It's Time To Move On From "Simple"

Since the publication of Bringing Nature Home, we seem to be stuck in the infancy of what creating living landscapes is really all about.  What brought so many to the connection between landscape design and the possibilities of creating habitat for birds and pollinators has now somehow also caused us to be in a state of arrested development in my opinion.  Dr. Tallamy's messages are simple.  Native plants are better than nonnative ones and some of these - like oaks, are better than others.  Insects, but especially the caterpillars of moths and butterflies, form the foundation of the food web and planting the "Top 10" on his list, regardless of species within that genus, is the path to achieving our shared ecological goals.

As a species, I think we gravitate towards the simplistic.  We want the messages we get to be simple. We do not want things to be any more complicated than needed.  The problem from my perspective, however, is that most messages are more complicated than we want and they require us to use more critical thinking than we might prefer.  Hanging on to the simple and not eventually reaching out to the more complex is holding down our shared desire to create living landscapes.  It's time we moved past the simple messages and into the next stage.  Creating landscapes for wildlife requires us to first gain an understanding of the habitat needs of the species we are trying to provide for and that requires some study before we embark. It is not as simple as letting your landscape come up on its own and pulling out the nonnative plants. It is not about planting an oak because it is number one on a Top 10 list, and it is not about caterpillars on trees though these are important.

One such simplistic concept that I see gaining momentum is the one about Freedom Lawns.  Although I am not absolutely sure I fully understand this one, I see it interpreted as letting your lawn go "wild" by not mowing it. For some, it also means removing the nonnative species and letting the native ones, regardless of species, alone to do their thing.  If I am interpreting this correctly, I see very little to commend such an approach - especially when done in a previously developed area.  In a natural site, letting the native plants that are there develop more fully is a good thing, but in places like those I've lived in, letting things go "natural" is not natural at all.  There is nothing in my original landscape that I would have planted on my own - including the native species. I have weeds, native and otherwise, and although some of them have some value, the plants I have added have far more. Creating a truly living landscape is not about letting things go "natural", it is about purposely adding in the elements that are missing and removing those that are less useful.  It takes research and time and it takes a plan.  

Another simplistic falsehood promulgated by a great many is the idea that native plants are inherently better than nonnative ones; that somehow every native pollinator, caterpillar, and bird has evolved to the point that a nonnative plant cannot sustain them.  Examples in books like Bringing Nature Home, are cherry-picked as proof. We need to look no deeper, apparently, at other examples because this is now gospel.  The problem is, it's not that simple.  It's what nearly everyone in the native plant movement want to be true, so we accept it carte blanche.  To get past this point that so many of us are stuck in, we need to look further.  On the surface, it is true that our wildlife have evolved to use native plants and I have been a major proponent of native plant landscaping for more than 3 decades.  Below the surface, however, we would find that a great many nonnative plants provide ecological function in a landscape and many native ones are inferior to the tasks we would set for them.  My key lime feeds the caterpillars of giant swallowtails just as well as native plants in the Rutaceae.  It also feeds me. In the Florida scrub, orange trees often get used as nesting trees for Florida scrub-jays.  It is a nonnative with great function.  I have had native and nonnative plumbagos in my landscapes over the years and I've found that the Cassius blue uses the nonnative one at least as much, if not more, than the native species. In my mind, the nonnative one is also aesthetically more attractive and easier to manage. I have a nonnative pipevine (Aristolochia trilobata) that is used by both species of pipevine swallowtails native to Florida.  At my latitude, I have never had success with the native wooly pipevine (A. tomentosa) and the A. serpentaria is far too tiny to feed even one caterpillar.  If my ecological goal is to provide habitat for these 2 butterflies, I plant the nonnative. If my goal were to simply have a native landscape, I would eschew this plant and ignore the opportunity I have to provide for pipevine and polydamas swallowtails.

I could use other examples, but I believe that these are sufficient. A plant belongs in a landscape when it provides ecological value, and does not provide harm.  It has nothing to do with nativity. Nativity is not a silver bullet that overcomes the evil in the landscapes around us.  Most of the time, a native plant is superior to a nonnative one, but that is true only for the role it will play. We choose plants based on their ecological attributes, not their nativity.

Creating a functional landscape also requires us to provide diversity.  This often seems lost on folks that I see posting on social media.  It's the idea that certain plants are inherently better than others and that creating a monoculture of them is the path to take. It is not. There is no "10 Best Trees" for example. Wish there was. It's easy for us to grasp that just as it's easy to allow a field of Spanish needles to overtake all else or to rip out a lawn and replace it with a monoculture of something native.  We embrace the idea that landscaping can be as simple as that.  The problem is that it isn't that easy IF we want to maximize the value of what we create.  Nature is diverse and natural areas in their natural state are also that way.  Different species of wildlife have different habitat needs. Pollinators don't all gravitate to the same flower any more than a cardinal and a mockingbird use the same tree to nest in or the same foods to provide their diet.  There really is no list of the 10 Best Trees that is meaningful as it really depends on context. Best for what?  In actuality, the list is based solely on the diversity of caterpillars each supports nationwide, not specifically for Florida and it assumes that each species in a genus (hawthorns, for example) are equally used as host plants across this continent.  It's not that simple.  I suspect that not every oak is used the same as the others in that genus and that not every hawthorn is either.  That's just not the way that nature works. I also know that butterflies and moths often use one species in one part of the country and a different one elsewhere.  Nature is more complicated than we might prefer, but that's the way it is. Again, it calls on us to take the time to educate ourselves a bit before we start planting.

The Top 10 list also ignores completely all of the other habitat needs that might be supplied by a tree or shrub.  Birds are not only dependent on caterpillars...  They need places to nest, they need cover to hide in, they need water, and they need food for themselves - not just for their nestlings.  A live oak, for example, is a wonderful tree to provide caterpillars, but it is nearly useless for nesting birds.  In the winter, when so many native trees north of the lower southern counties are leafless, I challenge you to look at where the nests are.  Except for grey squirrels, I never find nests in the splayed out branches of a live oak. It does little good to feed nestlings in your landscape if their parents can't nest there too. 

Invertebrate food is created in all levels of a landscape, not just in the Top 10 trees. It is created in the decaying leaf mulch below my created woodland and it is created in the many plants I've chosen to add as hosts for butterflies and moths.  My butterfly "garden" is more important in feeding the Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice than any tree or shrub I could have planted.  What the real messages here are:

1. Always refrain from a blanket approach of pesticide use.

2. Allow nature to be herself - don't protect one set of living creatures from another.

3. Make sure that all levels of your landscape (canopy, mid-canopy, ground covers and mulch) are represented and diverse.

As a species, we seem loathe to dig much below the surface if given a superficial message - especially if that message says what we already believe to be true. So many of us have been led to the beginning of the starting line. I think that it's time to run that race a bit more effectively. Doing something is always better than doing nothing, but doing it armed with more information and creativity is better than doing it without thinking more deeply than many of us do - at least from what I see.  It's a challenge to make the effort to dig below the surface, but it's time that we did.