September 16, 2016
Native Plants & the
Impact on Landscape
When was the last time you had an aha! moment?
You know what I’m talking about. An abrupt realization that literally changes everything; a “Wait a minute!” dawning that causes you to see things in a different, often better, light.
I know I’ve had plenty, scattered over a wide variety of topics and an even greater number of years. There was the day back in 1965 when I tried on my first pair of pants with pockets. Aha! Suddenly I could explore and collect stuff and keep both hands free. A game-changer for sure.
I could go on about the day I figured out how to whistle for a taxi, and tell you exactly where and when I discovered Chemex coffee brewers—another life-changing moment. But today’s column isn’t about me. It’s about my friend and coworker Jill Voegtle, and a particular aha! experience she had a while back. It was a breakthrough, for sure—a day she’ll never forget. But you know what’s really cool about it? She’s sharing it with all of us.
The other day Jill gave me the details about when she realized, after a lifetime of gardening and a career in horticulture, what a tremendous impact even a small amount of native plants can have on a landscape.
“I had planted a 25-foot long strip in the garden at my parents’ house all in natives,” she recalls. “I was standing there one day, looking at the plants, and I realized I was seeing things I’d never seen before.”
Not the blooms—though they no doubt were stunning. Nope. What Jill witnessed then, and what she continues to promote today, is the astounding interconnectedness between native plants and native wildlife. Insects buzzing, birds flitting—a microcosm of our local ecology centered around a 25-ft. strip of land amid, ironically, lots of other carefully tended, but not native, plants.
“There I was, almost 30 years old, and seeing things for the first time,” Jill says. “A black wasp on rattlesnake master—I’d never seen a bug like that before. It was a lightbulb moment for sure. Where would these animals go if these plants weren’t here?”
I know lots of folks are less enamored of wasps and things but also fond of, say, birds and butterflies. The thing is, really, all life is linked together.
“If you want those pretty things in your yard then, ecologically speaking, planting natives is what you have to do,” Jill says. “Take birds, for instance. What do they eat? What do they build their nests with? What do they feed their babies? Native plants give them everything they need.”
Turfgrass, Jill adds, may be the standard for yards in our area but, in terms of what it gives back to the environment, it offers next to nothing. “You have to mow it, water it, feed it, and for what?” she says. “There’s really nothing helpful that it attracts.”
Realizing the importance of her discovery and, even better, wanting to share with anyone who’s interested, Jill this year took advantage of an opportunity in a plot within the Hickory Knolls Natural Area.
Planted in Hungarian brome, a once-common cover crop, this patch of space, though green, was about as ecologically dead as a suburban lawn. “Hungarian brome is a runner grass—it spreads by rhizomes, Jill says. “It really serves no ecological purpose other than covering the soil and not letting other plant species in.”
Herbicide made quick work of a 10×25-ft. patch of brome. Then, this past May, as the busy spring planting season wound down, Jill began to put her plan into action. Armed with a few extra flats of native plants that she’d started from seed and, amazingly, only a hand trowel, Jill carved out a strip of life amid the ecologically dead area.
“I couldn’t believe how great the soil was,” she says. “We were able to get the plants in, water them and then see them start to take off almost immediately.”
Wild quinine, little bluestem, prairie dropseed, whorled milkweed, prairie milkweed, foxglove beardtongue, sand coreopsis, rough blazing star and pale purple coneflower now fill the small patch amongst the brome. The contrast between the two areas is absolutely spectacular. And I’m not just referring to shapes, colors and textures of the natives. The swirl of life above them, while the brome stands silent and untouched, is impossible to ignore.
The day I visited the natural area with Jill, we could see the activity above the plot from 10 yards away. As we approached, we spotted several different species of native bees, honey bees, assorted flies and beetles. A silver-spotted skipper, true to its name, skipped between the blooms, its silver spot flashing in the sun. All were taking full advantage of Jill’s pollen-n-nectar oasis there in the brome desert.
If you’d like to see for yourself the difference a patch of native plants can make, take a trip out to Hickory Knolls. Jill’s plot lies near what we refer to as Archery Woods, along a mowed path near the Blue trail on our site maps.
You’ll know it when you see it. And from your—say it with me–“Aha!” we’ll know when you see it too.
Pam Otto is the manager of nature programs and interpretive services at the Hickory Knolls Discovery Center, a facility of the St. Charles Park District. She can be reached at 630-513-4346 or potto@stcparks.org.
Aha! A newly planted plot in the Hickory Knolls Natural Area thrives against a dull background of Hungarian brome.