birdieopolis

Endemic Plant Manifesto

Lately I have been thinking about Robert Oppenheimer and how after he developed the atomic bomb he realized its destructive power and deplored it.

After years of using ornamental plants in hundreds of projects I have come to the realization that their use has been so ultimately destructive to the environment that I wonder if it is too late to restore the endemic environment. Since middle school, when I would walk two miles each way to school through the pristine native veldt of northern California, I developed a profound appreciation for native plants. I think that windswept delicate landscape dramatically influenced my desire to work with plants, so I went on to study landscape architecture in college. Yes I did produce plans that restored lands back to native habitat in my career, but I may have done more harm on other projects where seductively opulent perennials, abundantly flowering shrubs and non-indigenous trees were planted with abandon. The use of ornamentals created spaces that were and continue to be enjoyed, unbeknownst to the observer of their underlying consequences.

But as I age I see how readily available nursery stock is not screened for its destructive behavior and becomes a pest or worse an invasive species. I used to love butterfly bushes. But after observing them seeding regularly into my driveway and parts of my garden I questioned their place in ornamental horticulture. I then went to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle years ago, and found that Buddleia had been listed as a noxious plant by the state. That was all I needed to confirm my suspicion and come home to remove all four of the mature butterfly bushes from the garden. They had such sweet honey fragrance and long bloom times, but that was overshadowed by their menacing nature. You see I grew up where scotch broom and pampas grass were evil. They wantonly squeezed out indigenous vegetation and made chaparral impassable for grazing deer.

When I worked on a native plant restoration project on the Oregon coast years ago I read in a United States Department of Agriculture publication that three scotch broom plants were originally brought to Vancouver Island in 1850 by a man to remind him of his native country and within a century they have colonized the entire west coast. Broom seed is so amazingly viable that even after 80 years they can still germinate. The plant is designed for rampant propagation. A mature broom can produce over 15,000 seeds. Its seeds once ripe can burst out of their pea like pods and be flung twenty feet in any direction.

When I was a member of the University of Washington Arboretum I received their periodical, which would describe plants that have gone out of control elsewhere in the world, and had become on watch lists here. One of those plants had started to seed in my garden after a short while following its purchase. I proceeded to yank it out of the garden after spending twenty-five dollars for it at a great nursery. I then called the nursery and mentioned to them that this plant was considered a threat for being invasive and they dismissed the idea of pulling it from their stock. I have asked other nurseries to pull stock of other plants that I have found so aggressive in my own garden that they are impossible to remove completely. Why would nurseries willingly offer plants that are obnoxious?

It is hard to reconcile my love for lilies and kolkwitzia and the desire for a solidly responsible footprint on the land. So this year I have decided not to go to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, because I think the push for new and exotic plants is a very destructive practice that should be questioned. Much, but certainly not all, of my garden has been developed using bare-root stock from the annual county’s Conservation District Tree Sale, which is coming up soon by the way. When we have drought through the summer those native trees and shrubs carry on like “so what…I can take it!” When we have extreme low temperatures they say it again instead of wither under the bite of hard freeze. So with a vast selection of lovely indigenous plants available (that were highly regarded by early explorers from England) which withstand all that nature dishes out what more could you ask for in a twenty-first century garden? It could be that consumerism is well represented in the plant world and that new and improved has always had an allure.

Native plants have been seen as raw nature to be managed. Native plants are a static list, rather than an evolving list, so how alluring is that? Can we look at endemic plants through a new appreciative lens? Buy a guidebook to native plants and see the glory that can be all around us. I have created a card that can be left at nurseries, based on the model from the California Invasive Plant Council, that might encourage nurseries to stop selling invasive plants. Please download your card here and let nurseries know that it is bad form to continue to sell noxious plants. Using endemic plants will enable us to tread more lightly on the earth and bring back a remnant of the balance that once was to this land.