"What's native to my area?" Gardeners are asking that a lot these days.
It says a lot about how thoroughly we have changed the landscape that many people have almost no experience with the plants that are native where they live.
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| historical back yard, no natives |
I earned a Ph.D. in plant genetics and ecology more than 50 years ago. We were trying to understand nature: how do plants cope with the problems in their lives, from herbivores to diseases to drought to frosts? So we found suitable plants growing in native forests or prairies and studied them, sometimes in place, sometimes transplanted into experiments, sometimes in the greenhouse.
Today I garden more than I walk prairies. But in my working life I conducted my research in natural areas (preserves). The plants I studied and the ones around them were "straight species native plants."
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| bractless blazing star, Mentzelia nuda, Nebraska sandhills |
Most people's experience with nature features yards, city parks, and road trips to big national parks. As a visitor, you see the towering pine trees and whatever bright flower is currently in bloom, but are unlikely to have looked very hard at the plants around those wildflowers.
Doing plant ecology research, I searched for particular native species, across long hillsides, many times in a summer. I noted nearby plants as they changed from unrecognizeable new shoots to bright flowers to stalks of prickly seeds that stuck to my socks.
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| sandhills native plants close up |
"Grow native plants" for me would let you grow any of the natives I walked past, from prickly poppy (Argemone polyanthemos) with spines on its leaves, to cute little button cacti, to side-oats grama grass (Bouteloua curtipendula), to spiderwort (Tradescantia) and prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera). And more. Maybe 180 species, the plant list for the sandhills prairie preserve I studied in Nebraska. Sandy soil and the severe climate make a particularly short list of natives. Most regions have even more natives.
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| prickly poppy, Argemone polyanthemos |
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| pincushion cactus, Escobaria vivipara |
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| side oats grama, Bouteloua curtipendula |
Some natives we won't plant, poison ivy (Toxicodendron) for example.
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| poison ivy, Toxicodendron, in the grass |
Others are small and nondescript and at least at the moment, get overlooked.
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| Who are these small natives? |
For years, I was much more knowledgeable about native plants than any other kind. I recognized only than a handful of trees and a very limited number garden flowers and ornamental shrubs. But I could name 90% of the plants you would see in the local prairie. (Good at the world that was, not the one that is.)
(In the above photo, I see Texas croton (Croton texensis, white foliage), two spurges (the bigger probably spotted spurge, Euphorbia maculata, the one with white bracts likely Geyer's spurge, Euphorbia geyeri), a small ragweed plant (Ambrosia), scurfpea leaves (Pediomedlium), seed heads of non-native cheatgrass (Bromus techtorum) and the stem of a taller grass possibly sand lovegrass Eragrostis trichodes. Except for lovegrass, not common as natives for gardens.)
It is exciting to have people actively searching for the plants native to their area. And yet, when people ask about natives online, I often feel that they are relating to a tag on a plant in a nursery or a list online, not to the wild ecosystem. How did we get so detached?
Thinking of my experience, I urge people wanting to grow natives to find and look closely at nearby natural areas. What beautiful flowers are there? What less beautiful flowers surround them? What are the grasses, shrubs, and trees?
Of course there are problems with this approach. Our native preserves are often invaded by exotic species. A preserve along a creek will have different plants than a dry hilltop and neither may match your yard's growing conditions. In 150-400 years since settlement, some natives have gone extinct from any particular preserve so you will miss plants that used to be there. Nevertheless, the preserves give you a look at your native plants in their natural habitat. Western wallflowers (Erysimum) growing amid between taller grasses, wild four o'clocks (Mirabilis) scattered in openings where some animal dug, sumac (Rhus) in patches.
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| western wallflower, Erysimum amid grasses |
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| sumac, Rhus, in tallgrass prairie |
I can't say what you will learn, but the tangle in nature is very different from the plants in neat pots on a garden shop table. Go and see.
Comments and corrections welcome.
References
Keeler, K. H., A. T. Harrison and L. S. Vescio. 1980. The Flora and Sandhills Prairie Communities of Arapaho Prairie, Arthur County, Nebraska. Published in The Prairie Naturalist. Online at University of Nebraska link
New book: Plants You Meet Everywhere. The stories of really cosmopolitan plants such as marigolds, bougainvillea and cheatgrass, available on Amazon and from me:
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