The Value of Native Plants

Why all this fuss about plants being native to Southwest Virginia?

Much is being said and written across the US about native plants versus exotics. The use of native plants in landscape design has been trending up for the last few decades and is only increasing as people realize the cumulative ecological impacts of land development.

There are strong ecological arguments for using native plants and against using non-natives, some of which are outlined below.

Halcyon Planning & Design is committed to a strong emphasis on native plants for a variety of reasons. We aim for 100% natives, but some design niches cannot be filled by natives or nativars. Sometimes, clients ask for certain non-natives. HPD will not include non-natives that are invasive or known to cause other problems.

But first, what is a native plant?

There are several definitions and descriptions for what makes a plant native. Some are fussier and more scientific than others. Here's what I use:

Native Plants are those that have existed in a region or ecosystem without interference or introduction by humans.

In North America, indigenous peoples did little to redistribute plants, so that definition generally means that the plant was in this area before Columbus landed and European settlement began. Botanists make determinations about this based on herbarium specimens collected and preserved over those 400+ years. Botanists contributing to the Atlas of Virginia Flora and the USDA Plants Database often can be precise to the county level.

What benefits do we get from using native plants?

Here are a few broad benefits. The more you dig into any of these, the more there is to them.

Native plants provide the food sources that local fauna recognize and need, and that has the types of nutrition they need at the proper times: nectar, seeds, fruit, leaves, and more.
Many butterflies and their caterpillars have very specific needs that only a few species of plants can provide. If those plants are absent, so are those butterflies and caterpillars. If they are absent, so are the birds that eat them and feed them to their young. And so it goes, up the food chain.
Native plants fill other ecological niches, such as nesting for wildlife, soil conditioning, and specialized root systems. Oak trees, for instance, host hundreds of species of birds, butterflies, and other fauna.
Native plants look like they belong here.
(And we can brag to our neighbors about being part of an important ecological movement.)

By contrast, non-natives can cause problems:

Same idea: here are a few broad problems. The more you dig into any of these, the more there is to them.

Non-natives can escape cultivation, where they can outcompete and displace native plants and even whole communities to overwhelm ecosystems. Obvious examples include kudzu (see the photo), English ivy, phragmites, tree-of-heaven, and multiflora rose.
Non-natives might seem to provide food or other services for wildlife, but often that food does not provide the right nutrition or is available at the wrong time. Because of this, local birds, bees, butterflies, and other fauna might have difficulty finding what they need to survive and thrive. Our neighborhoods and landscapes can be food deserts for the wildlife that we value.
Non-natives can be hosts for foreign pests, some of which have had devastating impacts on native species, e.g., Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, hemlock woody adelgid, emerald ash borer, and the list goes on and on. These non-natives can still host those pests and transfer them from one area to another.
Non-natives can have forms and branching patterns that look completely out of place in Southwest Virginia.

Now to be honest, many non-native plants are fairly benign on their own. They grow well, look good, fill artistic niches that most natives might not, and so on. Plus, some landscape situations are not suited to the regular palette of native plants. So a few non-natives here and there can be valuable and can do more good than harm.

But bear in mind that every landscape we create displaces a habitat on which the birds, bees, butterflies, and bunnies rely. The more habitats we displace and replace with non-natives, the greater are the stresses on natural systems to maintain balanced ecosystem services on which we humans rely.

Too much of 21st Century American landscape design shows little or no regard for these ecological impacts. That approach can be good for business (the landscaper’s) but for nothing else (not the client nor the community nor the environment as a whole).