I've long said that if I ever won the lottery (yes, I realize I have to start buying tickets first) I would spend
some of my haul on buying a big chunk of land and having
it restored to prairie. Why? Loss of habitat for plant and animal life is one of the great environmental crises facing the planet, and I would like to play my small part in restoring it.
This is the theme of the book I'm reading right now: Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife
in Our Gardens by Douglas W. Tallamy, the chair of the Dept. of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware (Timber Press). Tallamy explains how loss of habitat is causing the number of insects, butterflies, birds, and mammals in the world to decline and how they will ultimately disappear unless they can find the food, water and shelter they require to live and reproduce.
Why is this important? Without the right plants for food, insects will stop reproducing and die. Then the birds that eat the insects will disappear (and we already know that bird populations are declining). With fewer birds, bees, butterflies and insects, plant pollination will decline, which means less food for large mammals - and that includes us.
So what are these "right plants?" Natives. Plants that grow naturally in any given area, whether that be Colorado, Florida or Illinois. Enough research has been done
to demonstrate that most insects simply don't eat alien plants, only those with whom they share a long evolutionary history. So yes, I would plant a prairie. As big
as I could afford.
In the meantime I have my city lot on which I grow some prairie natives, and I intend to add a few more this year. Tallamy makes the point that it's up to home
gardeners, especially those in the suburbs, to provide wildlife habitat as development
continues to eradicate land. But he doesn't insist you grow only natives. Nor do I.
I like to have milkweeds in my yard for the monarch butterfly larvae and culver's root for the bumblebees, but I also like Knock Out(TM) roses, purple clematis, and red mandevillas. I'm a gardener at heart, and I like to grow it all.
I might even try my hand at making a gardenia happy. In this issue, Lisa Baldwin, our college intern from last summer, tells us how. Lisa did a great job and wrote
several other stories that will be appearing throughout 2008. We were very pleased with her work. But we were downright giddy with excitement when we saw her on TV this past December, singing with Nick Lachey's Cincinnati choir on NBC's "Clash of the Choirs." And then, to top it off, "her" choir won, and deservedly so.
So add some native Illinois plants to your garden this season. Over time they will bring greater insect diversity and fewer pest problems in your garden. But this doesn't mean you have to stop growing petunias and impatiens if that's what you love. And you might even want to try a gardenia.
