If you are like most gardeners, you probably hear the word “slug” and are instantly repulsed. Visions of slime and eaten plants may come to mind.
But slugs deserve far more respect than gardeners and others give to them. These invertebrates have the very important job of helping to recycle organic matter, returning it to the soil ultimately for the benefit of growing plants.
If you think that these critters exist to destroy your plants, then you have been misinformed. Unfortunately, it’s easy for that to be the case. University extension websites across the country perpetuate this very mistaken notion, and a book was even put out several years ago titled 50 Ways to Kill a Slug.
I read a review of this book that, in my opinion, should never have been published. It was totally out of touch with the real world of slugs and what they do.
The reader was told that slugs “are guaranteed to infuriate, [they] parade through the garden, munching on tender plants and leaving slimy trails that will always seem to be concentrated in areas where your bare hand will be most likely to touch the greatest surface area of slime.”
In spite of having gardened for more than half a century, I cannot relate at all to these comments. Why is that? What makes my gardening experiences so totally different from those of other long-time gardeners?
The answer is not a mystery. Simply put, I live in agreement with the natural world.
I love nature and I have embraced it virtually all of my life. Spending as much time as possible in the out-of-doors as a child and as an adult, I have seen first-hand, and often documented by way of photography and handwritten journals, the roles that various organisms play in the natural world.
If you took one of my classes or attended one of my slide presentations, you would stop thinking of slugs as “pests” and instead recognize them for the very important animals that they truly are: Mother Nature’s recyclers.
It’s vitally important for all organic matter (the remains of organisms that were once alive) to be recycled back into the environment. That’s because all living things, including us, are composed of recycled organic matter. This is the reason discarded vegetative scraps and inedible animal parts should never be sent to a landfill where it will be locked away and wasted rather than reused.
Slugs feed upon all kinds of things, from dead animals to sickly plants to animal droppings. By doing so, they recycle nutrients that your garden needs to grow well. In other words, they fertilize your plants so that you don’t need to spend time, effort, and perhaps money to do so.
Yet gardeners are constantly told to kill all—yes, I said all—of these lowly-yet-oh-so useful animals. This advice is nonsensical, so why does the gardening community take it to heart?
The problem is that the study of horticulture does not include learning about the natural world. Therefore gardeners are often not familiar with the actual roles that all organisms play to keep the environment—including their gardens—functioning properly.
The reality is that unless you understand how the natural world works, you simply cannot garden well. Gardening involves knowing about the lives of the animals out there so you can comprehend how they interact with plants and each other.
A slug—there are many species—is typically a fat little animal that looks damp. It reminds me somewhat of a miniature seal, only without the feet. And like seals, slugs are usually found where it is wet.
These animals will die if they dry out. Thus they tend to avoid direct sunshine, staying among and underneath plant debris on sunny days and only venturing forth into the open on cloudy or damp days.
If someone tells me that he has a slug problem, I tell him that he must be keeping his garden too wet. In nature, cause and effect is always logical. But in order to determine what is causing the effect observed, you must investigate exactly what the gardener is doing and how that affects the behavior of the animal in question.
For example, sometimes a gardener over-waters his garden, or perhaps he has applied so much mulch that it never dries out. When organic matter remains constantly wet, it starts to rot. That means microorganisms have begun to recycle it.
If plants are growing so close together that they don’t have enough air circulation to dry them off, they too will start to rot because conditions aren’t right for the plants to remain healthy. Mother Nature wants to remove such plants from the environment as quickly as possible because they are not likely to be able to reproduce. If plants are not going to help perpetuate life, they are wasting precious real estate.
Therefore Mother Nature sends in slugs that can recycle the rotting, sickly plants more quickly than the microorganisms are capable of doing. This action opens up the space sooner for new plants to grow that may perform better than the previous plants in that location.
Sadly, gardeners see the slugs and blame them for destroying their plants when, in reality, the slugs are correcting a cultivation “wrong” performed by the gardener. So this is why we have slugs: They tell you to change your gardening ways so your plants can grow well and strong instead of sickly and weak.
Don’t buy into the gardening prejudice against these fine animals that demands they be put to death instead of thanked for the work they do and the advice they provide you—if you pay attention and learn to speak the language of Mother Nature.
The lovely-but-tiny red flowers of the Hairy Bedstraw (Galium pilosum) are best appreciated with a hand lens. (Photo: Marlene A. Condon)
By Marlene A. Condon
June, 2016
I absolutely love my 300-foot-long driveway garden. A gravel driveway is favored by many species of plants, especially rather small ones that you might not notice or pay attention to when they are in the mixed company of larger plants.
My driveway is yet another garden of delightful surprises every year, introducing me to flowers that I never before knew existed. Thus whenever people tell me they’ve paved their driveway, I can’t help but feel that they’ve lost a golden opportunity to see and learn about the wildflowers of our area.
I also feel that they might have lost the chance to meet new insects whose lives are closely tied to those particular kinds of blooms, and to notice bigger animals that might have taken advantage of the gravel pathway (which would feel much more natural to them than a surface of asphalt) to travel through their property.
Our first view of a Box Turtle for the year is often of one walking across the driveway from the forest to my planted flower gardens. And Red Efts (the terrestrial immature form of the Eastern or Red-spotted Newt) can often be found wandering around on the gravel following rainstorms when everything is wet.
Snakes, birds, and mammals regularly make use of the driveway. We’ve watched copperheads and rat snakes poking their faces down into the spaces between the rocks as if seriously searching for something. Unfortunately, I do not know what.
Brown Thrashers enjoy taking dust baths whenever a big-enough area somehow becomes pebble-less. We now try to maintain such an area close enough to the house to enjoy the goings-on.
And foxes used to be seen crossing the driveway at dusk. Unfortunately, both the Red and the Gray Fox have virtually disappeared from my area. The proof is evident by the noticeable increase in Eastern Cottontail Rabbits. (I believe the foxes have been extirpated, along with the coyotes I used to hear.)
But returning to my driveway garden, as my absolute favorite color is red, I was thrilled when numerous Hairy Bedstraw (Galium pilosum) plants showed up there. This wasn’t an easy plant to identify, however. My Peterson guide to wildflowers doesn’t include it.
The Newcomb guide contains this plant, but it tells us the bloom color ranges from greenish white to purple. The plants in my driveway are a true red (luckily for me!), which is an unusual turn of events in my experience.
I’ve purchased many plants that were supposed to have red blooms but ended up being various shades of pinkish purple. As a result, you would think that purple was my favorite color when you look around my yard. (The lesson to be learned is that you should never take the color of plant blossoms on faith—buy your plants when they are blooming, if possible.) So it’s rather amazing that red isn’t mentioned for Hairy Bedstraw, yet my plants are—for once—the color I adore.
Mind you, this is a tiny flower, but it’s absolutely lovely in close-up—as are many of the driveway plants. Bluecurls (Trichostema dichotomum), American Penneyroyal (Hedeoma pulegioides), and Bluets (Houstonia caerulea) are best viewed with a hand lens.
Another favorite of mine is Venus’ Looking-glass (Specularia perfoliata). The enchanting name makes me think of fairy tales, and the small purple blooms are pretty, but the heart-shaped leaves that clasp the stem are what really capture my fancy. It’s in the Lobelia Family, so many of its larger “cousins” are well known cultivated plants.
Venus’ Looking-glass is described in field guides as a plant of “sterile fields, clearings,” while Hairy Bedstraw is said to be a plant of dry woods and thickets. While these details do not exactly match the characteristics of my driveway garden, those of St. Andrew’s Cross (Ascyrum hypericoides) hits the nail on the head: “dry sandy or rocky soil.”
St. Andrew’s Cross is in the St. Johnswort Family, but it has such flattened yellow flowers that the first time I saw one of these plants (in a wilderness area), I couldn’t imagine what it was. I didn’t manage to identify it from field guide drawings that gave the impression that it was an upright plant when it actually grows more as a dense, discretely mounded ground cover. But once it showed up in the driveway, familiarity facilitated recognition.
The wildflowers in my driveway garden share the trait of growing well among small rocks surrounded by precious little soil for root growth or moisture retention. They are truly plants of great stamina that can even manage to obtain enough nutrients to be healthy even though they haven’t much access to organic matter. They are plants to be admired, really.
Yet I’ve noticed there can be a bias in wildflower field guides when it comes to how the location of these plants is described. When the plants are native, the places where they tend to be found are usually described simply in terms of the physical characteristics of the site (dry, fields). But sometimes, when the plants are not native to our area, the places you will find them are described more in terms of human opinion of the plant’s non-native origin rather than in a straightforward characterization of the site.
For example, Garlic Mustard (Alliaria officinalis), an alien species of which I have very few even though it’s considered by many people to be a serious “invader,” includes the term “waste places” in its Peterson guide write-up, as does the alien Asiatic Dayflower (Commelina communis) and Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis). This site description is rarely found, if it’s found at all, for native plants.
Of course, many alien species do tend to be found in areas degraded by human activities, such as along railroad tracks, roadsides (current and historical), hiking trails, and within former or still active cow fields. They are therefore quite commonly seen because they are able to take advantage of destroyed soil profiles of compacted dirt containing little organic matter. They keep the ground productive (i.e., they provide habitat for wildlife) that bare dirt can never do.
Over four dozen species of plants comprise my driveway garden, with a bit less than 50 percent of them non-native. Many of these driveway plant species are not found anywhere else in my yard, not only because they obviously prefer dry, rather nutrient-poor soil, but because they are so small that they could easily be crowded out by much larger plants—whether those plants are native or non-native.
It’s a fact of life that there’s always this push-and-pull within the plant world. The plants that are best suited to a site persist, although they, too, will be replaced over time as conditions change.
Even my driveway garden changes from year to year, depending upon whether new gravel is added or new soil builds up among the rocks. It’s a classroom of sorts, one that provides beauty along with an education.
Local bluebirder Ron Kingston alerted me in April to a distressingly sad situation that occurred in a cemetery in central Ohio. He’d heard from Paula Ziebarth, who monitors nest boxes in the area, that a mated pair of Eastern Bluebirds had died after workers had put out earthworm-shaped poison bait (a product made by Bell Laboratories under the brand name of Talpirid) to kill moles.
It’s not clear if the birds had found “worms”—that perhaps someone had accidentally dropped onto the ground—and eaten them, unaware that within mankind’s world, something that looks every bit like an earthworm is not necessarily an earthworm. But even if the bluebirds didn’t eat this poison bait, there’s plenty to be concerned about.
(It should be noted that if the bait had been deliberately placed on top of the ground instead of within the mole tunnels, that application would be in violation of the manufacturer’s instructions for use.)
First of all, the idea of shaping poison bait into something that many different kinds of animals would think they could eat is horribly shortsighted. It’s akin to creating candy-shaped poison to be used in the home where a child might mistake it for a treat.
Additionally, this bait has been given “an attractive smell for hungry moles,” which means any animal able to smell it within a mole tunnel will be enticed to dig it up. Raccoons, skunks, and bears have a keen sense of smell and habitually dig up soil to feed upon underground critters.
Pets have sometimes been the unintended victims of pesticides, which people find abhorrent. Yet society has accepted the use of poisons to kill wildlife of every sort. What has happened to our humanity that most people accept the willful poisoning of these creatures when it’s terribly mean-spirited to cause any living being to die an excruciatingly painful death?
It’s as if people have lost their sense of compassion when it comes to wild animals, as though these critters pose such an enormous threat to their own well-being that they are somehow not worthy of mercy. Yet what crime is a mole guilty of that it should be given a death sentence?
Is making raised tunnels in grass or garden—tunnels that could easily be tamped down by foot and avoided by anyone not wishing to sink into the dirt—truly a crime worthy of poisoning when the critter is simply doing its job for the benefit of people? Yes, that is exactly what a mole is doing. It controls the numbers of organisms living within the soil so your environment can function properly.
When a mole feeds upon grubs—beetle larvae that normally feed upon dead plant roots to recycle them—it keeps the grubs from overpopulating the area. By having their numbers limited, these immature beetles won’t run out of dead roots and be forced into feeding upon the roots of living plants to avoid starving.
The mole’s action thus helps to perpetuate the life of both plants and grubs. Plants can’t remain healthy and strong without roots, so they would be unable to perpetuate themselves. Eventually the area could become devoid of plants, which means there would be no food for future generations of grubs that are necessary to recycle nutrients back into the soil for the benefit of future generations of plants.
When a mole feeds upon earthworms, it perpetuates their existence as well. If the earthworms become overpopulated, they too will run out of food and die off. The disappearance of earthworms would impact plants not only because earthworms are recyclers of nutrients that plants require for good health, but also because earthworms aerate the soil for the benefit of plants. Their roots require air, which is why plants do poorly in compacted soil.
The mole in your yard, garden, or cemetery (there is typically only one mole except during mating season) keeps these closed biological loops functioning properly. If you want your plants to remain healthy, you want your mole to do its job.
But even though there is no need to be killing a mole in a yard or garden, is there a need in cemeteries? Perhaps if folks would make the effort to understand our wildlife and to recognize the importance of these animals to their own existence, they wouldn’t mind being more vigilant about watching where they stepped within the cemetery.
Signs could be placed at entrances to alert visitors to the presence of mole tunnels, which the groundskeepers could do their best to tamp down.
Folks might realize the silliness of the things they get upset over if they weren’t so concerned with “perfection.” Today’s world is one in which appearances are everything, whether it be one’s own personal appearance or the appearance of one’s possessions, including his yard. Many people see mole tunnels as imperfections in their lawn’s appearance or, worse yet, as destructive of the health of the lawn.
In fact, the view that many forms of wildlife are exceedingly destructive and/or dangerous is ridiculously prevalent among folks these days. You can’t watch TV, listen to the radio, or read a newspaper without being exposed to ads for “pest” control. These ads don’t stick to facts; they exaggerate the supposed negative impacts of many kinds of animals upon people.
Even scientists talk about “pests’, even though the whole idea of organisms existing to destroy the very world that supports them is nonsensical. (Perhaps researchers take their cue from man, who’s the only creature to knowingly sabotage his surroundings.)
Life is all about perpetuating life, which can’t happen if insects, for example, are out there destroying the very plants they require for future generations of their own kind. The only reason people run into difficulties with plants being overwhelmed by insects is because people create improperly functioning environments in which plant-feeding insects are not kept limited by predators.
People completely misunderstand how the natural world works, and they are constantly bombarded with the idea that any wildlife causing the least bit of inconvenience or risk of harm to them should be killed. As a result, we have children and adults alike who expect to live their lives without ever seeing certain kinds of wildlife within their sphere of existence.
A few years ago I was told about an experience someone had while talking with an Albemarle County elementary school custodian. A young girl of eight or nine approached the custodian with a teacher by her side. She wanted to tell him, with much concern, mind you, that there was a dead spider outside the building.
Yes, she was concerned about a spider that was where it belonged, not one that had found its way into the building. However, even if the spider had been inside, it should not have caused such consternation as to require informing the custodian.
Viewing the natural world only from their own perspective, humans have totally misread it and are destroying it. We need to get back to seeing “Mother Nature” as the nurturing entity that this name so accurately depicts.
Roughly 50 percent of refrigerated display cases in grocery stores are open, wasting an enormous amount of energy that shoppers foot the bill for by paying higher food prices. (Photo credit: Marlene A. Condon)
Last Thanksgiving, I came face to face with the environmental prospects facing our world. Speaking with a young man who I’d guess was about 30, I was deeply distressed by his indifference to the effect of ever-increasing energy demands placed upon the Earth.
With all of the talk about sustainability, I would have hoped that young people, especially, would demonstrate more environmental awareness. But for this young waiter, energy consumption was as natural and necessary as food consumption.
He spoke of how his generation believed work should be mixed with play, and he pointed to the TV screens lining the walls of the hotel restaurant where he was an employee and I was a guest.
His point was that people could be connected constantly to the world via many electronic gadgets, and he added that even the apartment building where he lived was similarly set up, with screens in the lobby to greet people the moment they walked into the building.
While the restaurant employee felt right at home at work (which I now know was the intention), I had felt thankful that the TVs were silent, their information being disseminated by closed captioning instead of blaring very much unwanted sounds. For me, the TVs represented a terrible waste of energy as they consumed it most hours of the day, even though few people were paying any attention to them.
Additionally, the screens were so large that just the one on the front wall of the restaurant could have served the purpose instead of covering the length of an additional wall with them.
Yes, electronic screens may be far more energy-efficient than the old-style TVs, but when you multiply them by the uncountable screens running most of each day in other hotels, doctors’ offices, car repair shops, and homes, whether anyone is watching them or not, you can begin to understand how much we squander our energy resources.
The coal, natural gas, and oil that run our modern-day world consist of nothing more than the remains of prehistoric organisms that were chemically altered via great pressure and temperature. It required millions of years of processing to become the fuel we are burning through at such a rapid pace that the depletion of it is in sight after just more than 150 years!
The proof that these fossil fuels are truly a limited resource is made clear by the desperate attempts to obtain oil and gas by hydraulic fracturing of shale deposits. Why else would anyone bother to go after oil and gas deep within the ground?
What about leaving fuel for future generations? The fact that we are going after every last hydrocarbon molecule we can possibly get does not show much concern for people’s descendants.
Obviously, we should not view this precious commodity with such a cavalier attitude, but many folks do. Indeed, on the very day I started writing this column, I heard a person on a conservative radio talk show saying he should have a right to build his home without insulation, if he so desired (and I believe he could, as I could find no reference to government regulations requiring homes to have insulation).
To him, the increased amount of energy he would end up using to warm his home was nobody’s business but his. If he wanted to waste energy, that should be his prerogative as a freedom-loving American.
But declaring a right to waste resources affects all of us: Following through on your right causes the resource to run out all the sooner for everyone. It’s remarkable that the caller—and his host who thoroughly agreed with him—were oblivious to the irony of calling themselves “conservatives” when they didn’t care about conserving a limited resource.
However, when you look around, it’s easy to see how society as a whole gives short shrift to energy usage:
Grocery stores use upright, open, refrigerated display cases that make those aisles, and sometimes the entire store, uncomfortably and unnecessarily chilly.
The automatic doors at the entranceways to many businesses and apartment complexes are constantly opening and closing, even if no one is entering or leaving.
The large houses that have become the norm over the past couple of decades or so require a great deal of energy to cool and heat, whether every room is actually used or not.
And perhaps the most obvious example of our wasteful ways is the running of such things as lights, computers, and TVs at home and at work even though no one is making use of them. It should be noted that we wouldn’t have been forced into buying more-expensive CFL light bulbs that contain mercury if people would have just switched off the lights when exiting the room.
In Virginia, people are fighting three pipelines¹ proposed to go through the state to carry natural gas obtained by hydrofracking. Many folks don’t want these huge conduits going through their “back yards” and you can’t blame them.
Personally, I’ve never understood why some people should be forced to give up their properties for the sake of everyone else, especially in this case when so much energy is, and has been, expended so carelessly and needlessly.
Additionally, we should not overlook how our appetite for energy horrendously affects wildlife. Even supposedly “green” power sources (i.e., they emit fewer or no carbon emissions), when employed on a large scale, result in a variety of wildlife losses too numerous to completely list. The following are but a few examples:
Huge solar panel arrays destroy habitat for desert tortoises and are killing birds by incineration.
Wind turbines on mountain tops impact eagle nesting sites while killing migratory birds and bats that hit the turbine blades.
Wind turbine construction and operation in the ocean create noise, which can impact sea life, especially cetaceans (whales and dolphins) that need to communicate with one another.
River dams to create hydropower stop migratory fish from being able to reproduce adequately.
Please understand that I’m not saying we shouldn’t use energy. I, for one, am certainly grateful that I don’t have to fully suffer the freezing temperatures of winter the way my ancestors did.
My point is that we should use energy as wisely as possible to minimize its seriously deleterious impacts upon the Earth as well as to prolong the availability of the resource.
It’s January, a time of New Year’s resolutions. It would be wonderful if everyone resolved to make “waste not, want not” their motto when consuming energy.
¹[Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline; the EQT Corp and NextEra Energy companies’ Mountain Valley Pipeline; and the Oklahoma-based Williams company’s Western Marcellus Pipeline]
Brightly colored American Goldfinches will visit feeders as well as plants to obtain the seeds they need throughout the year. (Photo credit: Marlene A. Condon)
At my last talk of the season in Shenandoah National Park, an audience member asked me about bird feeding. He’d heard that this activity was linked to the increase in Lyme disease because it increased the number of mice around people’s homes.
White-footed Mice serve as the main reservoir for Lyme bacteria. These microorganisms are transferred to people when larval ticks that have fed upon infected mice reach the nymph or adult stage of their life cycle and feed upon humans. (Ticks prefer deer, but people make an acceptable substitute.)
The man was quite concerned about the possibility of contracting this illness, and he was rather upset that I didn’t agree that people should stop feeding birds. He felt that if people maintained the nature-friendly garden that I was advocating, they wouldn’t need to feed birds anyway.
While it’s true that people could—and should—supply food to wildlife by properly landscaping their property, the reality is that very few people understand the value of replicating the natural world around their homes. Thus very few yards are truly capable of supplying food to birds and other wildlife.
Bird feeding can help animals survive, especially during harsh weather when it’s absolutely crucial for them to have easy access to food. However, people should feed responsibly, which means understanding the consequences of their actions and addressing potential problems.
You can avoid increasing mouse populations by simply putting out only the amount of seed that birds will consume in a day. An organism’s population can grow only if there is plenty of food to sustain its expansion.
You can figure out how much to feed by checking the ground at the end of the day to assess how many seeds remain. It’s not a problem for some seeds to be on the ground; after all, the mice have to eat too! But there shouldn’t be an abundance of them. If necessary, cut back on how much you dispense in the morning.
Some years ago, many ornithologists were also quite concerned about bird feeding and wanted people to stop. They worried about the spread of disease among birds in close contact day after day, and they also felt it made birds more vulnerable to predation by hawks. Again, such situations can be easily addressed.
First of all, no feeder should be much more than 9-12 feet from shrubs and/or small trees, or at least a brush pile, where birds can have a chance to escape a hawk attack. That distance provides a barrier to prevent Gray Squirrels from jumping from the plants or brush pile to the feeder (a squirrel can jump about 8 feet horizontally), but it’s close enough for a bird to make a prompt dash to safety.
If there aren’t woody plants near your feeder pole, you should consider placing a fast-growing evergreen (such as Photinia serrulata) close by. Evergreen shrubs and trees are better than deciduous woody plants as they provide cover all the year around.
However, the best cover for birds is provided by a nearby brush pile. Small birds can navigate through the interlocking branches and twigs to reach the safety of the interior of the pile, while the larger hawk is unable to get through the small openings.
[For a free brochure on brush piles that I wrote several years ago for the Virginia Department of Forestry, please contact me at marlenecondon@aol.com]
To avoid the spread of disease among birds at feeders, you should watch for sick animals. They can be recognized by their sluggishness and hesitation to fly away from food.
If you notice a bird behaving this way, you should take down all of your feeders, empty them completely, and then wash them well with plenty of soap and water to wash away microorganisms. Rinse the feeders well and let them air dry completely, preferably in sunlight, before refilling them.
Healthy birds will move off during this time to find food elsewhere (in your natural landscaping, I hope), and the sick bird will die more quickly, relieving it of its misery.
In addition to believing that bird feeding can be quite helpful to birds, I also believe that birds—via bird feeders—can be quite helpful to us.
More than 20 years ago now, I took care of my mother in my home for the last 11 months of her life. She had cancer and became bedridden about two months after I brought her to live with me.
I had placed her bed where she could watch the bird feeder on the deck. I knew she needed something to entertain her and watching birds was just the ticket!
Not only did my mom get to see birds she had never seen before, which she found interesting, but she also felt useful by filling the role of research assistant. Because I couldn’t stay right with my mother all day (there was plenty that needed to be done elsewhere in the house), she would give me a report about what I’d missed when I had been out of the room.
I was thrilled to get her observations as they added to my knowledge, and they provided us with wonderful conversations that could relieve us both of thoughts about her impending death.
One of the most meaningful things my mother did for me under these heartbreaking circumstances was to call me whenever there was a photo opportunity. One photo, of a male Northern Cardinal bathing in my deck water pan, will always bring back that day so long ago when my mom helped me to get that bird’s picture.
For some people, bird feeding has played a lasting role in family relationships under happier circumstances. Nancy, a birder I know by way of the Virginia bird list-serve, shared with me her experience as a very young child.
Her grandmother would feed Blue Jays. She’d hold up Nancy, who wasn’t even three years old yet, to see the birds eating. To this day, Nancy loves Blue Jays. They are the first kind of bird she can remember being aware of and, of course, they will always make her think of her loving grandmother who introduced Nancy to a lifelong hobby.
My only concern with this activity is when people start to believe that birds are somehow more precious than other kinds of wildlife, and then proceed to try to banish some species from around their homes.
Your environment can only support birds if it contains a tapestry of organisms living and working together to fulfill their natural roles. If you want your feathered friends to live well, don’t try to make them live in a vacuum.
Last month, on a day that was —according to the calendar—about two weeks before the beginning of spring, I listened to the sounds of its impending arrival. Wood Frogs had been calling vociferously all day from my artificial ponds and a lone Spring Peeper had occasionally joined in.
But what really made an impression on me was the number of woodcocks I had heard calling in the morning darkness before the Sun rose. I was taking my usual walk along a nearby road and was thrilled to hear at least seven of these birds in my area.
A woodcock is a rather strange-looking bird with a long beak and plump body. It nests from Virginia northwards, but then needs to move southwards with the seasons—generally speaking. One relatively snowless winter, I did hear a woodcock calling every month from November to May in a nearby field, but that is unusual.
Birders visit fields to listen for returning woodcocks at this time of the year, particularly fields that contain damp soil conditions that allow the birds to feed. A woodcock’s long beak is used to probe the soil for earthworms and other invertebrates.
The population of woodcocks has been in decline since the 1960s. Their diminishing numbers are said to be due to loss of habitat because of development and also forest maturation. The reason we now have more forests composed of older trees is because we are still suffering the fallout from years ago when the huge outcry against clear-cutting left people thinking that cutting forests is a bad thing to do.
The result has been a loss of habitat for the many kinds of wildlife that absolutely depend upon the shrubby and wild grass-and-flower-filled landscape that comprises a regenerating forest landscape. The American Woodcock and other birds, such as the Ruffed Grouse, simply cannot reproduce without the appropriate habitat provided by a young forest.
But when people view the world with a very narrow perspective, and they insist that their perspective guide the management of most public (and often private) land, the end result is typically disastrous for the environment as a whole.
Additionally, based upon my own local observations, another very serious problem for the woodcock and other birds of field and edge habitat is the default modification of the landscape that occurs in conjunction with people building houses in fields.
Instead of maintaining mostly field habitat around their new home, the owners more commonly turn the acreage into lawn, which very few species of wildlife can utilize. Or, if they keep it looking like a field, it is cut far too often to be of much use to wildlife.
As evidenced by my pre-dawn walk that early-March day, fields are vital to our American Woodcock. Although most of the woodcocks I heard that morning were performing their aerial mating display to impress females in farm fields, one woodcock was making use of a wonderfully overgrown “yard.” And since I’ve also heard a woodcock here in previous years, the acreage is obviously being managed well for this type of bird.
The yard consists of about five acres (I would guess), which has neither been turned into a lawn nor kept cut throughout the growing, and mating, season. The folks who moved into the house on that property several years ago made the decision to manage the land in a nature-friendly manner and have done so continuously.
The woodcock singing from, and displaying above, their field is testament to their management-style success. In my opinion, these folks are so admirable that they deserve an award. Instead, Albemarle County and Commonwealth of Virginia officials bestow upon them the very highest land valuation (and tax bill) possible for private property—residential—for helping wildlife and the environment as a whole.
As often as local politicians purport to be conservation-minded, it’s difficult to understand why they don’t push for Richmond legislators to change tax laws so people who are truly conservation-minded aren’t penalized for doing what, in actuality, everyone should be doing with their properties.
No one requires a huge lawn. This aesthetic concept should be considered archaic and a relic of a time when mankind wasn’t taking up every bit of available space on the planet. It may have been acceptable years ago to waste land, but it shouldn’t be tolerated nowadays.
Any lawn that is larger than what will be utilized for everyday entertaining represents a wasted resource. Land is supposed to be productive. It should be growing food (whether for people or other organisms) or providing shelter and nesting sites for animals.
This is the reason that every bit of usable land sprouts seedlings that people call “weeds.” Mother Nature is trying to provide for her critters.
Anyone who gardens and anyone who owns land should think about their actions upon the environment as a whole. And if you are fortunate enough to own a fair bit of land, you should consider emulating my neighbors who’ve managed to attract a woodcock to their property for a few years now.
Make no mistake about it: The future of our wildlife is going to be determined by how people choose to manage their yards.
A female Monarch lays an egg on Common Milkweed in the author’s garden. (Photo credit: Marlene A. Condon)
I’m often asked how I became so captivated by the natural world. Most people usually answer this question by saying they saw a particularly beautiful animal or plant, which made them want to learn more about it. From there they moved on to other aspects of nature. But I was simply born with a love of all things wild.
I was very young when my grandparents were still alive and owned a farm. Almost every memory I possess of spending time at the farm involves wildflowers and wild animals, even though my family had no interest in nature. (I’m happy to report that changed when I started writing about it.)
No one personally introduced me to the lovely plants and secretive wild animals that weren’t as difficult to spot back then as they are now. My attention was just innately drawn to the natural environment that surrounded my family as we walked along roadways to gather blueberries that were growing wild.
Folks at that time didn’t insist upon roadsides and field borders being cut and manicured as most people demand today—as if unkempt plant growth is somehow undignified and indicative of bad moral character. The Monarch Butterfly is just one of the most obvious casualties of this current attitude towards the natural world.
The Monarch population is estimated to have dropped by a whopping 90 percent over the past 20 years. Farmers in the Midwest contributed to this situation by increasing herbicide usage to make sure no “weeds” competed with crops throughout the growing season. One of those so-called weeds was milkweed—the only kind of plant a Monarch caterpillar can feed upon.
Needless to say, a dearth of milkweed equates to a dearth of Monarchs. Indeed, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is considering adding this butterfly to the Endangered Species list—a shocking turn of events when the Monarch has always seemed so abundantly common as to be safe from the threat of extinction.
Another important factor is the unwillingness of folks to do what’s best for wildlife instead of themselves around their homes. Most gardeners, even those growing “butterfly gardens,” prefer to grow Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) rather than Common Milkweed (Asclepias syrica).
People have a fondness for Butterfly Weed because of its lovely orange color and its compact growth habit. Unlike its ungainly cousin—the Common Milkweed with its coarse growth that can reach 5-6 feet in height—Butterfly Weed fits better, aesthetically and size-wise, into a cultured landscape.
But this species presents two serious problems for Monarchs: a less desirable sap for the caterpillars to feed upon, and an ultimate size that is not sufficient for these insects to reach maturity.
The sap of Butterfly Weed is clear, not milky. In other words, it does not contain much of the alkaloids and other complex compounds that make Monarchs distasteful to predators, sickening them to such an extent that they do not try eating a Monarch again.
Surprisingly to me, scientists aren’t concerned about gardeners choosing to grow Butterfly Weed instead of Common Milkweed. They seem to think that as long as a few Monarchs are eating more-chemically toxic milkweeds somewhere else, the rest (i.e., the ones feeding in your yard) will be adequately protected.
It’s very common for scientists to take the attitude that getting people to do anything at-all-positive for wildlife is acceptable because otherwise people might instead do nothing. While I certainly want to encourage folks to do whatever they can to make their yards more nature-friendly, even if the choices they make are not the best ones, this particular instance is different. I can’t support the allowance of Butterfly Weed as a suitable plant to assist diminishing Monarch numbers.
People need to know that if most Monarch caterpillars feed upon Butterfly Weed, most Monarch caterpillars will be more palatable than they would be if they fed upon Common Milkweed, and that puts the entire population at risk of predation. Indeed, when I look to Mother Nature—as I always do—she backs me up. (The natural world can always be counted on for verity.)
The most-common and most-used milkweed from the Great Plains eastward in the United States and north to southern Canada—the range of the Monarch—is Common Milkweed, with its milky sap. If the scientific supposition that Butterfly Weed is just as good a plant for Monarchs as Common Milkweed were valid, you would expect Butterfly Weed to be more common than it is throughout much of its, and this butterfly’s, range.
To me, this provides the definitive proof that the Common Milkweed is the one that has been used the most throughout the centuries by Monarchs, and that should be reason enough to pick this species for your garden. But if you are skeptical of my assertion, I can give you the undeniable evidence for not choosing Butterfly Weed: The plant is so small that it simply can’t support one caterpillar, let alone many, all the way to maturity.
Unless you can grow a huge number of these plants in your garden, you will doom Monarch caterpillars to starvation. I know because my husband was kind enough to rescue many caterpillars one year from a person’s garden that held only Butterfly Weed. Every one of those Monarchs would have died if I hadn’t been growing Common Milkweed in my gardens.
Indeed, Monarch butterflies themselves have provided the indisputable substantiation of my contention: They’ve never laid even one egg on the Butterfly Weed growing in the same garden bed as my Common Milkweed.
Monarchs know what they need. If they lay eggs upon Butterfly Weed, you can rest assured that there’s too limited a supply of Common Milkweed in the area. Please use your garden space wisely by planting Common Milkweed instead of Butterfly Weed. Monarchs desperately need you to do what’s best for them, not you.
Note: VDOT has begun a new “Pollinator Habitat Program” to assist pollinators by creating and maintaining appropriate habitat. The agency is looking for partners to work with to create plots on VDOT lands in and near Safety Rest Areas & Park & Rides. The Interstate 64 VDOT Workers Memorial on Afton Mountain is a location they are considering for this program. Garden clubs, wildlife conservancies and area businesses are encouraged to participate by providing volunteer labor and funding. If you’re interested, please contact Diane Beyer, State Roadside Management Planner, at diane.beyer@vdot.virginia.gov for more information.
A large stand of Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata), which is considered an invasive plant species, grows underneath a native Eastern Redcedar (Juniperous virginiana). Both kinds of plants, located along a gas pipeline, tell the informed observer that the soil in this location is nutrient-poor and compacted. (Photo credit: Marlene A. Condon)
As April transitioned into May, I was surprised to see a fair number of daffodils still blooming along the roadway where I walk. It was a sign of how chilly the spring had been.
Another sign I picked up on that morning was the “invasiveness” of daffodils. There were many, many daffodil clumps spanning the miles of my exercise route. They exemplified the ability of some plants brought to this country to reproduce successfully enough to move well beyond the garden gate and out into the larger world.
Such so-called invasive plants have constituted an issue for some time now, although I don’t recall ever hearing anyone complain about the invasive nature of daffodils. Perhaps if a plant is lovely, people can forgive its tendency to reproduce and spread.
But when you are talking about the health of our environment, you can’t entertain such biases. If a plant meets the criteria for being considered “bad,” then it shouldn’t be granted a special exemption.
This situation begs the question, “Should nonnative plants be considered pestiferous when they spread?” I say absolutely not in most cases, especially in back yards, along hiking trails, in meadows and fields, and by roadsides. These plants are providing an invaluable service to a degraded environment.
Usually nonnative plants fill an area only after it had been left barren because of an altered soil profile brought about by man, severe storms, or both. Very few native plant species can grow in poor-quality soil.
By moving into these damaged areas, alien plants do what humans can’t easily do: they rehabilitate the soil. In other words, they are creating a rich soil so that—once they’ve done their job—native plants may again be able to grow there.
Nonnative species are able to obtain nutrients from nutrient-poor soil and transform them into plant tissue. When that plant tissue is returned to the soil (such as when leaves detach to be replaced by new ones or when the plant itself dies), it becomes humus—organic material that enriches the clay soil because its nutrients are in a form that’s usable by many more kinds of plants.
But enriching the soil is not the only thing invasive plants are doing for the environment. They are also supporting our wildlife, all of which require plants for food, shelter, and nesting sites. Every plant on invasive-species lists provides one or more of these basic necessities to our critters.
Although “invasive” plants are often referred to as noxious (deadly, harmful, dangerous), they are simply doing what they are meant to do—reproduce and multiply if there is room for them and the growing conditions are right. It’s what “happy” plants do.
Consider Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica), a large herbaceous perennial plant that was brought from Asia to this country in the late 1800s. Its flowers feed abundant numbers of insects, especially bees of many kinds.
Yet according to the National Invasive Species Information Center, this plant is problematic because “it crowds out native species.” Well, yes, Japanese Knotweed eventually gets large enough and spreads enough to take up space so nothing else can share the space, but in all likelihood, this plant is not crowding out native species, but rather, other nonnative plants like itself!
One of the reasons this plant was originally brought to this country was erosion control after the ground had been denuded by man’s activities, such as road building. The only reason to bring in a foreign plant to prevent soil from washing away in these areas during rain storms is because no native plant could possibly handle the job.
During construction, heavy equipment clears away topsoil that native plants have evolved to grow in. The subsoil that remains is hard, and made harder still by the heavy equipment driven over it. It takes a tough plant to grow in heavy, hard-as-rock dirt!
In Charlottesville, the City Council recently voted to continue to use pesticides for controlling unwanted plant growth, such as Japanese Knotweed growing along the Rivanna River. People believe the plant “will take over next to streams so nothing else can grow there,” creating “a monoculture.”
However, it could well be that nothing else can grow there. The Rivanna runs red every time there’s a heavy rain. That color signifies sub-soil erosion, the result of development upstream and properties on which land has been cleared right to the edges of streams (it’s allowed on “pasture” in Albemarle County).
Although that soil is traveling towards the Chesapeake Bay and is a major contributor to its impaired state, some of it gets deposited along the edges of the waterways. This red clay is not typically conducive to native-plant growth, which is why nonnative plants were able to start growing in the first place and to subsequently “take over.”
Although one might think the land along the river is in a pristine state, it’s easy to discern the truth of the matter by simply examining what plants are growing with the Japanese Knotweed. If you see many so-called invasive species, such as Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata), Japanese Stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum), and Autumn Olive (Eleagnus umbellata), that’s an undeniable sign of disturbance.
Killing and then replacing the Japanese Knotweed plants along the Rivanna River will simply re-disturb the soil, setting back the clock for its rehabilitation. If people truly want to help the environment, they need to take the long view.
Over time, the Japanese Knotweed will ultimately be shaded out by trees because Mother Nature’s goal is to create forest. No environment is static; it’s constantly in a state of flux.
People can spend time, effort, and money to remove nonnative species that are able to grow vigorously in disturbed areas of our making, but it’s virtually impossible to do so without re-creating the conditions that brought about the problem originally.
In the majority of situations, it’s difficult to make right what man has done wrong. Better to take the passive approach and let Mother Nature perform the renovations.
In fact, the whole invasive-plant issue has been a huge disaster for our environment. As a result of the rush to judgment that says all of these plants are “bad,” no matter what, herbicide usage has increased tremendously. Even most environmentalists now consider the employment of pesticides acceptable.
It’s as if poisoning the Earth is far better than allowing plants to exist in areas where they are not native. Rachel Carson’s ashes must be whirling in her grave.
This scientist, by recognizing the dangers of pesticides, brought about the environmental movement in which people began to recognize the effects of their actions upon the planet.
Yet now these poisons (substances that are capable of causing illness or the death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed into its system) are seen as either totally innocuous or a choice that is preferable to the alternative.
What is the alternative? The alternative is that a nonnative plant should occupy a spot of ground that in most cases is degraded and incapable of supporting a native plant anyway.
Herbicides sicken and kill many kinds of organisms, either directly or indirectly. Alien plants, on the other hand, often do far more good than harm to the environment. Can there really be any doubt about which choice is the better one to make?
According to legend, this male mantis (the one on top) is done for. (Photo credit: Marlene A. Condon)
Like most people, you probably have no idea that the story of a female mantis decapitating and eating the head of the male before, during, or after sexual relations is a myth. The worst aspect of this myth is that it originated with a bona fide scientist!
Leland Ossian Howard, who was educated at Cornell University, was the chief entomologist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture from the late nineteenth century well into the beginning of the twentieth. He is credited with making the study of insects (entomology) a legitimate branch of the biological sciences. Unfortunately, his report of mantis mating behavior was not one of his finer moments as a researcher.
As described in the October 8, 1886, issue of the journal Science, Howard brought a male Carolina Mantis (our native species) to the home of a friend who’d been keeping a solitary female in a jar as a pet. When he placed the male, which is smaller than the female, into the jar, it tried to escape—with good reason.
Within a few minutes, the bigger female had grabbed the male and proceeded to feed upon him. Despite this, the male eventually managed to mate with the female after apparently realizing (according to Howard) that he was with a mantis of the opposite sex. Mr. Howard concluded that, “it seems to be only by accident that a male ever escapes alive from the embraces of his partner.”
The research scientist claimed the female “had always been plentifully supplied with food” and “was apparently full-fed,” but obviously he was wrong. His description of her feeding behavior is that of a ravenous individual.
It should go without saying that if you confine two predators to a limited space from which neither can escape, one is going to kill the other when it gets hungry enough. In the natural world, size is usually the determining factor as to who the victor will be. Thus it should be expected that the larger female mantis would be the individual in the jar to get a meal.
As the years were passing by without my having ever seen a female mantis of any species (we have at least three in our area) devour her mate, despite the fact that I’d seen plenty of mating mantises in the wild, I began to become suspicious of the oft-repeated story about these insects. As someone who is always paying attention to the world around me, I knew I should have witnessed this event if it were indeed the common mating behavior of mantises.
I wasn’t at all surprised when I tracked down the anecdotal evidence for this assertion to find that the two mantises had been confined to a jar. They weren’t out in the real world but, rather, in a limited amount of space.
What did surprise me was that this story, which is the source of the continuing urban legend, had found its way into print by way of an actual scientific publication. The mantis experiment was apparently considered legitimate science, presumably simply because it had been done by a certified scientist.
But it illustrates a serious problem that has continued to this day in the biological sciences. People think they can learn the truth about nature by setting up artificial conditions in a lab, but the natural world is far too complex for anyone to reliably replicate it for study. There are just too many variables. If you want to know the truth about nature, you must observe the real thing in the real world without interfering with it.
Almost exactly a century after the mantis “discovery” was published, flawed scientific analysis again found its way into the popular press, where it is referenced to this day.
Just last year National Geographic News published an essay regarding the 1980s study conducted by Stanley A. Temple, an avian ecologist, and his graduate student, Margaret C. Brittingham, to find out if bird feeding caused birds to become dependent upon feeders. In other words, if feeder food were suddenly taken away from birds that were accustomed to obtaining it in a particular location, would the birds be able to survive without such handouts.
The experiment was done in the real world as opposed to a lab, which was a step in the right direction. However, the scientists jumped to conclusions that weren’t supported by the design of their study.
At Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin in the winter of 1984-1985, feeders that had been stocked with seeds every winter for 25 years were removed by researchers. They then compared the survival rate of Black-capped Chickadees in that area to the survival rate of this species in an area where there had never been feeders.
Dr. Temple informed the National Geographic writer that these results “provided no evidence for harmful effects of forcing the Devil’s Lake ‘feeder addicts’ to go ‘cold turkey’.” The implication, which the writer duly went on to inform readers (as have many writers since the Temple/Brittingham study was published) was that it was therefore okay for folks to suddenly stop feeding birds during the winter if, for example, they wished to go away for several days.
But applying the results from a study done in one type of environment (“remote wooded areas where human habitation was limited”) to a totally different kind of environment (urban and suburban areas where often there won’t be much natural vegetation to provide an alternate food source) isn’t acceptable. The results will not necessarily be the same.
Especially surprising is how the researchers denied their own results to conclude that most species of feeder birds aren’t harmed when feeders are left empty in winter. The Temple/Brittingham study found that “69 percent of the birds that were using feeders were still alive the following spring, while only 37 percent lived through the winter without access to feeders.” That’s a stunningly remarkable difference in survival!
Most perplexing to me is how the final conclusions drawn from this research could have been acceptable to the grad student’s thesis advisor, her dissertation committee, the Ph.D.-granting university, and the prestigious Cornell Lab of Ornithology that publicized these conclusions in Living Bird magazine.
Equally baffling is that another scientist—Dr. Stephen W. Kress, a well known ornithologist—referenced this study when he wrote in the 2000 January-February issue of Audubon magazine that “it is likely the birds that visit your feeders will not suffer if you leave your feeders empty for a few weeks of winter vacation.”
But on the contrary, the Temple/Brittingham study strongly suggests that if you went on vacation just as the weather turned bitterly cold this past February, for example, and you left your feeders empty, you likely had some bird mortality as a result. According to their study, Black-capped Chickadees did benefit from the availability of feeders during periods of frigid temperatures, with 93 percent of feeder birds surviving such conditions compared to only 67 percent of individuals without access to a feeder.
Indeed, Eastern Bluebirds and Carolina Wrens (along with some other species of birds and mammals) took a big hit in February of 2015 because of extreme cold and limited access to natural foods because of snow.
When it comes to the natural world, just because a scientist says it’s so doesn’t mean that it actually is.
When home construction destroys the soil profile, it’s difficult for native plants to take root. (Photo credit: Marlene A. Condon)
Many people have taken to heart the words of Doug Tallamy (the entomologist who wrote Bringing Nature Home) to grow native plants because many native leaf-eating insects depend upon them.
They’ve also been moved by his statement that “aggressive plant species from other continents…were rapidly replacing what native plants” were on the rural property he and his wife had purchased. Now people consider it a truism that non-native plants simply move into an area and push out native species.
But Mr. Tallamy’s presumption was made without consideration of the prior history of his newly acquired parcel. The Tallamys had purchased land that “had been farmed for centuries before being sold and subdivided.” What had actually happened was that alien plants colonized barren, abandoned, nutrient-poor farmland with a disturbed soil profile—something I’ve watched happen in Virginia since I was a college student in the 1970s.
At that time, the Eastern Redcedar (Juniperous virginiana) was the bane of many a cow farmer because these native trees constantly tried to move into their fields of compacted soil bereft of organic matter (other than cow pies) for who knows how long. This phenomenon was, and still is, something that can be observed, especially along I-81. Over the years, I’ve gotten off the highway numerous times to document it in photos.
By the 1980s, cow fields along I-81 were beginning to be abandoned. I noticed how they filled eventually—I’m talking years—with either redcedars or non-native Autumn Olive shrubs (Eleagnus umbellata), or a mix of both. Doug Tallamy’s land had likewise taken years to become “at least 35%” non-native vegetation because he mentions removing Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)—vines considered invasive—that had 6-inch-caliper trunks. That size isn’t reached overnight.
Therefore by the time he started to remove non-native plants, they’d had time to accomplish some degree of soil rehab, which is why some native trees could grow at that point. He can be forgiven his misperception because, unless you’ve been paying attention for decades, as I have, you won’t have a clue about this process.
The fact is that most yards are rather similar to cow fields, except that their soil profile has been totally rearranged by land clearing and grading. This was, in fact, the situation when I moved into my house almost 30 years ago.
The cleared and re-graded land had exposed gray clay subsoil in most of the yard. As someone who’d been enthralled by astronomy since the age of seven, I couldn’t help thinking my back yard looked like the surface of the Moon! The rest of the yard consisted of the more-typical Virginia red clay.
Obviously there was no way that I could personally improve such a large amount of soil for the sake of native plants. It would take years of rehabilitation, mostly executed by non-native plants that didn’t mind one bit growing in a disturbed soil profile.
Thanks to alien plants, my moonscape very quickly became a nature-friendly garden that supported an incredible diversity and abundance of wildlife—even more so than had existed here when the land was deeply shaded by forest.
I’d spent time on the property throughout the seasons to document wildlife usage before a small area was cleared where my house was to be built. I discovered that it’s a myth that mature forest is the pinnacle of wildlife abundance.
The reality is that it supports nowhere near the amount of life that a field (or meadow) habitat is capable of supporting—and a field habitat is exactly what most yards can be easily transformed into! Although you may immediately think “ugly” when envisoning a field, you shouldn’t.
When I talk about creating field habitat around your house, I’m referring to the incorporation of the qualities of a field: an open area with a large variety and number of herbaceous plants, surrounded by shrubs and trees to create edge.
I am not implying that your yard must be totally wild and unkempt, although the more natural it is, the better it will provide for life. Rest assured, a nature-friendly garden can be very nice looking.
Even though many species of native plants have naturally moved into my yard over the decades as the soil has improved, I would never completely remove the alien plants I deliberately brought into the yard many years ago. They are so beneficial to wildlife that, in fact, they have sometimes been life-saving.
Several years ago, deer consumed most of the native herbaceous plants in my yard and took most of the leaves off small native shrubs and trees. As a result, the denuded woody plants were unable to produce fruits. To add insult to injury, the following winter was very cold and snowy, which meant fruit-eating birds were in desperate straits.
But luckily for a flock of bluebirds that visited my yard that winter, my Japanese Barberries (Berberis thunbergii)—shrubs that deer do not normally feed upon—held numerous small red berries which the birds consumed over the course of a few days.
Japanese Barberry can spread and is thus considered invasive, yet it can’t be denied that those bluebirds—a species that is not commonly seen in my yard—were aided by it. They were obviously on the move, desperately seeking food which they found on my deer-ravaged property where only some kinds of alien plants had been left alone by the hoofed browsers.
Indeed, the many years of overpopulated deer herds have played a significant role in the enablement of so-called invasive plants. By keeping areas cleared of native plants, deer created opportunities for alien plants to move in. In actuality, the invasive-plant situation cannot be dealt with realistically until deer numbers are truly kept in balance with the environment.
I’ve seen far more wildlife—both in species and in numbers—in my yard over the past three decades than most folks will ever see in a lifetime of visiting wildlife refuges and national parks. As a result, I know that non-native plants are not only beneficial to wildlife, but also to soil rehabilitation that allows native plants to show up when conditions are suitable for their survival.
There are certainly situations in which alien plants shouldn’t be introduced, but most yards don’t fall into that category. In a world overrun by humans, with wildlife struggling to survive on our terms, it’s foolish to suggest that non-native plants should be removed (usually by using herbicides) on private property that is in no condition to support native plants.
It’s a myth that non-native plants do not provide adequate food, shelter, and nesting sites for many kinds of wildlife; in fact, many non-native plants are remarkably nature-friendly.
In part two of this article, I’ll discuss five woody non-native plants in my yard that have been the most valuable to the critters in my area. I’m sure you’ll be surprised.
Despite what horticultural lore says, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers do no lasting harm to healthy trees and shrubs when they make their shallow wells to obtain sap. (Photo credit: Marlene A. Condon)
Not all non-native plants are created equal, nor are all yards suitable for their introduction. If you live near a natural area that is composed primarily of native plants, or if you live near wetlands, then you certainly should try to avoid growing alien plants that might spread into these relatively un-degraded areas.
However, if you want to start helping wildlife even though your yard consists mostly of subsoil, which is not very conducive to the growth of native plants, there are numerous alien plants that are already part-and-parcel of our environment that are wonderfully nature-friendly. I’ll start with three non-native woody plants I originally chose for their red foliage—my favorite color.
When I planted Chinese Photinia (Photinia serrulata), I had no idea how valuable this multi-stemmed shrub would be to wildlife and my wildlife viewing. In winter, Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows sleep among the branches, being replaced by Northern Cardinals and Eastern Phoebes in spring. I’ve even had an Eastern Screech Owl perch in there while waiting for darkness to descend on late-winter and very early-spring days.
What I’ve found most interesting, however, is the heavy use of these plants by Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers. Birds of the north that migrate to Virginia for the winter, these woodpeckers use their beaks to drill small holes (“wells”) into the bark of trees from which sap oozes. This sweet liquid provides them with carbohydrates, a source of quick energy.
Sapsuckers have visited my photinias regularly throughout the decades and it’s obvious. An inspection of the trunks reveals rows and rows of old and new sap wells, an undeniable sign of the affinity these birds possess for photinia sap. But they aren’t the only ones that want a sweet drink! Tufted Titmice, Carolina Chickadees, Downy Woodpeckers, flying insects (on warmish winter days), and even Gray Squirrels visit the wells.
And as if this wildlife usage wasn’t enough, the small white spring flowers attract so many bees that you can hear the loud buzzing well before you are within sight of the plants, and the resulting red fruits feed birds and mammals come fall.
My plants are almost 30 years old but have never produced a seedling, so Chinese Photinia is not likely to spread of its own accord. I should warn you that the flowers don’t smell very good, but because the blooming time is rather short, it’s not something you have to put up with for a long time.
Lastly, to take advantage of all of the benefits these plants offer to wildlife, they should be allowed to grow into their natural shape and height (up to 30 feet tall), rather than grown as a constantly sheared hedge, as is so often done. Photinia hedges are almost invariably doomed to leaf spot (caused by a fungus) because the pruning causes a thick growth of leaves that can’t get good air circulation to dry them.
It should also be noted that pruning is injurious and really shouldn’t be done unless it’s absolutely necessary. Woody plants can handle a bit of pruning because they’ve evolved with animals that feed upon them, which of course, prunes them. But too much feeding by animals or pruning by people can kill plants.
I love the red leaves of Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum), but I also love its value to wildlife, which came as quite a surprise and delight!
When the trees’ buds start to swell, they are ready to be eaten by Gray Squirrels and White-throated Sparrows that visit often. The buds they miss develop into blooms that bring the insects swarming: flies, wasps, a multitude of tiny bees, and butterflies, such as the Spring Azure and Tiger Swallowtail. The resulting seeds are eaten by Gray Squirrels.
Japanese Maples are very slow-growing trees, so you’ll be resigned to enjoying only their beauty until their wildlife potential develops.
I first became familiar with Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus) when I was a college student at Virginia Tech. A yard I walked by on my way to town had a huge specimen that was spectacular in the fall when its leaves turned a bright red. I knew I had to have one of these plants some day when I was permanently settled somewhere!
Although bashed as an invasive plant, Burning Bush is useful to many kinds of animals. The little yellow spring blooms attract a variety of tiny insects, especially bees. Small winged fruits develop that feed Northern Cardinals and White-throated Sparrows as well as Gray Squirrels. And in late winter, Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows visit daily to feed on the enlarging buds.
I’ve observed White-tailed Deer eating the leaves of Burning Bush. However, they only began to feed on this plant in the past few years as deer numbers were exploding in Virginia, suggesting it’s not a preferred food plant for them.
Burning Bush is originally from Asia and can indeed spread. But my own yard is so full of plants that most so-called invasive plants struggle to stay put, never mind increase in number (the reason I know experientially that these plants need a cleared area before they can start growing somewhere). If Burning Bush could be troublesome in your area, you probably shouldn’t grow one in your yard.
The Summer 2012 issue of the Butterfly Gardener was devoted to “The Great Butterfly Bush Debate” in which two butterfly gardeners took opposing stands on whether or not people should grow Buddleia davidii. This shrub, which has been widely planted as a nectar source for butterflies, is yet another plant from Asia that has spread beyond the gardener’s gate by way of seed production.
I have a Butterfly Bush that certainly does bring in butterflies. It does make seeds, but I’ve yet to find a seedling in my yard. Where I have seen this plant as an escapee from the home garden is along miles and miles of train tracks, which isn’t surprising. Just like other plants that are referred to as invasive, Butterfly Bush can tolerate the wretched growing conditions provided courtesy of the railroad companies.
Luckily, you don’t need to grow Butterfly Bush. If you want a shrub attractive to butterflies (and bees), I highly recommend Glossy Abelia (Abelia x grandiflora) as a substitute. Developed from plants native to Asia and Mexico, this hybrid does not make seeds and thus does not move out of the area. It blooms from spring until frost, making it the perfect substitute for Butterfly Bush if your yard has poor soil.
Shrubs and small trees, unlike flower beds, do not take much effort to maintain. If you want to help wildlife without a lot of fuss and bother, by all means grow woody plants such as the ones I’ve mentioned here (with the exception, perhaps, of Burning Bush).
But to bring in the highest number of wildlife species, you require flower beds that contain a diverse array of plants in abundance, whether they are native or naturalized (which is really what “invasive” means). The easiest way to find out what will grow best in your soil is to clear a bed for plants and see what comes up. Those are the plants best suited to your growing situation and that will provide for wildlife.
©Marlene A. Condon
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