The Familiar, the Introduced and the Native

Lilacs always remind me of my childhood in New York and Ohio,
but they are not native to North America

Each of us spends only a few years as a child and wherever we happened to be often is learned as "home." Lilacs (Syringa vulgaris) were on the property where I grew up. I had no idea they came from Asia in the 1800s.

Rarely do we consider what "home" was like fifty years or two hundred years before we grew up there.

And yet, for North America, likely you wouldn't recognize home if you went back very far in time.


My neighborhood in Colorado was probably wheat fields fifty years ago.

Fifty years before that it was native vegetation, likely shortgrass steppe.

Older places may have had more transitions before getting back to native vegetation.

The plants of today are familiar and yet they have been gathered from all over the world. Crops came to North America from Europe. None of the crops raised in northern Colorado is native here; even those native to North America are from elsewhere in North America.

Foreign house and garden plants came first with the settlers, then in waves as the latest new thing was introduced, resulting in a complex mix.

weeping willow, Salix babylonica

Plants I remember from childhood, very familiar to me, are not native to New York and Ohio where I grew up: lilacs came from western Asia, daffodils and roses from Europe, wisteria from China. The big weeping willow I loved to climb was in a patch of forest but it is native to China.

It is shocking to realize how much most places have been transformed. I visited Costa Rica in February and applauded their attempts to preserve their biodiversity. Then I came home and realized that 200 to 400 years ago, Americans devastated the biodiversity of North America. We were lucky it was so big and that plants and animals are resilient: the extinction rate could have been much higher.

But as we settle in to live in North America with 21st century yards, roads and industries, we are likely to unknowingly destroy the last refuge of our native plants, insects, birds...not just the big ones that obviously in trouble because they need space, but all of them.

Where are the Colorado natives? Where would a native insect feed?
Plants from: eastern US (trumpet creeper Campsis radicans on the trellis), southwestern US (yellow zinnias Zinnia) , Mexico (rose-pink cosmos, Cosmos bipinnatus), Asia (purple butterfly bush, Buddleja), Europe (Kentucky bluegrass, Poa pratensis). The big tree, Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens) is native to Colorado but not this low on the mountains.

Humans have been transforming places--clearing land, introducing species--for a very long time. Most of what we think of as normal was created during European expansion and settlement in North America. Today, with greater numbers and better technology, we are pushing into the last remote areas. It is a really mixed bag: better roads let me get where I want to go more easily but make uncrossable barriers for small animals and plants and invite in ever more humans.

Flowering trees from Eurasia are beautiful, but we eradicate native plants to plant them. Lots of European plants are easier to grow and control than American plants, because hundreds of years have been spent domesticating the European plants and only a fraction of that time has been spent on the American plants.

If we all grow the easy, familiar plants, we will end up with a homogenized world, where all the same plants are planted everywhere. You'd not need to go beyond Pennsylvania to see "temperate"--Canada  or China or most of the world  will look the same.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

That is hard to believe, but not particularly far-fetched. We plant lawns, bring in beloved garden plants, trade for the great ones from Asia and it all starts to look alike.

Toronto, Canada

Beijing, China

So I am advocating growing what is local. Every place has spectacular natives. Being native, you don't need to do anything to grow them: they are adapted to the local rainfall and temperatures. You might have to prune them back or weed out seedlings. Natives reproduce well without human help and will likely think your yard a very nice place to grow.

I don't see changing yard styles quickly, but creating a yard with local character, that says "Colorado" or "Michigan" or "Alabama" builds on local strengths. My yard has lots of aliens, chosen by the previous owner, the landscaper, and me. I'm not throwing those plants out any time soon, what I am trying to do is, when I need a new plant, add a native.

I didn't plant this creeping barberry (Berberis repens,
previously Mahonia repens barberry family, Berberaceae)
birds dropped the seeds.  It is native and I am very happy with it.

One of the curious results of that will be that the next generation will have native plants among their familiar plants of childhood.

I did plant the sidebells penstemon,
(Penstemon secundiflorus, plantain family, Plantaginaceae)
and I am pleased that it is steadily spreading.

Comments and corrections welcome.

Kathy Keeler, A Wandering Botanist

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