The use of non-native plants should be encouraged because we should be building bridges, not walls, and not turn away foreign plants from our gardens. Non-native plants, in addition to adding vibrant colors and abilities to the fabric of our environment, promote resiliency, sustainability and biodiversity … and diversity is our strength, is it not?
It’s not hard to knock down a straw man. I would find the angry, aggressive, obsessive native plant fundamentalists depicted in this post to be rather unpleasant as well, if I had ever encountered them.
The vast majority of native plant gardeners that I’ve met have been kind, calm, gentle, enthusiastic people who were simply excited to share a style of gardening that looks at arthropods and birds as a part of the creation (the living sculpture). If anything it’s a more inclusive and expansive approach to horticulture, not less inclusive.
Ms. Willburn accuses those who choose a native plant pallet of pearl clutching, apparently because we often dare to suggest the approach to others. But what’s the difference between telling someone they should plant your favorite plant and telling them they should plant 100s of them?
It’s also rather ironic to talk of pearl clutching given the post is largely an angry response to being told you should consider using a narrower plant pallet (not even narrower, just different).
Dr. Tallamy’s studies are dismissed (without citing any contradicting studies of course) as effete, academic posturing that abandons poor “Mrs. Taylor” to her humble and pitiable fate.
But why not say, “what luck it is for Mrs. Taylor that her garden isn’t finished and that she isn’t doomed to paying for the same overused annuals from the same big-box nurseries (an immense industry), and for the lawn company to take their monthly fee (how much $ does Mrs. Taylor spend on “lawn care” each month?).
No, Mrs. Taylor is fortunate that she can discover new plants and the wonderful associations they have with the living creatures that live where Mrs. Taylor lives. She can depart on a new journey.
There’s no need to murder her hostas or smother her begonias; no need to eviscerate her tiger lilies. She’s simply invited to open a new chapter in her gardening journey. God bless her.
Ms. Willburn can’t understand why Mrs. Taylor, a poor, humble artist, is burdened with the weight of saving humanity while agribusiness giants poison and torture the land by the hundreds of millions of acres. Fair point, but misplaced. Bayer/Monsanto will not (and cannot) be brought to its knees and made to operate with some semblance of a land ethic until the average citizen observes some sort of a land ethic themselves.
It may appear otherwise during these dark times, but we still live in a democracy and the brutal, anti-regulatory atmosphere that prevails on both sides of the isle will never change until the voting public develops some relationship to the land.
But that land ethic only comes from a cultural shift. How different must the daily life of the daily citizen be before he feels that the place where he lives is also alive?
Even those of us prone to biophilia (i.e., the gardeners) have fallen astray through no fault of our own. We didn’t know any better.
Ms. Willburn writes from the perspective of any of us who have ever been frustrated and irritated by others “yucking our yum.” She doesn’t like being told that this art form, this thing that gave her so much joy throughout her life (and the lives of those she loves) was actually bad or wrong all along. BUT NOBODY IS SAYING THAT. Gardening has always been beautiful, and now it’s time for a change. We know better now. We can take the beautiful spirit of that work and update it for a new era, with an ethic that slightly limits the plant pallet (unless we require that the nursery industry sell the plants that evolved here). We can be like a master painter who will only use oil paints (or at least 70% oil paint).
The world I see is not one where gentle gardeners are being bullied into compromising their sacred art by aggressive and snobbish environmentalists. The world I see looks like one where there’s barely anything left of the living land that once was. We’d better get real about restoration, adapt, and maybe accept that not everything we’ve ever done was perfect.
A lot of points to answer here, Evan, and I thank you for taking the time to make them, even if I do not agree with how you characterize either my position or the lengthy amount of evidence I presented to demonstrate that these are far from straw men I fabricated to burn.
They are mainstream, well-read, and well-circulated voices in media and elsewhere that inform not only your average gardener, but policy makers, garden centers, teachers, and master gardeners in positions of local authority.
In presenting a false choice for Mrs. Taylor, you create straw men of your own. Her choice is not one of lawn care companies and big-box annuals vs. native plants. It is more likely that our heroine could no more afford these things than the companies Dr. Tallamy casually suggests will transform her landscape and help her do “the right thing.”
But there is something much more important in your comment that needs illuminating, for you have unknowingly illustrated one of the most common defenses against the position of gardeners who share and voice my concerns: outright dismissal that those concerns even exist – simply because you have not come across them.
From your words, I must assume that you are a native plant advocate who shares an underlying understanding of native flora as ecologically superior. It is unlikely that you have found yourself in a position where you have had to face the stridency and absolutism of your own side. Not pleasant, I can assure you, and all too common, as your fellow commenters from all over the country will attest.
My intention in this piece is to give a voice to people who regularly find themselves experiencing this, while being told that they are not. They are. We are. I am fortunate that I have many native plant-loving friends who share the good qualities you describe – but as I said in the essay, there is little traction in moderation. Those voices are not the loudest.
You also employ the second most common defense – a fallback position that says, well, if the moralizing and censure do exist, it will create a better world. Even as the very real threat of native plant requirements in nurseries lurk just behind your words to “slightly limit” a gardener’s palette, and keep us following a 70/30 rule that never should have been granted the extraordinary jurisdiction it enjoys (based as it is on a non-replicated study with numerous confounding variables). I would entreat you to look more critically at the study itself, and indeed, read Nathan Lambstrom’s recent essays here on GardenRant on faulty data analysis, and creating an inclusive biodiversity that does not narrow our perspective, but expands it to recognize ecological reality.
In a purely literal sense, I agree that “We’d better get real about restoration, adapt, and maybe accept that not everything we’ve ever done was perfect.” “Adapt” is key in that sentence — except your philosophy employs it in a regressive way, where I and others would prefer to move forward. I challenge you to open your eyes in good faith, expand your palette, and watch the miraculous creatures around us often restoring life and biodiversity to our gardens through the complex processes of adaptation. – MW
I appreciate you staying classy with your response, Marianne.
Let me put the “native plant bully” component of the conversation to bed by saying, I don’t support browbeating or strong-arming gardeners in order to change their planting methodology. To the extent it’s happening (and I take your word, and the word of several commenters, that it is happening to some degree), I don’t support that.
Ok, let’s get into it. There are really two different conversations we could be having here and it disappointing and a little disheartening that we’re having one instead of the other.
The conversation I’d like to be having is, “Yes, clearly it’s better from an ecological restoration standpoint to garden with native species, but native plant advocates shouldn’t be pressuring “traditional” gardeners to change tac because it’s in bad taste, and in any event, the real blame lies with industrial agriculture and the beef and fossil fuel industries (i.e., yes it’s better from and ecological standpoint, but I don’t want to do “ecological gardening” and you can’t make me).
Incidentally, this conversation would also be one where it is acknowledged as a given, by both “sides,” that invasive plants are devasting our remaining habitat fragments from coast to coast and we should do everything (within reason) to control their spread.
The other conversation we could be having (the one I wish we didn’t have to have in 2026) is the one where we debate whether native plants are superior from an ecological restoration standpoint at all.
In this latter conversation, we have to debate whether the data really isn’t “in” regarding native plants since some studies show that non-native plants are actually ecologically valuable.
In this conversation we blithely challenge the whole discipline of invasion biology because…after all…what really is an invasive species anyway? Every organism has something to offer, no?
Because your response says that you “must assume that [I am] a native plant advocate who shares an underlying understanding of native flora as ecologically superior.” I must assume that you believe they are not. That puts us in conversation category 2.
I can be sure we are in the “who cares about nativeness anyway” category by your additional statements (see, “Even as the very real threat of native plant requirements in nurseries lurk just behind your words to ‘slightly limit’ a gardener’s palette, and keep us following a 70/30 rule that never should have been granted….”).
It the risk of being accused of native plant bullying, I must ask, what “very real risk”? What horror would be wrought by a requirement that plant nurseries sell…oh I don’t know…at least 50% plants that evolved in the biogeographic region of the retailer?
But I digress, we are having conversation 2, so I followed your entreaty and read all three of “Nathan Lambstrom’s recent essays here on GardenRant on faulty data analysis, and creating an inclusive biodiversity that does not narrow our perspective, but expands it to recognize ecological reality.” So, let’s get into it.
For starters, it seems Mr. Lambstrom is a well-meaning fellow who, at base, doesn’t think eradicating every non-native plant that has managed to naturalize on the landscape is a good idea. In that I concur.
But boy are there other problems with his arguments. Non-native, Japanese barberry has been repeatedly found to reduce overall floral diversity. THIS IS THE ISSUE. It’s not that non-native species cannot provide any floral resources to our native arthropods; the issue is that these species REDUCE BIODIVERSITY.
This is why all the studies cited by Mr. Lambstrom – and there aren’t many – boil down to “actually since the native plant species of this continent have been eradicated from the landscape in many human-influenced environments (which is virtually all of them in 2026), it’s good news that native arthropods can derive some floral resources from them. This is folly, for reasons to be discussed below.
Mr. Lambstrom writes that “introduced (non-native, naturalized) plants have become so common they are now the primary host plants for black swallowtail larvae. In fact, in Massachusetts there have been no confirmed sightings of black swallowtail larvae feeding on native species in the Apiaceae family since 2007 (Stitcher 2013).”
That’s correct Mr. Lambstrom; could that be because these non-native, naturalized species have replaced the native Apiaceae on the landscape?
Similarly, Mr. Lambstrom writes that “the [non-native] tamarisk ha[s] become the preferred habitat for an endangered bird, the willow flycatcher. Eradication efforts were stopped in order to avoid further harm to the bird’s low population numbers (Davis 2011).”
But Mr. Lambstrom elides the obvious fact that THE NON-NATIVE SPECIES IS ALL THAT REMAINS for the willow flycatcher. Maybe the fact that grassland birds have experienced a more than 50% decline since 1970 is just more junk science?
Mr. Lambstrom observes that, “many of our most common invasive woody shrubs are spread because birds consume their fruits so readily.” Very true. And since they have no natural enemies on this continent, this is why Rhamnus cathartica and Berberis thunbergii have rendered woodland fragments across the eastern United States rather silent.
Ultimately, Mr. Lambstrom admits that “Wild native plants form the backbone of our terrestrial food webs….” But he urges that “caring deeply about native plants doesn’t require believing that non-native or even invasive plants are ecologically useless and evil.”
We agree that they aren’t “evil.” I would absolutely love viewing Rhamnus cathartica in its ecological context in Europe, northwest Africa, and western Asia. But I don’t love encountering it in too-quiet Michigan woodlands where it has formed an impenetrable, monocultural thicket.
At the risk of being accused of browbeating gardeners with scientific citations, let me just say that the scientific consensus is clear: native insects overwhelmingly prefer and thrive on native plants, both for feeding and pupation (see, e.g., Meijer et al. 2015, PLoS One; Lerch et al. 2024, Journal of Applied Ecology (BES Journals); Horne et al. 2023, (Environmental Entomology); Springer 2017 study on specialist moths; Trait‑based herbivory studies (ScienceDirect 2023); see also Tallamy & Shropshire 2009 (finding 90% reduction in lepidoptera use on non-native woody plant species compared to native).
But what about when an introduced plant is a close relative (i.e., in the same genus) as a native plant? Well, see Burghardt et al. 2010 comparing 18 such native/non-native pairs over five years and finding a 65% reduction in total number of caterpillars and a 58% reduction in the number of species (with an 80% reduction on species that are not close relatives).
But this was a controlled experiment. What about when entomologists measure what ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN NATURE?
Richard et al. (2019) compared what happens in hedgerows that have been invaded by oriental bittersweet and autumn olive and multiflora rose and Japanese honeysuckle, etc. with hedgerows that were not invaded. They found a 68% reduction in species richness (i.e., the total number of species observed) and a 91% reduction in the abundance of those caterpillars.
And as for biomass (the measure of the energy flows through those ecosystems)? There was a 96% reduction in lepidoptera biomass. As Dr. Tallamy likes to say, “you have reduced the amount of bird food by 96%.”
In “Plant native: comparing biodiversity benefits, ecosystem services
provisioning, and plant performance of native and non-native plants
in urban horticulture,” Elena S. Tartaglia and Myla F.J. Aronson “extracted data from 165 total papers” and “present[ed] a systematic literature review, using the PRISMA methodology, to assess three questions: (1) Is there a difference between native and non-native plants in their ability to support faunal biodiversity in urban green spaces? (2) Is there a difference between native and non-native plants in their provisioning of urban ecosystem services? 3) Do non-native species outperform natives in urban environments in terms of survival, growth, and fitness?”
What did they find? They found “overwhelming evidence that native plants support higher faunal abundance and diversity than non-native plants in urban landscapes.”
Are we comfortable moving to conversation one now (i.e., the one where both sides acknowledge that native plants are essential for restoring ecosystem function and we just talk about whether its ok for native plant enthusiasts to “encourage” other gardeners to adopt these practices?
If we are…thank God. As it relates to that conversation, I’m comfortable directly asking, please don’t plant anything that is even arguably invasive (because there’s no reason to do so).
Otherwise…whatever floats your boat. Just please don’t promulgate mis or disinformation about what is truly “beneficial” for our native fauna. Our wild places are sufficiently besieged by habitat loss and industrial pollution and climate change. They don’t need gardeners engaging in epistemological arguments about the concept of invasiveness or the ecological importance of nativeness in 2026.
Sincerely,
Evan Rosin
Evan, I’m not interested in playing a citation count game with you. You’ve spent considerable effort categorizing me based on inference, then granting me entry into another conversation once I’ve sufficiently absorbed your sources. That’s not a debate, it’s a hierarchy with a citation list attached. And it’s exceptionally off-putting.
For the record: I’m well aware of Tallamy’s work and the broader native-plant literature – I do not take it lightly, but I am also aware of its limitations. Research funding and publication incentives in this field have shifted hard in one direction over the last decade, right along with public outreach, and a literature review is only as good as what was funded and submitted for review in the first place. You’re welcome to disagree with that. But conflating “I have questions about research incentives & scope” with “I think native plants are irrelevant” is not an argument I am interested in refighting with more footnotes.
My message in this piece was not a complicated one: Don’t browbeat gardeners, and do not turn a rich avenue of creativity and pleasure into a never-ending homework assignment that pits the Virtuous against the ignorant. You’ve now spent two long comments proving my point rather than disproving it. –MW
Well Marianne, it seems we’re both tiring of this conversation. And I’m not surprised you don’t want to play a citation count game.
I’ll note though, that it was you who entreated me to look more closely at the science; so that’s what I did.
I wonder whether ecological function and restoration research funding might have shifted hard in the direction of native plants over the last decade because the evidence has become clearer and harder to ignore over time? I wouldn’t, for example, expect to see a lot of research funding for studies exploring coal as a climate mitigation strategy.
I don’t want to be nasty here because I view both more traditional and more ecologically-minded gardeners as allies in the battle to save this planet (too much?), but since you opened the “exceptionally off-putting” can of worms, I must confess that I find it exceptionally off-putting when you use terms like “botanical xenophobia” or when you imply that invasiveness is just a bogeyman cooked up by native-plant fundamentalists. I’ve spent too much time witnessing the ecological devastation caused by invasive plant species and I’ve spent too much time trying to mitigate that harm to stay silent when I see people trying to sow doubt about the discipline of invasion biology.
And so, we’ve come full circle. Please don’t rip out your non-native cultivars; non-natives that are not invasive are fine. If ecologists and botanists believe that they are invasive or have invasive potential, please remove them. To do otherwise is socially and environmentally irresponsible. You have a right to do whatever you want on your property, so long as it stays there.
In any case, I apologize on behalf of all the native plant fundamentalists out there who have ever made you feel bad about your gardening choices. -ER
imagine a botanic garden with two donation boxes, one for natives and the other for non-natives. now imagine if this was the case with every garden. if you truly and genuinely want your neighbor to plant more natives, you’d simply put your money where your mouth is. this wouldn’t force your neighbor to act on your economic demand, but at least he would know it. and ideally so would everyone else.
obviously its not practical for every garden to have literal donation boxes, but there’s no reason why every garden can’t have sign with a qr code for a webpage with a public list of plants sorted by donations. you could donate to elevate “natives” on your neighbor’s page, or you could donate to elevate specific native plants. your neighbor gets the money and you get the opportunity to publicly prove you care about natives.
being considerate of others is a good thing. the trick is discerning whats truly important to others, which is how and why markets work. wherever markets are missing, the result will be a big disparity between supply and demand.
Love this! “New chapter” is right. I look at my old boxwood formal garden and think “nothing is benefitting from these plants except my garden center-influenced sense of order.” Once you go wild, you’ll never go back. ⬛
Jen, I hope you don’t dismiss boxwood too quickly! Though they may not support the amount of life present on an oak tree, they do support many pollinators (native and non) with their nectar and pollen, give habitat to many with their dense cover, and when plagued with leaf-miner, support other species. Though common leaf miner is an introduced species, and not pleasant for the gardener, it does add another source of protein for birds (larval), and spiders (adult), and perhaps other insect predators. Not arguing for a garden made up of entirely boxwood, just against the idea that it is ecologically inert. –MW