You Need To Know Your Plants

Cordia sebestina

 A few days ago, I saw a wonderful photo of a sulfur butterfly nectaring on the flowers of a geiger tree on a social media site that I am a member of.  The ensuing comments were expected.  Everyone wanted this plant....... but did they really?  I also saw a post from a different member asking for input on her butterfly garden plan; one that she obviously had paid someone to design.  These two separate posts have at least one thing in common - the folks wanting to have landscapes beneficial to wildlife did not take enough time to learn plants they were wanting to add.

I can write this. In my first days of embracing the native plant movement, I quickly thought that I knew what I was talking about and the reality was that I knew almost nothing.  What I knew came largely from listening to others and from browsing through a few books.  I had almost no firsthand experience.  In a way, I was saved by the fact that there was no such thing as the internet and social media at the time.  I was not further misled by reading posts from folks as inexperienced as I was and thus feeling confident in my relative ignorance.

What I've learned in my nearly 36 years now of working with native plants and wildlife in Florida is that experience trumps everything else.  I realize that it's not realistic or even fair to expect others to wait more than 3 decades to plant their landscapes, but I also know that no one should plant anything without some research. You have to know what you're getting into.  Plants are no different from animals.  When you accept responsibility for any living being, you are taking on the responsibility of keeping it healthy.  To do this, you have to know what you're taking on.  Sadly, it would seem from social media posts that many don't.

Going back to my Cordia example above, a little research would show that geiger trees are tropical in nature and suffer greatly at temperatures below freezing.  A friend of mine had several in his Venice, Florida landscape.  All of them died one night when his yard fell into the upper 20's F.  This is not a tree for anyone's yard north of Miami-Dade and Collier Counties - sadly.  

The other example of the designed butterfly garden is much worse because folks posing as "experts" are designing landscapes obviously based on little real-life experience.  The plan, showcased on social media, was confined to a single area of this person's yard.  In it were wetland and upland plants, plants from the northern part of the state and some from the extreme south, and a great many woody species mixed in with herbaceous ones.  There simply was no way that all of these could coexist in the same space.  While this person was showcasing her future "butterfly garden" with pride, she needed to take more time to learn the plants and know what she was getting into.  Trusting the "experts" can only go so far - in this case not very. It is up to us, always, to know what we are getting into before we plant anything.  Here. the wetland plants would die without a lot of extra irrigation or the upland ones would perish because the site stayed too wet; the south Florida species would freeze in the first real cold snap; the woody species would grow as they are genetically programed to do and they would then shade and crowd out many of the nearby herbaceous ones.  

Folks relatively new to the native plant movement often approach it with a great amount of zeal.  I appreciate that. I was that way too, however, we owe it to the environment and ourselves to know what we are doing before we do it.  That means taking a long drawn-in breath and researching the plants that pop up on our social media radar.  Join the Florida Native Plant Society and go on field trips for at least a year.  It's really not that difficult to have some patience and wait a bit - the information you learn will serve you the rest of your landscaping days. Trust me.