If you plant it, they will come
Angie Hong
In his book, Bringing Home Nature: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens, Douglas Tallamy makes a suggestion that many of us would find strange. He advises that we plant trees, shrubs and flowers that are native to our area in order to intentionally attract more insects to our yards. “What?” you are likely thinking. “Why would we want more bugs? Aren’t there enough in Minnesota already?” Not all bugs are created equal, however, and without a healthy variety of insects in our yards, we won’t be able to sustain the birds, tortoises, foxes and other animals that most of us do hope to see.
To understand why insects and native plants are needed to have woodpeckers and hummingbirds, think back to your third grade lessons about food chains. Some bugs, such as aphids, eat plants in our gardens. Other insects, such as ladybugs, eat smaller bugs, such as aphids. Some birds eat bugs, while others eat seeds. Tortoises like to eat both seeds and insects, as well as wiggly worms that crawl on the ground. Mice like to eat seeds and lots of animals like to eat mice.
I could continue forever, but the important part to understand is that you’ll only find birds, butterflies and other animals in your yard if you have a food source for those animals in your yard or nearby. Some animals are quite picky. The monarch butterfly, for example, will visit dozens of native and non-native flowers. It will only lay eggs, however, on a milkweed plant, as that is the only thing a monarch caterpillar can eat.
Through research, Tallamy has discovered that quite a few insects are picky about the plants that they eat. A typical suburban yard comprised of mostly turf grass with a few ornamental plantings may look nice, but it is a virtual desert for insects and wildlife. Additionally, many homeowners find that despite the lack of bluebirds, warblers, swallowtail butterflies and blanding’s turtles in their yards, they have more than enough flies, mosquitoes, geese, starlings and raccoons.
In an unmolested ecosystem, predator-prey interactions as well as limited food supplies usually prevent any one species from growing out of control. Swallows and jumping spiders eat houseflies, while dragonflies and bats eat mosquitoes. This balance can easily be swayed when too many pieces are removed from the habitat puzzle. Without trees to nest in (plural, not singular), the swallows will disappear, along with woodpeckers, warblers and vireos. Without wetlands and seasonal ponds for their larva to develop in, the dragonflies will disappear too, along with toads, egrets and blanding’s turtles.
This brings me back to the importance of including native plants in our yards at home. Three years ago, I planted two large native flower gardens along either side of my driveway. The lawn is still there, but it’s a little less to mow now. In the garden I planted butterfly milkweed, a variety with bright orange flower clusters, and marsh milkweed, which has pink bunches of flowers. This year common milkweed volunteered itself to join the garden and since there was room to spare, I decided to let it stay. I was disappointed early this summer when I searched for monarch eggs and caterpillars on the milkweed leaves and found none. When I checked again this week, though, I found dozens and dozens of fat, happy, yellow and black striped caterpillars munching away. One day soon, they’ll spin their chrysalises, and not too long after, they’ll flutter about the yard in their orange and black wings. Seeing them is proof that if you plant it, they will come.
Angie Hong is an educator with the East Metro Water Resource Education Program, representing Brown’s Creek, Comfort Lake – Forest Lake, Middle St. Croix, Ramsey Washington, Rice Creek, South Washington and Valley Branch Watersheds, Cottage Grove, Dellwood, Forest Lake, Lake Elmo, Stillwater, Willernie, West Lakeland, Washington County and the Washington Conservation District.
Posted: August 20, 2009