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After getting a house with a decent sized yard and trees, I have been having a lot of fun with planting native plants. While my neighbors are cutting down trees

• throw_away1525 4y ago
  I think you're right about the natives and the 'right kind' of activity. Native species, especially the ones at risk, are more likely to be specialists. And of course, they specialize in the native plants. Invasive species, on the other hand, are more likely to be generalists. That's why they become invasive in the first place. And they'll be happy to visit those non-native plants.
• ilyt 4y ago
  Yeah, I also don't understand appeal of "just a square of land filled with immaculate lawn and not much else. It's essentially space wasted for nothing.
  • bmitc 4y ago
    Agreed. I've heard manicured lawns described as deserts but that that is actually not fair to deserts, the implication being that deserts are a healthier ecosystem than manicured lawns. I still have a lawn in the front and back covering parts of the property. I did plant non-native grass last fall. I'm not sure I'm happy about that from an ideal standpoint, but I chose grass that is very drought resistant and needs basically no maintenance and looks fine when allowed to grow taller. I mixed in some mini-clover, which is also non-native, but it's a new species that is supposed to make the grass even more drought tolerant, provides natural fertilization, and supports pollinators. We'll see how it goes. I also plan to not mow as much, although last year with the drought, I barely mowed at all. I don't use chemical fertilizers and used only natural fertilizers. I have heard this approach described as feeding the soil and not feeding the grass. One of the fertilizers I used showed some fungus growing on the grass, which I was happy about. I hope to keep evolving things and reclaiming parts of the lawn that we never use or want. It's nice as you reclaim it with plants and trees, because it's decreasing maintenance burden.
  • hinkley 4y ago
    I saw a comedy set a long time ago with a line to the effect “the lawn was brought to us by the same pretentious assholes who got beheaded during the French Revolution”.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    Some of us like to have a bit of open lawn for outdoor activities that need some space. I've still got dozens of trees, shrubs, wildflowers and such, but there's an area of just grass that is really nice to have. I can't remember the last time I saw a lawn around here that didn't have a boatload of additional plants as well. I assume this must happen in other parts of the country/world, or it's a meme. If you want to go completely wild with your own back yard, I understand, but I don't see the appeal of that either.
  • andsoitis 4y ago
    You can play polo on it. Or if you’re not as wealthy, then croquet.
  • caskstrength 4y ago
    > Yeah, I also don't understand appeal of "just a square of land filled with immaculate lawn and not much else. It's essentially space wasted for nothing. The American custom of manicured lawns has always been quite incomprehensible to me. A lot of people in eastern Europe have dachas or live in SFH in suburbs but they tend to have some trees around the house for both comfort (provides shade in summer) and aesthetic reasons.
• pascalxus 4y ago
  but you also need some balance. alot of native species don't taste very good and some aren't even edible.
  • bavent 4y ago
    Don’t taste good and aren’t edible for you maybe, but all my local bugs and critters seem to love the ones I’ve planted.
• pamelafox 4y ago
  Agreed! I've been gradually replacing the invasive plants with native plants, and for the most part, native plants are doing really well. We have one side of the yard with bad soil from an ivy infestation, but with enough soil amendment, I think it'll be fine. If you're in the bay area, https://www.bringingbackthenatives.net/ https://www.bringingbackthenatives.net/ is a great resource - you can tour gardens and find garden designers. Calscape.net also a great resource, plus the native nurseries like Oaktown and Watershed.
• taeric 4y ago
  Native plants may be easy; but by that measure, invasives are where its at. :D That said, bringing down trees is always odd to me. Definitely bring down any that pose a risk to your house. But otherwise, seems more effort than it is worth. I should probably be a lot better at pruning, as that is a ton of work. And, while intellectually I know the answer is that you are unlikely to kill the tree, I am always worried about that to the point that I don't prune enough.
  • xyzzyz 4y ago
    Depends on your goals. I’d love to have some big towering trees around me, but I also love gardening and laying in the sun. One big tree in an inopportune could shade my entire yard.
    • taeric 4y ago
      Note that posing a risk doesn't just mean "if giant tree were to fall toward house it would be a problem." Obviously, you should monitor the health of any giant tree nearby, but by and large healthy trees growing tall is not an immediate concern. Moreover, some of those trees would be perfectly healthy if you kept them pruned to a safer height. So, posing a risk is more on trees that are likely to fall over and do major damage. Or those that have root systems that are too close to your foundation and going to cause issue in that way. All of this is said as someone that loves giant trees nearby. Seeing eagles and such nest at the top of trees that are hundreds of feet tall is very cool. Edit: Also consider fire hazard to the house, depending on where you live.
  • bmitc 4y ago
    I'm still not totally certain how to "manage" the trees in our yard. We are in a quite woody area with huge trees. I contacted an arborist place last year and plan on paying them to come out and teach me about the trees on my property. The previous owners cutdown some huge trees, but luckily mainly concentrated on the trees that were super close to the house. It's possible remaining trees could hit the house, and they are actually relatively likely to snap off at some point due to the wind. But I think it's relatively unlikely it will happen and we have insurance if it does. I could remove the possibility and also completely remove ticks as well if I transformed the yard into concrete, but that is of course completely self-serving. My neighbor recently had a tree crack and slightly hit his house. I can't see any real damage from my point of view, but I can only describe it as him waging war against trees on his property afterward. He removed 99% of the remaining trees on his yard (these are huge trees), including ones that couldn't hit his house even if they broke at the base of the trunk (which they never do). Another house that has sit empty for a year and a half recently cutdown all its trees. Literally all the trees. All that's left is a graveyard of stumps, which makes it look like a warzone from WWI or something. There was probably 50 trees cutdown. There's no way I'm cutting down the oaks, and I'm unlikely to cutdown any tree, even if it's dead since even those support insects, owls, woodpeckers, and other birds.
• jlglover 4y ago
  I completely agree with most of your points. I have a spot in my garden where I want to plant a large native tree, probably an oak. I would love to plant all natives, except that they quickly get eaten by deer in my neighborhood. Even many "deer resistant" varieties like coneflower and beebalm. Of course, this make no sense, since deer and native plants should have evolved to survive beside one another. I think this contradiction is because the local deer population is just much much higher than the historical levels, since they have no natural predators here. My neighbors say they weren't a problem until recent decades. I was somewhat skeptical, except that I see many plant varieties thriving in the 2012 Google streetview shots that would not be feasible to grow today.
  • is_true 4y ago
    You could buy a bow and do some management. It's really interesting. There's a YouTube channel, seek one.
    • jlglover 4y ago
      I live on a medium-sized lot within the limits of a city, so bow hunting is not allowed in my yard.
      • is_true 4y ago
        Maybe somewhere close. Near where I live they had to start paying people to hunt because off all the accidents caused by deer
      • bluGill 4y ago
        Are you sure? In some cities it is allowed. The city might say it is not allowed, but the state has different rules that overrule whatever the city says. Of course you do still need to be safe in your hunting, and that can be tricky.
  • bmitc 4y ago
    We have deer as well that keep eating certain plants. I am drawing a blank on which ones, but they kept growing back rather quickly. We are going to take into consideration this year and perhaps plant them in less convenient spots, more quantity, or something else when it comes to mind, like some sort of deer sprinkler project that targets them. Haha. Although it is quite annoying as they were eating two of my favorite plants I got last year, I'm not too bothered by it. I'm going to buy more and try what I mentioned above and see if it helps at all. They leave the milkweeds alone, probably for obvious reasons, and the milkweeds are the happening place for basically all the insects. It is crazy how popular they are. There are other plants they also leave alone. I think it's going to just be trial and error since they don't seem to like all the native plants, just some of them.
• onos 4y ago
  I don’t really understand the logic behind native only, beyond the desire not to introduce a plant or creature that would monopolize their environment.
  • Loughla 4y ago
    In my experience, it's multi-faceted. First, is the ease of integration. Native plants are, well, naturally better suited for your area. If you select a flower that grows natively in your area, it will be okay as long as you match the sun requirements. Second, they take less maintenance. Less water and little- to no-fertilizing, because they're already well suited to the climate and soil. Third, is that they are almost guaranteed not to be invasive. And finally, you don't have to worry about introducing anything toxic to the native fauna inadvertently. If it's toxic, they already do not eat it. For me, it was that they are super easy to take care of, and thrive under conditions that would murder "standard" sorts of landscaping plants. I'm forgetful, and a watering schedule is just not an option for my poor, poor brain.
  • bmitc 4y ago
    What do you not understand about it? Just trying to address any specific questions you might have. Here's some bullet points I've collected in my head. I'm not an expert and am still learning. See the links below. Planting native plants: - reduces watering and fertilization needs, if not removing them, because native plants are built for the area they're planted in - attracts native insects, which further attracts native predators like birds, mammals, and other insects. Non-native plants can attract a lot of activity, but it can be harmful to the overall ecosystem, as non-native pollinators are not evolved to interact with the regional ecosystems and are thus far less effective - Non-native plants can not only monopolize the environment, but they can be highly detrimental to the soil, stripping it of nutrients - Native plants are developed primarily locally and thus reduce emissions compared to having to ship around non-native plants everywhere to all the big box stores and nurseries - Ecosystems contain individual species that evolved together. By replacing entire plant systems with non-native plants, you interrupt the system. This is not good because things get of whack. Things evolve but not in healthy ways, such as often encouraging non-native wildlife. - Pollinators are extremely endangered but extremely important, not to just their local ecosystems but to humans as well. They are what allows our agriculture to be successful. It doesn't make any sense to smoke them out. - Native plants are more efficient at carbon capture. https://www.audubon.org/content/why-native-plants-matter https://www.audubon.org/content/why-native-plants-matter https://www.monarchgard.com/what-we-believe.html https://www.monarchgard.com/what-we-believe.html https://homegrownnationalpark.org/ https://homegrownnationalpark.org/ Honestly, the only reason to plant non-native plants is vanity.
• deleted 4y ago
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• frereubu 4y ago
  If you haven't already, you might enjoy learning about permaculture. This is a short and easily-accessibile introduction - two of its originators, David Holmgren and Su Dennett, talking about how they designed their house according to its principles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss1BjW2kSNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss1BjW2kSNs The part of your comment which prompted the comparison was "... native plant species are easy. If you plant them in the right place, they will grow very easily and strongly with minimal care." This is one of the principles of permaculture - based on the land you have available (and it can be as small as a balcony off a flat) spend some time working our what works where based on your plot and plant that, rather than struggling to get something working where it doesn't belong.
  • LegitShady 4y ago
    I had a neighbour who did a permaculture front yard that was ridiculously beautiful, but unfortunately the tall grasses etc became a haven for rodents which caused problems for multiple neighbours. Sometimes there are good reasons why a regular grass yard might be ok.
    • bmitc 4y ago
      That's an example of part of the problem though. By originally cutting everything down and destroying the ecosystem, it pushed out the predators that would keep the rodents in check. We have rodents here for sure, but there are also foxes, coyotes, fisher cats, hawks, raccoons, bobcats, and owls.
      • LegitShady 4y ago
        I dont want coyotes and bobcats around my house. neither does anyone who has pets or livestock. There's a reason they were pushed out. We still have owls and other birds of prey. We have raccoons and they are annoying and can damage property.
        • nibbleshifter 4y ago
• jmspring 4y ago
  I did this when I bought a house in Santa Cruz. Planted a bunch of natives, in particular bushes that flowered at different times of the year - ceanothus, manzanita, etc. I happily had bees and other insects around the yard almost all the time. It's worth doing. Funny thing, monarch butterflies (and the caterpillars) seem to prefer the non-native Milkweed to the native variety.
  • pamelafox 4y ago
    Which milkweed did you plant? I find that our Monarchs love narrow-leaf milkweed but HATE showy milkweed. They have to be absolutely desperate to nibble on it. Both are technically native, but clearly one of them is tastier.
    • bmitc 4y ago
      The milkweed that I planted is common milkweed and swamp milkweed. I find swamp milkweed to be prettier, but they both seem extremely popular and they seemed to bloom at different times, which is a nice benefit. (I'm not certain about the bloom times as I'm going only on a year's experience.)
  • kccqzy 4y ago
    In my yard, I didn't plant any milkweed but I found them growing on its own. Or at least, Google Lens told me it's milkweed. How do I know if they are native or not? How do I know if they are harmful or beneficial to the ice system, and whether I should remove them or let them grow? Where do you get this knowledge?
    • bmitc 4y ago
      I use the app PictureThis (https://www.picturethisai.com/ https://www.picturethisai.com/) and then supplement it by researching the online on various sites. I don't have any particular sites to offer offhand, as I'm still figuring everything out myself. Another thing I have considered is buying some books from local native plant societies and organizations. They publish books that contain pictures and information of regionally native plants. They also have plant sales every year, where they sell native plants that have been grown by themselves or by known third-parties. In general, I have tried taking an additive approach. I have only removed plants that I knew for a fact, through the app and subsequent research, were non-native and particularly damaging.
• deleted 4y ago
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• hammock 4y ago
  What’s the size of your lot?
  • bmitc 4y ago
    It can be small or big. Checkout Benjamin Vogt's work: https://www.monarchgard.com/portfolio.html https://www.monarchgard.com/portfolio.html In particular, his house is on a small lot typical of suburban sprawl neighborhoods. https://www.monarchgard.com/uploads/6/7/1/6/67169427/pxl-20211026-194006615_orig.jpg https://www.monarchgard.com/uploads/6/7/1/6/67169427/pxl-202...
• drewcoo 4y ago
  > planting only native plants . . . could be attracting non-regional and non-native species Native plants do that, too. Invasive species thrive on that, in fact. Horticulture is more complicated than just "eating local." Ok, so a good diet is also more complicated than eating local. > native plant species are easy Absolutely! And if you're in a place that can flood or has droughts or sometimes has wild temperature spikes, those are plants that have adapted to the environment. They live through tough times that kill the plants that haven't adapted.
• wcarron 4y ago
  > I sort of disagree with the article though. I think one should actually take a relatively hardline approach to planting only native plants. Just because you have a lot of activity around a plant doesn't mean it's the right activity. You could be attracting non-regional and non-native species which is generating the activity. I disagree. Native plants are great, but so are tomatoes or some bell and habanero peppers. You're projecting your personal opinions on what makes a garden good. To some, a good garden is defined by its native-plant biodiversity. To others, it's getting fresh herbs for salads at dinner. To others it is something else. It's not an either-or thing. You can plant many things and reap varying benefits.
  • djtriptych 4y ago
    Is it fair to call it personal opinion if it's also the ecologist consensus viewpoint?
    • RHSeeger 4y ago
      Of course. To some people, that viewpoint is what defines it as good. For others, it's beauty. For others, it's pure diversity. For others, it's minimizing the work involved. The choice of what is considered "good" here is a very personal thing.
      • djtriptych 4y ago
        Still, it's dismissive to place it into a class of personal opinion, when the colloquial understanding, especially here, is that there is no expectation of evidence behind it. I think a fairer term here is 'argument'.
    • wcarron 4y ago
      The other comment covered my thoughts mostly. Ecology is important. But I can't eat Blackfoot daisy. Not all gardens are there for ecosystem health. Some are for utilitarian purposes.
  • bmitc 4y ago
    I was distinguishing plants from crops. I think it's perfectly fine to be growing non-native vegetables and fruits that you'd like to eat or sell.
• Natsu 4y ago
  > I am really hoping that all the milkweed we're planting brings more monarchs. Last year, we saw a couple. The numbers went up a bit during Covid, surprisingly. I wish we could do something about the general downward trend, there are far, far fewer now than there were even 30 years ago.
• colechristensen 4y ago
  There are invasive plants and there are non-native plants and these things aren't necessarily the same. You do you with your yard but not everybody has to be so strict. There are plenty of non-native plants that have very low risk of becoming invasive which do a lot for biodiversity and are nice to look at.
• taftster 4y ago
  You should write a book, or at least blog, about the experience. This would be good reading and much appreciated to some of us. I'd definitely read.
• mikesabbagh 4y ago
  Douglas Tallamy is my new hero
• ascotan 4y ago
  I've been using the "Seek" app for plan identification and I'm floored to the amount of overgrown ornamentals from Asia everywhere. It seems like landscapers love to put non-native exotic grasses, trees, and shrubs all over the place.
• hunglee2 4y ago
  this is great - more people should take this approach. Individual efforts like this might be enough to help native species hang on in face of government indifference. I'm reminded of that story of the survival of the Chinese Alligator, which I believe is mainly down to the efforts of a single woman who protected the nest sites which happened to be on her farm, and raised the hatchings beyond year 1 before release back to the wild. Every little bit matters!
• hosh 4y ago
  Native plants and species are already suited to the area, so it is a great place to start. What I am finding though, is that the main difference between an invasive species, and a native species that is vigorous, is that the native species has a lot of interactions with other species within the local biome. And invasive species does not, so runs unchecked without a predator, or does not provide any benefits for other species. If they did, they would be “native”. Over time, the biome will adapt, and interactions will start arising. There very much are circumstances in which an invasive, resilient species is the right thing. For example, Jerome, Arizona, is an old copper mining town with a devastated ecosystem. Tailings from the copper mine poisoned the land. It’s at a steep incline, with severe erosion. Houses had been sliding off the slope. When the mine shut down, and the population dropped to about 100 residents, fhe mayor at the time brought in an invasive tree called the Tree of Heaven to save the town. That mayor hired an aircraft to seed it all around Jerome. This tree is invasive, difficult to kill once established, drives out other species, and produces copious amount of seeds. Crucially, it can survive soil that has been poisoned by the mining tailing. It grows everywhere in Jerome — and holds what soil is there. This terrible, aggressive plant is helping to remediate a land trashed by human activity. https://youtu.be/Oayt7eru2nc https://youtu.be/Oayt7eru2nc
• kaitai 4y ago
  The Nature Conservancy had a recent article in its magazine about the change in bloom time for many natives (based on temperature) and the difficulty that can cause for migrating birds and for animals (whose schedules may be based on length of day). For this reason, I am moving away from native-only to a more utilitarian approach. (And don't get me wrong, I have scores of native plants in my very small yard.) I am thinking more about native-nearby plants and plants that may feed wildlife at adjacent times. So maybe it's best to have several types of milkweed that bloom at different times, as someone else noted below. I'm in the Midwest and I'll also note the adage that many of our natives follow "sleep, creep, leap". Year 1, you'll be like "damn is this stuff even growing, this sucks" and year 2 you'll say "well I guess it came back? maybe?" and year 3 you'll say "it's starting to look nice here!" I'm also taking a slightly heterodox approach in that I am mixing in non-native edibles with glee (I've got at least 6 kinds of berry bush for instance, some native some not). The weight is still on natives, but I've been influenced by, who, Todd Hemenway?? who pointed out that the ecological impact of shipping berries from far-away lands is much worse than the ecological impact of having berry bush that's well-behaved and not native. Similarly, there are very few non-native plants I try to abolish anymore. Instead to the best of my ability I eat them. It is extraordinary how many plants can be eaten. From Japanese knotweed (cook it like rhubarb in sweets, or stir-fry) to hops to daisies (eat young like arugula) to garlic mustard (great pesto) to hostas (nice asparagus-like flavor when roasted or sautéed young). I'm not introducing these, not at all, but when they appear I don't get xenophobic, I get dinner. Which also sounds kind of creepy. But what I mean is that I'm not digging up my echinacea to use the roots medicinally; I don't have enough plants to do so sustainably yet -- but I sure am serving 6 linear feet worth of hostas at a dinner party.
  • hosh 4y ago
    Yup. It’s more about the connections the inhabitants of an ecosystem has to each other. Something that yields something edible or useful for humans is also a part of this. Our role as humans is not some ideal, “untouched”, “pristine” Nature, as if human activity and design necessarily spoils Nature. I think a more sensible perspective is that humans are stewards of the land, and there are yields for humans and the non-human inhabitants. It’s that our civilization has been terrible stewards, not that we are incapable of being good stewards. We can care for the land and people, and still get our fair share.
• hackernewds 4y ago
  > I think one should actually take a relatively hardline approach to planting only native plants. Why?
• smallerfish 4y ago
  > I think one should actually take a relatively hardline approach to planting only native plants. I disagree. Billions of birds fly around the world every year with seeds in their gut. Plants are constantly, naturally, migrating in territory. "Native" plants are plants which were in a given place (in this example the US) before an arbitrary date (for the US, very roughly 1500), when we started keeping track of local flora. The climate is observably changing, and what was "native" in 1500 may not be applicable to a local ecosystem anymore. Trees are already suffering in some ranges, and ranges are moving north. Note that there is a difference between "non-native" (arbitrary) and "invasive" (measurable). Planting invasives (whether native or non-native) should be discouraged because they have the potential to disrupt ecosystems by completely filling niches. Planting non-invasive non-natives is harmless, and if well considered can be beneficial to your local ecosystem.