The vital connection between the survival of diverse regional native plant communities and the survival of our songbirds has now been well established by research from the scientific community. We also know that native plant communities are under extreme duress from development and from the domination of resources by alien plant life, plants that will not support the large and diverse insect populations that are essential for successful song bird breeding. Estimates are that perhaps as little as 3% of the land area remains free from disturbance and is still able to support robust native plant and animal communities. This raises the serious possibility of dire consequences not only for our song birds, but for human health, as well. We depend upon thriving natural plant and animal communities for the suppression of pathogens that threaten human health and pest insects that destroy crops, as well as for our water and air quality.

What to do? Approaches to solving this problem are occurring in three areas, in public efforts, in the commercial world, and in nonprofit nature organizations. Each of these has been shown to have certain limitations and potential pitfalls.

Government Agencies

Public efforts, protection and management of natural resources by government agencies, including the preservation and protection of wildlife and native plants, with public funding and trained and specialized staffing, has proven to be immensely effective. However, in the current political climate relief from that direction is shrinking and a reversal of that trend is becoming less likely, if only in the short term.

Commercial Nurseries

As the awareness of the problem and interest in native plants has grown, commercial operations have arisen to supply the demand for native plants. The growth of this industry is an encouraging sign that there are more and more people interested and concerned. However, there are serious pitfalls. With demand for native plants comes a monetary value being attached to them that was previously not there, and this invites unscrupulous behavior. Poaching of native plants is becoming an increasingly serious threat to existing native plant communities in the wild, since a quick profit can be turned by the thief. Our native orchids are especially vulnerable to this. Another danger is that very similar plants to many of our natives, often with the same or similar popular names, can be found in Asia and other parts of the world, and offer greater availability and profit opportunity for unscrupulous, or well-intentioned but ignorant merchants.

Yet another danger is that plants being sold as “natives” may actually not be native to the region where they are being sold, or they may be cultivars. Expecting consumers to be knowledgeable and alert about these pitfalls to a sufficient degree to prevent them is not well founded, and it is not supported by past experience. No amount of education can possibly overcome the immense commercial pressure that is introduced once there is consumer demand for something. Putting something on the market too often means putting it on the chopping block. The unscrupulous merchant will always have a competitive advantage over the honest dealer, and consumers would have to become trained botanists in order to reliably distinguish the good from the bad. The bad will be priced lower, and will be more widely available. In that way, consumer demand for native plants could very well do more harm than good. In addition, it is financially out of reach for many people to set up a functioning native plant garden by purchasing plants.

Nature Preserves

Nature preserves, operated by nonprofit organizations committed to the protection of wildlife and natural areas, hold promise, but experience shows that the actual results have often been at odds with the promise. Without “boots on the ground,” with no one monitoring and supervising an area that has been opened to the public, which is the case with most preserves, terrible destruction of plant life and disturbance of wildlife from ATVs is a problem. In preserves closer to populated areas, the preserves often become little more than dog walks for local residents, with the potential for harassment of wildlife, and of greater concern for us, the introduction of invasive alien plant species from seeds carried in on the pets’ fur and paws. Setting aside a wild area as a preserve can too often mean opening it up to degradation. Major donors and sponsors to the organization may have considerations that are not necessarily congruent with optimum preservation practices, as well.

We should support those efforts in the public, commercial, and nonprofit sectors when and as we are able to, and when we are certain that they are dedicated to the goal of restoring and protecting native plant communities. It is also important that we develop an independent system which will efficiently bring results, that does not involve working at cross-purposes, and that can be duplicated and expanded to bring as many hands to the work as possible.

Getting to Work

  1. First, do no harm

    The lawns have to go, as much and wherever it is possible. Lawns use alien and invasive species of grasses. They take resources from the environment and give little or nothing back to the community. They will not support wildlife. Lawns have useful purposes for human recreation, and not everyone will want to give up their lawn. Still, we should minimize lawn as much as possible, and rescue as much land as we can that is now given over to lawns.

    Pesticides and herbicides are a serious threat to wildlife, and are not necessary no matter what a person’s gardening goals may be. The exotic plants must go. They will not support wildlife, and many have become invasive and many more may at some point. With few or no natural enemies, exotic plants will drive out native plants. Exotic plants bring in alien pathogens and insects as hitchhikers. This has already caused serious damage to our forests and the virtual total loss of some species that once were abundant, as in the case of the American Chestnut.

    In so many cases, native plants are actually more attractive, and hardier, than exotic plants. Why then are there so many exotic plants being sold? The exotics are often more profitable for the nursery industry, and people are intrigued by the exotic and through habit have come to associate certain alien species with gardening. Lawns and gardens historically are associated with the aristocracy; they are status symbols. The word “status” can mean social rank, but it also means “condition” or “state.” What state and what condition are song bird populations in now? The day is rapidly approaching when we must choose between social status and the status of the songbirds and other wildlife.

    That’s the bad news, but it is not too depressing. Think of all the time and money we could be saving with our new approach to our yards and gardens!

  2. What’s in your yard?

    One overlooked approach to our challenge is to learn to recognize, preserve, and nurture the native plants that are already on our property, or native plants that continually arise from the existing seed bank in the soil. We can learn to identify desirable native plants that are volunteers, plants that are showing up in our lawns or gardens all on their own.

    Seeds make plants. Plants make more seeds. When a seed has germinated and sprouted, and then we pull out that seedling, the potential of that seed is gone forever. That is good news when we weed out an alien species, but not when we inadvertently weed out a local genotype native plant, that is to say a plant that belongs in the natural plant community in our area. Should we become knowledgeable, or work with someone who is, weeding would become more of an adventure and less of a chore, there would be less weeding to do, and think of the beneficial native plants we could gain for our yard or garden for free.

  3. Sustainability

    What’s that? To the biologist, sustainability means the ability of the ecosystem to keep diverse and productive through time. What is an “ecosystem?” Simply a community of many different organisms, including plants and animals that are found together and have various interrelationships. What does this mean for our efforts? Plants come from seeds, but seeds also come from plants. A handful of seeds can lead to an unlimited number of plants, each producing more seeds. Sources for native plant seeds are scarce, and there is a need for all seed collection to be done by trained specialists so as not to disrupt existing native plant communities. A little effort can go a long way, however. Not quickly, but steadily and ever-expanding. Sustainable for our work means that our program is designed such that it can be continued indefinitely and can be passed on and duplicated. It means that everything we do supports reversing the decline of native plants. It means reversing the decline of birds and other wildlife, and reducing the threats to plants and wildlife.

  4. Many hands make light work

    Imagine people meeting, like in an old fashioned quilting bee, to do the work of setting seeds out in trays or pots for stratification and germination in the fall, and then again in the spring to transplant the seedlings. Then, imagine this happening in hundreds of locations all over the country. Imagine the plants from these groups going out to the yards of the participants, where they will produce more seeds. One step at a time, we can get there.

Certainly we cannot expect everyone to be interested or concerned about this, nor can we expect to completely solve the problem within our lifetimes.

But saving one bird species, saving one insect upon which that bird is dependent for breeding, saving one plant species that this insect in turn requires to breed, could be of immense value at some distant point in the future. This means that each step we take, each ally we connect with, each conversation we have about this with people can have positive results that we cannot possibly foresee.

A Model from History

After the fall of the Roman Empire, for approximately 1000 years, monks from the Benedictine order in some 37,000 monasteries around Europe worked tirelessly to preserve a precious legacy of culture and knowledge that was otherwise at great risk of being lost. Surviving copies of literature were sought out and meticulously copied. Technology and agriculture were also saved, including irrigation and water management techniques, the arts of wine-making, brewing and honey production, and food crop cultivars and native plants were collected and propagated. Today we are presented with a similar challenge and a similar opportunity to work in a meaningful way for the benefit of future generations.