Re: "Time for the return of the native"
- Subject: Re: [SG] "Time for the return of the native"
- From: L* K*
- Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 22:11:27 -0800
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Henjum <Meum71@AOL.COM>
To: <shadegardens@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2002 10:22 PM
Subject: Re: [SG] "Time for the return of the native"
> There are a number of assumptions that are made that I cannot agree with
> here:
>
> 1) That there is such a thing as "native" all plants and animal
populations
> are in a state of flux and move around and change. And to claim that
> something is native or not is an artificial distinction.
No, it's not. Or not more artificial than any other word we use. It's just
not a black-and-white, on-or-off thing. There is a difference in how
species fit into habitats depending on whether they were evolved in those
habitats or whether they have moved in. The interrelationships of native
species are very deep and complex, and have all sorts of ramifications and
subtleties. Immigrant species have shallower, less complex
interrelationships in the habitats. This is not always and everywhere a
problem. But it's an issue. Or rather, it's the gateway to a raft of
issues.
>
> 2) that none "native " plants cause harm to the environment this is a
> debatable premise, the environment is changing all the time and the
> introduction of new plants poses a limited problem for lost habitat the
> greatest problems occur from habitat destruction from road, home and
> agriculture and the suppression of fire. The only time a problem occurs
> with the introduction of a new species is when the niche a plant or animal
> lives in is very fragmented.
This is _not_ true. Sometimes a robust habitat can be thrown for an utter
and desperate loop because of the habits of a particular species. A
ground-shading plant that emerges much earlier in the spring than the
natives, for example, can wipe out otherwise vigorous and well-integrated
plant communities. My friend who lives in Massachussetts was telling me
that the Japanese barberry does that where she lives.
Not every new species in invasive or noxious. But it happens.
I would agree that destruction of habitat by human activity is the biggest
problem.
>
> 3) That the use of a ban will limit the spread of exotics-those plants
that
> are listed as problems as noxious weeds are not for the most part
ornamentals
> but have moved around as agricultural weeds in grain shipments or have
come
> to this country as tag allongs in ships and other forms of shipping goods.
Here in California, we have tremendous problems with ornamentals that people
will keep planting even long after we all know how nasty they are. English
ivy. Pampas grass. Broom of any sort. My own belief is that within five to
ten years there will be a sudden outcry about ecchium, which is being
planted all over the place and I see it escaped all over the place, duking
it out with the pampas grass and the Scotch broom. The damage done by the
European wild grasses, which does fit your description, happened two hundred
years ago and more, and it fits your other description, too -- the native
habitat was unbalanced because of prolonged drought, and the European wild
grasses simply sprouted first when the rain came. But it's not our only
problem, and it's not the present problem.
>
> Here are a few quotes that I do not agree with:
>
> "It is a
> proven fact that plants like Amur Maple, Burning Bush, Vinca minor,
Euonymus
> fortunei, Amur and Tatarian Honeysuckle, European Bittersweet, and and
even
> some forms of Butterfly Bush have escaped to the wild, causing a lot of
> problems for the environment."
>
> where is this proven? The only way this can be a true statement is if you
> believe that any indication that a plant is not native then it "is
> destructive". What has been destroyed? Again this assumes that the world
is
> a static place-which is incorrect and that there is something innately
good
> about native plants in an already altered landscape.
I don't know those particular plants, but I have seen habitats destroyed
with my own eyes. There is a difference between a plant that spreads a
lot, and one that destroys a habitat. This is the difference. Wild mustard
spreads a lot. It spreads so much that it seems to most people to be a
native flower, and there is a wild mustard festival in the wine country
every year. But the wild mustard doesn't crowd out the native flowers. It
won't grow on the sunny, seasonally-dry, thin-soil meadows where poppies and
lupines and goldfields and brodeia and so on will grow: it grows on
disturbed soil -- vineyards and roadsides and vacant lots. Also, if there's
another plant there, the wild mustard won't kill it. It doesn't send out
soil toxins, like some plants. It doesn't shade out the earth under it,
like some plants. And, being a Mediterranean plant, its emergence and
dieback is in rhythm with the other annuals in the region. And its foliage
and seeds are useful to native wildlife. It fits right in.
On the other hand, Scotch Broom fills up a hillside and chokes out the
native brush. And it doesn't provide food or nesting material to wildlife:
it's toxic. -- it's not the only toxin-bearing plant in the landscape, but
the native plants have a certain pallette of tannins and alkaloids to which
the native animals have become adapted, and they have a whole universe of
interconnections that way. The broom actually starves out the birds and
herbivores in an area, by choking out the edibles in the landscape and
offering nothing of its own.
<snipping examples I can't speak to, because I don't live in the right place
to know about them>
>
> The policy of suppressing fires has done a thousand fold more damage to
the
> environment than all the exotic ornamental plants ever has in this
country,
> also the increase in the white tail deer population has done more harm
than
> all the exotics she has listed.
So these are also important issues, but I can't tell you the relative
importance, and it's not relevant. They are _other_ issues. It's no good
telling a person who wants to talk about, say, water, that electricity is
"more important."
The suggestion that gardeners should incorporate natives into their plans,
and should avoid noxiously invasive plants -- that's not extreme. I
personally have a mixture of natives and "exotics" in my little yard. I
could not consider returning it to its native state. The native state is
coastal wetland, seasonally submerged, and not only has it not been that way
for a hundred years, there's a block of buildings between my yard and the
remnant of the slough (which is now a nature preserve, though it is in the
middle of the city). But increasingly, when I look at a spot in my garden,
I look at the natives. So that when I needed a drought-tolerant,
shade-tolerant, handsome shrub, I planted the Catalina perfume (ribes). I
never have to water it, because it's adapted to the rainfall patterns we
have here. It looks beautiful and lives up to its name (the leaves are
fragrant, not the flower). Birds will eat its flowers and fruit (it doesn't
have much). And when I wanted color in the shade, my husband gave me
"chinese houses" seed. And cynoglossum.
The second priority after that, for me, is useful plants: I have naturalized
parsely and chard, speaking of plants that wildlife adore. And then, what I
call near-natives: things from Chile (the nearest Mediterranean climate to
mine), and from the Sonoran floristic province, which is next door to mine.
Though those are hard to find.
Other than that, I do plant what I will, but I think about what those plants
will do in my environment, to the best of my ability.
