Native Plant Landscapes Require Maintenance

An untended yard behind me

Several years before I moved into my new rental home, a large Chinaberry tree (Melia azedarach) split along its double-trunked length and destroyed the home to my immediate southeast. The rubble from the home was removed, but nothing was done to the yard. It has returned "to nature."  The problem is that the nature it has returned to is one of a neglected lawn. It doesn't resemble any kind of native community and that shouldn't be surprising. Lawns harbor a great many weeds within the grass blades and a huge seed bank of their seeds in the upper layers of the soil. They await disturbance in the anticipation of being freed from the competition of the lawn grass and they are what forms the ground cover in situations like my former neighbor's.
Each day, the County assesses fines on this former lawn and, of course, he will never pay them. There is a lien now on the property that makes purchasing it completely insane. The entity now responsible for mowing it has been transferred to County government and they largely have abrogated this responsibility. The former yard is a case study of what happens to a yard if left to become wild.
Some would look over this expanse of Spanish needles (Bidens alba) with various other aggressive weeds and with a background of nonnative roadside lantana (Lantana strigocamara) as a paradise pollinator garden. Nearly every day on social media, I see posts from well-meaning folks whose goal is to do exactly this.
I do not see the pollinator paradise that some might see in my former neighbor's yard. It is a mess. It lacks diversity and it suits the needs of just a fraction of the species of pollinators that might use it if designed with a purpose. It is true that Spanish needles is a useful nectar source. So is the nonnative lantana. My issue is that this large expanse is a virtual monoculture and monocultures benefit a very small subset of the species that also might occupy this space. Not every pollinator routinely uses Spanish needle to the extent that my honeybees do. It does, in fact, serve as the host plant for the common dainty sulfur butterfly, but it is not for the several hundred other possible butterflies that would share this former yard if their host plants were also added. If they were added, however, the Spanish needle would overwhelm them eventually. Just as it has done here.
Native plant landscaping often tries to sell itself on an unsuspecting public as a "low maintenance" landscape that you can plant and virtually walk away from. The reality is that a landscape dominated by native plants takes a great deal of maintenance if it isn't going to succumb to the weeds as my neighbor's yard has. It might not require additional water and fertilizer, but it requires weeding to keep the species out that are ever present in the neighborhood. It requires weeding even to maintain the balance you've chosen in your original planting plan as well. Without weeding, my front yard wildflower meadow would be overwhelmed by the Chapman's goldenrod (Solidago odora var. chapmanii) seedlings that are popping up everywhere. I love this plant, but I only need to much.
Native plant landscapes are not for the lazy or those who eschew time working in them. This is especially true for areas that are set aside for pollinators. Nature will not take the vacant lot behind me and turn it into a natural area. It will remain this bizarre combination of native and invasive weeds as it has since the day this yard was abandoned and left to its own devices. If our landscapes in formerly developed areas are to achieve their full potential in creating living areas for other species, we need to give nature a hand and manage them. We also need to purposely plant them with creating habitat as our primary goal.

Spanish needles, roadside lantana, a non-native morning glory among others