Why should people convert lawns and ornamental gardens to native plants?


Who doesn’t love butterflies? They are a beautiful symbol of innocence. But have you noticed there are fewer and fewer every year? When I was a kid, you couldn’t take a trip without getting some butterflies on the windshield of your car. So why are there so few and what does it mean?

One of the main reasons is the use of pesticides and herbicides. These chemicals are indiscriminate killers. And they knock the whole ecosystem out of balance. In my yard, I have seen how a little patience will put things back into balance. I had aphids, but slowly noticed aphid predators solving the problem. I had flies due to my chicken coop, but over a few weeks I saw Swallows and Phoebes move in to take advantage of the food source.

The other reason we see fewer butterflies is food for caterpillars. Most butterflies and moths (or butterflies of the night as I like to call them) need a particular plant to host their caterpillars. For Monarch butterflies, it is Milkweed (Asclepias), which is an unfortunate name for a beautiful plant. For Pipevine Swallowtails, it is Pipevine (Aristolochia). Without these plants, caterpillars have no source of food. And as cities and suburbs become paved over, there is no place for these once abundant plants to grow. As we look at our own yards, they contain beautiful plants that are imported from other places. But to a butterfly, our yards seem like deserts. Even plants like bottlebrush, which attract a lot of insects for nectar, provide no food for native baby insects. It’s kind of like having a bar for the adults to drink at, but no food to nourish their children so they can grow to be adults too. 

But Doug Tallamy, an entomologist from University of Delaware, says we can help. By putting some native plants in our yards, we can provide the food to bring back butterflies.

As we prepared to redo our garden from evergreen ornamentals, to an English cottage/cut flower garden, something happened. We saw Doug Tallamy speak on a CNPS Silicon Valley Zoom Meeting. And we realized we had to change our direction, and begin gardening with natives. 

As we look at our garden, the key is that we are just beginning…
It is a grand experiment to see what works where. And already the garden is talking to us. The blue eyed grass has jumped the paved walkway to another part of the garden! We expect more movement and magic in the future. Here are some of our thoughts on our garden.

Blessings… Having a giant oak tree in our yard and creek behind us have certainly given us a leg up in terms of food and wildlife access to our yard.

Downside… Lots of shade. Only two, maybe three spots in our garden that get good sun. So, we troll through Calscape looking for plants that will tolerate shade. (If you haven't met Calscape you are in for a treat. I hope you live in California though...).

Goal… As Talamites, we believe in feeding the ecosystem, which starts with caterpillar farming. So how has that worked out? Well, we’ve only seen one or two caterpillars so far. Sigh. It’s all an experiment…

Biggest impact… Leaving the leaves the past year. We can already see the soil improving, and everytime we water we see lots of insects rising up out of the litter. So it is happening. Slowly…

So we continue to replace non-natives with natives. Last weekend we took out Sarcococca and Pierris Japonicas and replaced them with Coffeeberry (Frangula Californica). This weekend we removed two maple trees and replaced them with Bush Anemone (Carpenteria Californica). And next weekend we are going to replace our box hedge with Coyote Brush (Baccharis pilularis). 

Besides the bugs, we've seen lots of other great wildlife in our yard. A new nest of baby squirrels is born in the tree every year. And this year we were surprised by 3 baby raccoons moving into the tree (it is largely hollow).

They are sweet shy and adorable. We've enjoyed watching them come out and scour the tree every night for food.