Going Native: Why Does It Matter?

 

(A moth pollinating a native false dandelion/Carolina chickory/ Borkhausia caroliniana)

Most of what I talk about here is related to native plants, but I realize I've never really addressed WHY native plants matter. Why bother ripping out exotics and replacing them with things that you might not think are as showy? That's what I'm going to address today.

First Things First

First, I don't feel that you should ONLY grow natives. My personal philosophy is:

1. Plant for more than people.

2. Plant mostly natives.

3. No invasives.

Imported species certainly have their role in the home yarden, particularly if you're blending things like fruit and vegetable plants into native gardens. Or building a food forest! So, you don't need to be only native unless you want to. The trick is to plant mostly natives.

But why?

Why You Should Plant Natives

Why incorporate native plants into your landscape? 

1. They can be just as showy as any exotics out there. Between annual wildflowers and native perennials, you'll find plants that suit any color scheme or texture goals you might have. The trick? Finding a good resource that details plants native to your area and then locating native nurseries that stock those plants (or buying seed from native wildflower sellers). 

2. They need less water and fertilizer once established. Because native plants evolved within your area, they're adapted to the soil and weather patterns. That doesn't mean you'll never need to give them a helping hand, but you'll need to supplement less often. And that in turn reduces your water consumption - a shared resource that's increasingly scarce - and helps you skip the damage that chemical fertilizers cause to the environment. 

3. The insects, birds, and other wildlife in your area evolved in tandem with native plants. Many of them rely on those plants for food and shelter. For instance, North America is home to around 4,000 species of native bees alone. But while many of them are generalists and can find food from a range of plants, around 25% (1,000 entire species) are specialists, meaning that they can only feed on specific plants. And that doesn't account for other pollinators out there, like hummingbirds, beetles, and even wasps.

4. It increases biodiversity. Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is a measure of the variety of species within an ecosystem (it can apply to a lot of other things, too). When biodiversity declines, keystone species in the ecosystem can disappear. Others must step in the fill that role, but they're in danger of disappearing, too. Eventually, entire ecosystems can collapse if biodiversity declines too far. 

Anyway, time to step down off my soapbox. To put it in a nutshell, planting natives is important for a lot of reasons, all of which matter not just to the flora and fauna around us, but to humans, too.