less it's bombarded with pesticides that kill benefi- 

 cial organisms along with those that create the 

 problems. 



Another strong motivation for planting natives is 

 that they attract the birds and insects that have 

 evolved with them and have come to depend on 

 them for food, and shelter, thereby reestablishing 

 natural relationships in the landscape. 



There is also a growing concern that 

 as more and more of our natural areas 

 are bulldozed to make way for develop- 

 ment, populations of native plants al- 

 ready threatened will disappear alto- 

 gether and those still common will be- 

 gin to decline. Worse, soils disturbed by 

 agriculture and development are quickly 

 overtaken by alien weeds that out-com- 

 pete natives for nutrients and moisture, 

 so that there is little chance of a dis- 

 turbed area healing itself with time. 

 Many people who use native plants feel 

 somewhat comforted by the fact that 

 they are helping to halt the decline of 

 valuable species by giving them a place 

 yard. 



their 



AESTHETICS: the bald truth is that many natives, 

 under-used as they are, have genuine landscape 

 value and, cultivated away from the competition 

 they encounter in their native habitats, assume an el- 

 egance that is quite unexpected. It is surprising the 

 number of folks who choose a plant for its ornamen- 

 tal qualities, only to find out later that it is a native. 

 And, among some gardeners at least, there is a sense 

 that our landscapes have become homogenized and 

 boring — endless permutations of the same dozen-or- 

 so species that make up the backbone of our garden 

 center trade. Almost desperate to find something 

 truly distinctive from the endless petunias, daylilies 

 and taxus that clutter most nurseries, they turn to 

 natives. And there are a growing number of busi- 

 nesses ready to supply them with the plants they 

 want. 



ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS: Amending soils to 

 make them suitable for the vast majority of non-na- 

 tive species can entail a considerable outlay of cash, 

 time, and labor. And the results are often only tem- 

 porary, requiring constant intensive maintenance. But 

 through a little investigation, the gardener will find 

 natives suitable to almost any extremes of soil or ex- 

 posure. No longer a question of changing conditions 

 to suit the plants you choose, but of choosing plants 

 that your conditions will support, the task of garden- 

 ing becomes much cheaper and simpler. Native 

 plants require little or no use of expensive herbi- 



cides, insecticides, or fertilizer and, except during 

 periods of extreme drought, can get by on whatever 

 moisture nature provides. They're good at it: that's 

 how they have survived through thousands of years 

 of changing climatic conditions. 



We live in a hectic age where there is much to do 

 and little time in which to do it. This low-input form 

 of gardening appeals to those people 

 who want an attractive yard, but are 

 hard-pressed to find the time or re- 

 sources to maintain it. 



HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS: 



Folks who incorporate native plants in 

 their landscape plans are following a 

 tradition that goes back at least three 

 centuries. Our colonial ancestors used 

 indigenous plant material with total 

 abandon. Indeed, for the very earliest 

 settlers, as well as the pioneers who 

 pushed back the frontiers in succeeding 

 decades, gardening for pleasure was 

 rarely an option. Building a nation was 

 back-breaking and time-consuming and horticultural 

 pursuits were necessarily restricted to field crops, the 

 "kitchen" garden, and herbs. (It is interesting to note 

 that the front lawn, as we know it, did not exist in 

 that era and the herb and vegetable gardens were of- 

 ten located, especially in isolated communities, in the 

 front of the house so that gardening chores would 

 not further isolate the family from the occasional 

 passing stranger or neighbor.) 



As wealth became concentrated in the colonies, 

 there arose a class of people with the means to gar- 

 den for aesthetic reasons. Cuttings and seeds of fa- 

 vorite ornamentals from Europe were passed from 

 friend to friend, but such material was limited and 

 gardeners turned to the woods and fields around 

 them to augment their landscapes. This was espe- 

 cially true on the great plantations of the South, 

 where the approaches were often lined with native 

 live oak and magnolia and whose grounds took the 

 form of parkland where grasses and wildflowers 

 were allowed to grow in profusion among widely 

 spaced trees. The formal gardens, complete with box- 

 wood allees and located behind the great house, took 

 the more formal lines of European estate gardens of 

 the era. But even here, among the exotics, one could 

 find indigenous trees and shrubs such as flowering 

 dogwood, mountain laurel, franklinia, and juniper. 

 The herbaceous beds often contained native mallows, 

 coneflower, cardinal flower, obedient plant and doz- 

 ens of other species that could be acquired simply by 

 making an excursion into the surrounding country- 

 side. Coincidentally, many of these plants were also 

 beginning to appear in European gardens of the 



TH E PLANTSMAN 



