The Home Garden: A Primer in Dysfunction

Pillbugs (also known as Roly-poly Bugs or Woodlice), are often found underneath flower pots. They are not insects, but rather, land crustaceans. Their function in the environment is to help recycle dead plant and animal matter, which is why you see them in association with planter pots. Yet, extension offices often refer to them as “pests” and tell gardeners to get rid of them! Ignorance of the true roles of our fellow life forms endangers the proper functioning of the environment that supports all of us.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

From 2002-2014, I gave monthly talks each summer in Shenandoah National Park. Most of the questions after each talk were from gardeners wanting to know how to prevent the trouble they encountered with this animal or that one.

 

At first this situation puzzled me. I’d gardened throughout my adult life and never encountered these many problems. I puzzled over it following each presentation, until I realized people had these difficulties because they ignored the fact that their gardens exist in the natural world. Thus, you have no choice but to follow natural laws, as I had always done.

 

Unfortunately, folks don’t like that answer. They want to continue doing their gardening in whatever manner they please, as if the natural world is going to bend to their will. Except it won’t. And therein lies the reason gardeners who ignore my philosophy (as they would see it; I see it as presenting a fact of life) are doomed to rant forevermore about various kinds of wildlife that are problematic for them.

 

So, let’s look at just a few of the “truisms” in gardening lore that not only make unnecessary work for the gardener, but are also detrimental to wildlife and the environment.

 

As summer draws to a close and fall arrives, gardening experts issue the same axiom year after year: Clean up your garden to keep pest problems at a minimum. However, if you have a yard that’s wildlife friendly, this task is totally unnecessary. It deprives many organisms of needed winter food and cover, and over time, bankrupts the soil nutrition available for growing plants.

 

While it’s true that some insects overwinter as adults or eggs in plant stalks, it’s also true that many animals will find these insects and eat them. Wrens and woodpeckers will come to bird feeders to get sunflower seeds, but they mainly subsist upon insects all the year around. They can be in big trouble if we have a harsh winter with lots of snow. But, if you leave plants standing, especially tall ones, these birds gain a better chance of surviving because they may find insects or their eggs on the stems rising above snow level.

 

Deer Mice also eat insects. While you probably care more about birds than these mammals—thinking all rodents are “pests”—consider that mice help to replant our forests and grasslands. They are Mother Nature’s gardeners, carrying seeds back to their nests and dropping some along the way that may then grow where they fell.

 

It’s easy to overlook the fact that every creature does its part to keep the other parts of the ecosystem functioning properly, but humans need to recognize this actuality. Even though you don’t want mice in your house, you should certainly welcome them outdoors, and not only because they are inadvertent gardeners. Mice are a prime food source for owls, foxes, and coyotes.

 

A gardening myth is that you must keep your plants totally “bug-free” to keep them healthy. Healthy plants can withstand a few insects chewing or sucking on them. Remember, plants exist to feed animals (“Marlene’s Axiom”). There’s no need to run for insecticide at the first sign of a few six-legged critters, especially as many of these insects will be eaten if you’ve created a yard that welcomes predators.

 

For example, many gardeners worry about aphids, yet they are unlikely to cause significant damage in a yard full of birds. Hummingbirds, especially, require such tiny insects to obtain protein and fat for good health. Remove aphids and you remove a significant food source for these energetic creatures.

 

You’ve probably also heard that you shouldn’t allow your plants to go to seed. According to Penn State Extension: “When dead blooms are left clinging to flowering plants, they sap the nutrition and strength from the core of the plants and rob them of the energy to produce new and colorful blooms.”

 

https://extension.psu.edu/to-deadhead-or-not-your-final-answer-is

 

Nonsense! A plant’s ultimate “goal” is to reproduce, so it’s well adapted to making seeds and continuing to bloom (if in its DNA) and grow each year. Spend time deadheading (removing all “spent” blooms) and you perform busywork that deprives your local wildlife of seeds.

 

Lastly, anywhere you plan to cover bare ground with mulch, you should instead let some “weeds” grow. They serve as your natural mulch. Rather than stealing water, they keep the ground shaded to prevent moisture loss, and many turn into lovely flowers that provide beauty for the gardener, nectar for hummingbirds, butterflies, and/or numerous other kinds of insects, and possibly seeds for birds and small mammals when left standing throughout fall and winter.

 

Save time and energy by gardening in a more relaxed manner, and you’ll help our wildlife while you’re at it. Your reward will be the opportunity to watch nature at work instead of you!

 

 NATURE ADVICE:

 

Instead of taking away the fallen leaves of woody plants, you really should rake them around the main stem and out to the limit of the plant’s branches. Shrubs and trees provide their own mulch free of charge. The leaves they drop are Mother Nature’s way of returning “borrowed” nutrients to the soil (when the leaves decompose) from which they came.

 

If you prefer the look of woody mulch, keep the spent leaves and just place the woody mulch over them. But remember: The woody mulch needs to decompose (all organic matter is supposed to be recycled in nature), so if you see mushrooms or other kinds of fungi growing upon the mulch, leave them be! They won’t be visible long, and these decomposers are doing their job of returning nutrients to the soil so you don’t need to spend money, time, and effort fertilizing your growing plants.

 

Let “Invasive” Plants Do Their Job

A Common Buckeye is one of many late-summer species of butterflies that finds nourishment at Black Knapweed in the author’s garden. One of the last plants to cease blooming in fall, it feeds tiny bees and hover flies active late in the season due to climate-change-induced warmth. And American Goldfinches benefit by feeding on its seeds.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

An edited version of this article was published April 9, 2021 in the Bay Journal.

 

https://www.bayjournal.com/opinion/forum/let-invasive-plants-do-their-job-so-the-natives-can-take-over/article_7387fc70-93c6-11eb-a929-03fb0e9b107b.html

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend”—French philosopher Henri Bergson

 

The January-February issue of the Bay Journal reports that nonnative Hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata) “has become important in the Bay as a ‘pioneer’ species, colonizing unvegetated areas and making them suitable for native grasses.” People working for the federal government long ago realized that alien plants performed better than native plant species to repair degraded environments, which is why many plants now referred to as “invasive”—such as Autumn Olive (Eleagnus umbellata)—were brought here. This species helped with mine reclamation in the 1830s.

 

Was it a mistake to bring such plants to this country to help fix man’s destructive impact upon the environment? No. With an increasing human population accompanied by development of the land, and increasingly warmer and droughty conditions in places like Virginia due to manmade global climate change, so-called invasive species would be the unintended savior for our wildlife—if only folks would take the time to educate themselves about soil science and how the natural world works.

 

For example, it's common to see abandoned fields and roadsides in Virginia filled with Autumn Olive as you drive throughout the Commonwealth. You could easily believe the dogmatic precepts that these Asian plants “pushed out” native plants and took their place, but such erroneous information combined with your deceptive perception would fool you. Without an assessment of prior use of the land and knowledge of soils, you can’t possibly come to a reality-based conclusion about why certain plant species grow in these areas.

 

Unused fields formerly accommodated either half-ton cows that trod over them day after day, or crops that required heavy machinery to prepare the soil, to sow seeds, and to care for and harvest the plants every year. Roadsides are leftover disturbed areas following road construction. Both fields and roadsides typically contain nutrient-poor, compacted soil. Little organic matter was returned to the soil to enrich cow or crop fields, and topsoil removal by roadway construction uncovered dense subsoil containing few organisms or nutrients.

 

Therefore, the plants you view as you drive along highways bordered by neglected farm fields are the plants capable of growing well in almost inhospitable conditions resulting from human activity. They rehabilitate the soil for the benefit of native plants that require good (i.e., crumbly, nutritive) soil in which to grow well. Only after the “pioneers” (as with Hydrilla) have done their work can such plants move into these impaired locations.

 

Native-pioneer plant species are few in Piedmont Virginia (where I live), consisting mainly of Eastern Redcedar (Juniperus virginiana), Virginia Pine (Pinus virginiana), Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus, in mountainous and foothill areas), Broomsedge (Andropogon virginicus), and, though not actually native to this part of the state, Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacicia). You will often see these plants joined by Autumn Olive, a hint that supposedly invasive plants are simply nonnative-pioneer plants, increasing the diversity of plant life and thus animal life in these areas.

 

Autumn Olive shrubs and Black Locust trees in fields and roadsides share an extremely useful attribute: the ability to fix nitrogen and thus enrich poor soil (a desirable trait often employed by gardeners growing peas and beans). Such plants serve as Mother Nature’s nitrogen cooperative, working with soil bacteria that enrich the soil by adding this vital nutrient to it so people don’t need to squander oil reserves manufacturing synthetic fertilizer.

 

Unfortunately, the predominant narrative nowadays is that everyone must remove supposedly invasive plants that are mistakenly believed to have displaced native plants while not offering their ecological benefits to the environment. It’s a false narrative, but not surprising, given that people are prepared to understand only what their own biases and limited experiences allow. Yet, anyone can find out for himself the truth about these plants. It’s not rocket science; you simply need to observe the natural world without preconceived notions and grow these plants on your property.

 

I’ve observed in my own yard how Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra), Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), Autumn Olive, and Paulownia (Paulownia tomentosa) feed our pollinators with blooms, birds and mammals with fruits/seeds/or buds, and even furnish nesting material and/or sites. In years when deer overpopulated the area, they denuded my yard of most native plants, which would have destroyed all habitat if I hadn’t included commonly disparaged invasives in my yard that deer didn’t eat. These ungulates are often unrecognized for their role in making many alien plants appear invasive.

 

In the severe drought years of 2002 and 2003, I witnessed how native species withered alongside the roads as I drove to Shenandoah National Park to give monthly slide presentations. Meanwhile, alien species continued to flourish despite drought and drying winds.

 

If you care about wildlife, ignore the siren call of voices who frame the invasive-plant movement in terms of morality (i.e., your “duty” to destroy these plants). They couldn’t be more wrong.

NATURE ADVICE: 

It may not be long before localities begin to ban the growing of so-called invasive plants on your private property. People must speak out against such laws that will only bring harm to our wildlife. Government officials are not experts on this issue; they respond to the people who make a ruckus. Enlighted citizens must raise their voices so the truth can be heard and given due consideration.