Now that February is behind us here in the Northeast we have begun the countdown to when Spring truly arrives. The official start of Spring this year is March 20th. This is a time when we all start looking for the signs that the season is here. This year we have so much snow and ice it will be a good bet as to when we will really start to see and feel Spring.
I recently read a book borrowed from a friend that I enjoyed so much that I must mention it here. Before you start getting ready to make your lawn the blue prize of the neighborhood this year, I ask you to consider some of the things this books author has written about. The numbers I'm about to clue you into were provided by author Douglas W. Tallamy in his book Bringing Nature Home. In the United States there are over 40 million acres of lawn and we spend 45 billion dollars on caring for it. Did you know that 1 hour of lawn mowing produces the same amount of pollution as 650 miles of driving? How about the price of gas these days, did you know that yearly 800 million gallons of gas is consumed by lawn mowers?
Bringing Nature Home is a great and easy read. It is a discussion on what can be done by all of us to sustain wildlife with native plants. Now don't go thinking you can not contribute, you can. Whether you have property that provides a place to plant or not, you live in a community, communities have schools, public spaces, private business and corporations have parking areas, all of these can be landscaped with plantings that invite and sustain a wildlife environment. Wildlife, what is that? If you are thinking bears, deers, wolves and other such animals, think again. A point made by Mr. Tallamy at a recent presentation I attended at New England Grows was his observation that once native sustaining plants were placed in the landscape, birds native to the area were noticed returning and many of the huge population of non-native birds moved on to other areas. The book discusses this example very well.
Want to know what all the hoopla is about invasive plants? There are documented examples and photos supporting them in this book. Some 'invasives' perhaps have good traits for a one time fix, but, over time they become out of control and harmful to the natural environment, next time you drive along the highway or an area that was disturbed during construction and left to its own instead of re-landscaping properly, take note of the invasives that have blanketed the native trees, you'll see that trees are dead or dying from vines that have deprived it of sunlight necessary to sustain life or perhaps it has broken off from the weight of vine cover during months of snow and ice here in the Northeast.
I'm a gardener, and often when I come upon insects in the landscape I'm not sure what kind it is, is it a good insect? is it a bad insect? The images and descriptions in this book are a prime reason I will have keep this book handy for referral. I've always known that a rule of thumb is that is you see an insect in large numbers you probably should know what it is, its possible there is an imbalance in the garden when this happens, it could be ok or not. After reading this book it may be that you simply need to introduce a few native plantings to provide the balance that nature needs to do its job. I enjoyed learning about oh so many insects and cannot wait to see how many I will hopefully be able to identify this year. We have lost some beautiful and worthy insects due to loss of habitat, did you know many insects only feed on certain types of plants? The Royal Walnut Moth is the largest most beautiful Lepidoptera in North America, says Tallamy. It is now extinct in New England, scientists say from light pollution. The poor thing would literally die from exhaustion from attraction to man-made light.
As a designer I've always supported keeping natives in the design process. Knowing what a native plants purpose is enhances the overall effect of the landscape both for the customer and nature. It certainly does not have to be an 'all or nothing' native planting design, but care should be taken on what mix of natives and non-natives are expected to co-exist with each other. There is some discussion on this topic as well in the section 'What Should I Plant'. Basically the message is simple, native plantings should continue throughout a neighborhood to provide a thread of the natural environment that was there before its interruption. If you think about protected areas, such as wetlands and many conservation lands, this is the rule, developers are required to provide a list of what is intended to be planted near these areas, and for good reason, not just to keep invasives out but to maintain the sustainable nature of the space that was there to begin with.
With that I'll close with the following statement from the author, he says:
our gardens need native plants to support a diverse and balanced food web essential to all sustainable ecosystems
for a look inside the book visit the link below...enjoy!
Bringing Nature Home
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