These native plants provide for wildlife in every way — nectar and pollen, fruits and seeds, shelter, and browsing material. Most are host plants for the life cycles of specific native insects, with relationships evolved over millennia.
Even Doug Tallamy, the mega-famous entomologist credited with igniting the native plant movement, did not recognize until two decades into his career the critical premise that native plants and native insects coevolve. In most cases, one cannot exist without the other.
So how was I supposed to know?
As a student of horticulture in the 1980s, I could identify just about every alien ornamental plant in the temperate U.S. by its Latin and common names. Back then, the words “native” and “plant” were never uttered side by side. And now, Tallamy tells us, from an invertebrate’s point of view, when we put an alien species in the ground, we might as well be planting plastic.
Until recent years, there was hardly a human-made landscape that was not plastic. Still today, there are but a few. The massive number of invasive plants running roughshod are similarly unnatural — inedible leaves, incompatible with life cycle and reproduction. Yes, the nectar and pollen may be foraged, but they have less nutritional value than the nectar and pollen in coevolved native plants. Compare a candy bar to an apple.
Twenty-five years ago, I was asked to design a garden on the James River where the only must-have was a waterfall. What did I fill this generous-sized property with? Naturally, Asian, European and North African plants, plus a handful of North Americans — plants available at the nurseries.
But all these years later, all the books; the Lewis Ginter symposia; and the dozens, if not hundreds, of talks, webinars, and conferences I’ve attended have made me a changed person. When I visited this garden, I would cringe at the miscanthus grasses, the yellow threadleaf chamaecyparis, the creeping euonymus and, oh, the sterile viburnums and hydrangeas with their gigantic plastic flowers (my fault).
This garden transformed from a picturesque collection of exotic plants with little meaningful insect activity to a commotion of vitality and biodiversity almost overnight.
Two years ago, I emailed the clients with a plea for grace. “The garden is tired, out of touch, stupid (my fault) and could we do a refresh?” I mentioned that we used to plant our gardens for human visual gratification; now, we design and plant as habitat stewards for healthier ecosystems — nay, a healthier planet.
I asked the owners if we could remove more or less everything, mentioned that we are living in an insect apocalypse where globally we have lost nearly 50% of our insects and probably reminded them of pioneering sociobiologist E.O. Wilson’s famous warning about “the little things that run the world”: “The truth is that we need invertebrates but they don’t need us. If human beings were to disappear tomorrow, the world would go on with little change… But if invertebrates were to disappear, I doubt that the human species could last more than a few months.” I really went for it.
Several days passed before I heard back. I assumed the family was paralyzed by this dire forecast of mankind’s future. Then, hallelujah! They wrote that they wanted to be part of the solution, not the problem. So, we demoed, and we demoed, and we replanted pollinator plants, host plants and food plants — an herbivore’s gotta eat — with most being native species, plus some wonderful alien additions.
And, of course, we leave the leaves.
Anna Galusha Aquino is a Richmond-based landscape architect.
