Here at Cache Valley Native Plants, we specialize in sourcing a variety of native plants to the Utah region and helping gardeners learn how to add these plants to their home landscapes and gardens. But what's the big deal about native plants? Why does it matter if I choose a native plant vs. any plant from my other local nurseries or garden store, especially if I'm assured they grow well in this area? We'll explore the many benefits of native plants and why they are essential to healthy gardens, communities, and local ecosystems.
Native Plants Have Evolved to Grow in Our Area
A native plant is any plant that occurs naturally in a geographical region and has been there sufficient time to have established relationships with the local ecosystem. They have evolved over time to their local conditions and environment and naturally survive there. In Utah, our native plants are perfectly adapted to our dry summer conditions, cold winters, generally alkaline soils that seem to always have too much sand or too much clay, frequent droughts, and local animals, pests, and microorganisms. While they still have growing conditions that need to be met for the plant to thrive (sunlight needs, soil preferences, watering requirements) like all plants, they usually require far less work than their nonnative counterparts. They are the definition of low maintenance plantings and offer significant cost savings over time. A study by Applied Ecological Services of larger properties found that over a 20-year period, the cost of maintaining a native prairie or wetland area totaled around $3,000 per acre, while the cost of maintaining a nonnative turf grass area totaled around $20,000 per acre!
Native Plants are Waterwise
Living in the second driest state in the nation, conserving water is important for the people of Utah. Two-thirds of our residential water use goes to watering turf grass and high-water landscapes. As one of the fastest growing states in the nation, water conservation will only become more important as more homes and businesses are added. Most native plants have adapted to living in areas with very low summer precipitation and are very drought tolerant. All the plants we offer fit into three watering categories, the lowest being no additional water needed once the plant is established in the ground and the highest being one watering a week, a vast improvement over an entire yard of grass that requires water two to three times a week!
Native Plants Lead to a Healthier Environment
Since native plants have evolved to live here over thousands of years, they can thrive here with very little intervention from you! Not only does this mean using far less water, but also far less chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and pollution.
Chemical fertilizers damage soil by killing off entire portions of the soil food web, including beneficial microbes, fungi, nematodes, and protozoa. Once these are gone, other important parts of the soil food web move out, including invertebrates like earthworms. Chemical fertilizers also slowly leach through the soil layers into ground water and runoff into streams, rivers, and lakes, causing depletion of oxygen and algal blooms.
Since native plants have deeply rooted relationships with their local ecosystems, they have natural defenses and resistance against local pests and fungal diseases that can plague nonnative plants. There are very few pesticides that harm a target pest and will not harm beneficial insects you want in your garden, including pollinators. Pesticides also hurt other members of the local ecosystem who eat the pests, or eat seeds or plants treated with pesticides, such as songbirds, birds of prey, deer, foxes, squirrels, etc.
Native plants protect our environment by storing carbon and requiring less use of gas powered yard tools and mowers, which emit as much pollution as driving a car for 100 miles in 1 hour of use, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Research has shown that areas with a high concentration of diverse native plants also filter more pollutants out of our water systems, leading to cleaner water for our communities.
Native Plants are Necessary for Pollinators
Pollinators are in trouble. The fall 2023 counts of the monarch migration show the population of western monarchs has declined 99% since the 1980's. Wild bee species have shrunk by nearly a quarter and 1 in 4 native bee species are at increasing risk of extinction. Since 1 out of every 3 plants across the globe requires pollination, this is detrimental to our plant communities and food production. One study estimated that we are already losing 3-5% of our fruit, vegetable, and nut crops due to loss of pollinators. While pesticides play a role in this decline, one of the largest contributors is loss of pollinator feeding and breeding habitat due to urbanization, building of roads, etc.
Herbivorous insects are broadly categorized into two groups based on their eating habits- generalists and specialists. While plants want to attract animals to their flowers and fruit to spread their seeds, they protect their leaves and stems with a variety of defenses, such as waxy coatings, thorns, thick cell walls, sticky hairs, unpleasant taste, or toxins and poisons to deter insects and animals from eating them. Generalists have evolved over time to be able to overcome a wide number of these defenses and eat a wide variety of plants from different plant families. Specialists, however, "specialize" and eat only from a limited number of plant families and have often spent thousands of years coevolving with these specific plants to defeat their defenses.
The most popular example of this specialization is the monarch butterfly, who only feeds on members of the milkweed family during its larval (caterpillar) stage. If there are no milkweed plants around, the monarch cannot lay its eggs on an oak, or a sagebrush, or a butterfly bush instead.
While not all specialists have quite the limited palate of the Monarch, an estimated 70-90% of all insects belong to this specialist category and require specific native plant families in order to complete their life cycle. While nonnative plants do supply nectar sources for some pollinators, they provide no habitat for the breeding of these specialists and do not support the 20-45% of native bee populations that are considered pollen specialists, only using the pollen from one species or genus of plants.
If we are to reverse this loss of pollinator species, we must restore some of their former habitat with native plants.
Native Plants Bring the Birds
Pollinators aren't the only animals in decline. Loss of habitat and food has led to a decline of many animals around the globe, including a group of animals we enjoy having in our yards, birds! The population of North American birds have decreased nearly 30% since 1970. Native plants help bird populations by providing the bugs and insects they eat and feed their young (especially in the spring), nesting sites and cover from predators, and seeds and fruit in the summer and fall. Native berries tend to be higher in the fat and nutrients birds need to help fuel their migration south, or survive the cold months if they stay, while berries from nonnative plants tend to be higher in water and sugar. Planting a variety of native plants in your yard and not cutting back growth until the early spring will keep birds in your yard all year round! They return the favor by providing natural pest control, eating anywhere from a few to nearly one thousand insects a day!
Native Plants Provide Beauty and a Sense of Place to our Gardens
"Native plants give us a sense of where we are in this great land of ours. I want Texas to look like Texas and Vermont to look like Vermont." - Lady Bird Johnson
And we want Utah to look like Utah. We live in a beautiful state characterized by majestic mountains, imposing rock formations, serene lakes and rivers, verdant forests, rolling prairies, and an abundance of beautiful and diverse flora and fauna. Using these plants in our yards not only comes with a host of benefits for us and our local ecosystems, but connects us to our place and the other animals and living things we share it with.
While native plants can have a more natural appearance than many of the highly cultivated plants we are used to seeing in nurseries and garden stores, that does not mean that a native yard has to look messy! With the variety of native plants we have available, you are are sure to find plants that are well adapted to your garden, whether you lean more towards modern design, cottage gardens, xeric, new perennial, or naturalistic prairie or meadow plantings. Choosing plants carefully with a garden plan in mind that uses principles of color, texture, shape, unity, layering, etc. and is maintained with regular weeding and pruning when necessary will result in a beautiful and intentional appearance. Check out our social media pages for inspiration on how to garden with and maintain native plants, or book a garden consultation if you'd like more specific help for your landscape!
If you'd like more information on native plants and their benefits, join our social media pages and keep an eye out for our native plant class we offer throughout the year. If you'd like us to come give a class at your school, work, garden club, or other organization, please reach out to us via email. The books Bringing Nature Home and Nature's Best Hope by Doug Dallamy are excellent resources for more information about native plant's benefits for their local ecosystems.
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