Every time I am asked about an aspect of ecological horticulture, I hear another question that is triggered in my head:
What would Doug do?
My answering process begins to think about it.
“Doug” is Douglas W. Tallamy, the entomologist and professor of the University of Delaware, the co -founder of HomeGrown National Park, a non -profit educational ability. Perhaps no other contemporary figure has contributed to introducing gardeners into the intimate connections between plants and animals that are at risk from the biological multiple fold crisis and to suggest measures that we can take. Dr. Tallamy's core warning, starting with “Bringing Nature Home”, his breakthrough from 2007: Add local plants and remove invasive.
He probably also answered more questions about ecology and questions from the local plants than any other other, and his latest book “How can I help? Save nature with your garden”, 499 deals with you.
Dr. Tallamy distilled essential snacks on topics that are as large as evolution and food nets as well as targeted answers, such as: For example, the reduction of danger on useful insects from our human obsession with artificial light at night by switching to yellow light bulbs and movement detectors please.
Or what would Doug do against the risk of mosquito fogging treatments? Skip them. Even fog solutions, which are formulated from natural materials such as pyrethrin, are not mosquito -specific, he explains monarchs and other butterflies, pollinators, glowworms and more.
I recently asked him some other frequent questions. Our conversation was processed for length and clarity.
The manufacture of space for natives is fundamental to ecological horticulture. People with established gardens do not ask local ornamental heads: “How much of it do I have to give back something? How many hostas can I keep?”
There is really only one study, and that is exactly what my graduate Desirée L. Narango did and looked at the percentage of the locals and non -native wood plants that are necessary to support a population of chickadees. The number she developed came 70 percent, which is 30 percent not native. This is this area of ​​the compromise.
Now you can make invasive compromises. They are ecological tumors, so one is not good either. But there are many ornamentals that are not invasive. But that's a study with a bird and a place. We shouldn't overlook that.
What I think about the ecological responsibility of every landscape. There are four of them:
Every landscape must manage the water sheath in which it lies. Every landscape must support pollinators. Each landscape must support a sustainable food network. And every landscape has to consider carbon.
So you have already established your ornamental landscape; It already does some of these things. Which can you do better every year? Just choose it. Maybe I can add an oak tree. Maybe I can add a small piece of goldenrod that is not there now.
You don't have to think about shaping the entire landscape. Just say: “Can I gradually improve one of these four goals over time?” And so you can feel good and it is done, but it is not overwhelming.
Lawn does not promote anything of these goals, right?
Lawn does not make any of them, and that's the problem. It's not just neutral; If you have a good lawn as they should, he destroys the watershed, or at least he worsens it. It does not support pollinators. It does not support a food network. And it is the worst plant selection for the sequest rate of carbon.
But it has an important decorative value in terms of care: It shows your neighbors that you know what the status symbol is – that you will do it too, but you will simply have much less lawn. You will keep your lawn cared for and you have grasswear. It becomes a mechanism to move to their property. It is a great way to delete the vegetation during the tick season.
So it has important advantages, but three or four tomorrow? No. I mean we can do it better.
You mentioned invasive. Gardeners point to a plant in which they grow and say: “I've never seen them themselves, so I don't think it is invasive here.” But that's probably not the litmus test, isn't it?
When I started giving these conversations about 20 years ago, people often talked about how English Ivy was not invasive in the east – a problem in Oregon, but no problem here. So it is now.
It is difficult. There are places in the country where certain plants will never be invasive. It's too dry or it is too. So it is not the case that it never happens. But if it has invasive tendencies, it usually means that something moves – either the wind or it is often birds that take berries and take them off in a different place.
For example, burning bush: a bush does 30,000 seeds. A ridicule eats a few of them, flies off. You don't see this reproduction in your garden, but it is in the forest, two morning away. Birds, especially in autumn, can fly 300 miles in one night. And they poop on the way.
There are so many good plants that we can use that are not harmful. Why do we insist to use those who have already proven to be harmful, at least somewhere?
When gardeners become plants this spring, I want them to include Keystone plants – a term that they have made popular, and one of their great principles.
The term comes from Robert Payological Literature in the 1960s, and he realized that certain species play oversized roles in their ecosystem. He worked with seafares or sea urchins and tidal pools.
But then we looked around and said: “Well, many species have key toilet roles.” Like beaver. They take the beaver away, the whole pond disappears and everything that depends on it. Elephants are Keystone players in the Serengeti.
But it hadn't been applied to plants yet. And we realized that only 14 percent of our local plants look at 90 percent of the caterpillars that are the bread and butter of terrestrial foods, only 14 percent of our local plants. This 14 percent are really important.
So we can talk about locals and not experts, and we talked about that before we knew. But I could produce a 100 percent local landscape that supports very little.
And if the goal is to restore the ecosystem function and the integrity of food, you must have the plants that do this. So it's nice that we found it out, but it makes it a little more complicated, because now you have to choose the most effective plants.
There are keystone systems for the production of caterpillars. There are keystone systems for the support of pollares. And ideally we both want.
But the first question you asked me is someone who has an established garden improves it without tearing the whole thing apart? Take a look at the system selection you have and add some keystone systems, like the regional leaders of the local national park. In this way you increase the productivity of your garden enormously without removing anything.
Of all the things that my laboratory has made in my entire career, I think that the most important and far-reaching thing in the ranking in every US district in relation to their ability to support food web is ranking of plants in every U.S.
We have just completed a list for the whole world, so we have to get it out somehow. Because I hear efforts from this afforestation, I hear from the trillion-billion efforts, and everything is based on climate change.
But a trillion -eucalyptus is what? A lost opportunity. Yes, carbon will follow, but it could also support biological diversity. Which plants are the best wherever they are? These are the information we want to provide.
Margaret Roach is the creator of the website and podcast a way for the garden and a book of the same name.
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