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Gardening. Nature. Science. Nonfiction. HTML: �Tallamy lays out all you need to know to participate in one of the great conservation projects of our time. Read it and get started!� �Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction Douglas W. Tallamy�s first book, Bringing Nature Home, awakened thousands of readers to an urgent situation: wildlife populations are in decline because the native plants they depend on are fast disappearing. His solution? Plant more natives. In this new book, Tallamy takes the next step and outlines his vision for a grassroots approach to conservation. Nature�s Best Hope shows how homeowners everywhere can turn their yards into conservation corridors that provide wildlife habitats. Because this approach relies on the initiatives of private individuals, it is immune from the whims of government policy. Even more important, it�s practical, effective, and easy�you will walk away with specific suggestions you can incorporate into your own yard. If you�re concerned about doing something good for the environment, Nature�s Best Hope is the blueprint you need. By acting now, you can help preserve our precious wildlife�and the planet�for future generations..… (more)
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Today, there is very little undeveloped land on our planet. Protected lands, while important, represent only a small portion of total acreage. Every tract of land that is turned into residential developments also results in associated commercial corridors. This leaves only small, isolated areas for wildlife. And both the size and the isolation contribute to reduced birth rates and increased mortality among our wildlife.
Douglas Tallamy, a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology, has spent his career working to understand the role of insects and plants in creating biodiversity. In this book he advocates for creating ecological corridors through the actions of individual landowners. The highest-impact actions we can take are to reduce the size of our lawns and increase the footprint of native plants.
Prior to reading this book, I had a vague understanding of native plants as “good,” but could not have explained why. I now have a better understanding of the importance of insects and caterpillars in the food webs that sustain wildlife, and the essential role native plants play as a food source for those insects and caterpillars. As home gardeners, we have been trained by years of tradition to prefer certain trees and ornamentals which are non-native and therefore do nothing to build and sustain our wildlife populations. In fact there are often equally attractive native alternatives, and nurseries and garden centers are increasingly offering these varieties. Each region also has a small number of “keystone” plants: a critical few with huge impact.
It may not be practical -- or even desirable -- to rip out and replace all of the non-native plants in your garden. But each of us can make a start, for example by replacing some of our lawn with native trees or shrubs, and removing invasive plants. We don’t have to do it all, but we do have to do something.
The crux of Tallamy's argument is that we need to stop thinking of nature as someplace we visit and create habitats in our own yards, workplaces, and common neighborhood areas. He talks about plants that support specific caterpillars that support specific birds and how that circle is the bedrock of a healthy environment. And it sounds doable. Replacing non-native ornamentals with native plants, reducing lawn, leaving leaf litter, and adding a small clean water source - these are things that everyone can do.
This book is not really a "how-to" book; it is a book to convince you and to give you the arguments to convince your neighbors. I did read plenty of reviews that complained about this. But, for me, I'd heard a little about the benefits of native plants but had never known all the reasons why they are so important. This book was an important step for me in really being able to name the benefits of returning native plants to our landscaping.
I highly recommend reading this book if you are new to this concept or want clearly laid out reasoning about why it's important.
So many of us have been trained to cringe and look for the spray when we think of insects—other than those pretty butterflies and bees. And wildlife in our yards is seen as a rare intruder, a pest, and mostly destructive—unless it’s really cute. All of this is very limiting when it comes to a new environment that you’re trying to create, something that works together. Tallamy clearly lays out how native plants not only have an advantage for growing better in the climate they’re most familiar with, but how they have so many more relationships with the other native plants, insects, and wild critters. Most of the sexiest plants (most striking and colorful) that first catch your eye in the garden shop, evolved to grow best hundreds and thousands of miles away from your yard. The author shows how good local plants are for insects and wildlife and how long—if ever—it takes for new non-natives to work well and in harmony. He writes about a reed that’s been in the United States for over 500 years, but it still only supports a tiny percentage (5%) of the insects that it supported in its native European homeland. Interconnectivity is the key, between plants, insects, and animals—in all directions.
People’s relationship with the natural world is completely different from most the days of my youth spent in the fields, woods, and waterways of Vermont. “Parents who shoo the kids out the door in the morning with instructions to be home by lunchtime are more likely to be arrested for child abuse than praised for good parenting.” That freedom was how I spent much of my youth. Tallamy writes, “Today most people live in what I call the great suburban/urban matrix, and we hardly interact with the natural world. Unfortunately, our ignorance of nature has led to a dangerous indifference about its fate.”
Allow me the lazy way, as I list these lines and quotes from Nature’s Best Hope.
It’s not enough to plant a tree in your yard and believe you are doing your best for the
A native tree may have up to 500 native insects that have evolved in the same area and are dependent on consuming the native flora. Without the native insects, specifically the native caterpillars, native birds will also have nothing to feed their young, as baby birds cannot digest the bird seed you’ve so helpfully put in your feeder to encourage more birds.
While planting a non-native tree may provide beauty and shade, the non-native tree may have no insects able to consume it. It’s the reason why some beautifully planted tree-lined city streets may be a desert for nesting birds. It’s also the reason that kudzu has taken off and growing unrestricted- so far there has been only one US insect found that eats it. And this insect also causes a dead-end as no birds native to the kudzu-infested areas eat this insect.
It all comes down to ‘connectivity’, and the ecological web that has evolved in a given area through tens of thousands of years of co-existence.
Removing a bit of your carefully landscaped but ecologically sterile lawn and adding a few native trees and plants as well as leaving some litter beneath them to provide habitat for insects is essential for both local and migrating birds. If you can convince your neighbors to do the same, you’ve got the beginning of what Tallamy has dubbed Homegrown National Parks.
Tallamy includes a list in the final chapter, outlining what steps we can take to begin the process of creating a more environmentally friendly yard beginning with baby steps that we can all achieve.
The book is specifically aimed at the Eastern USA, and if you live outside that area the advice won't be relevant to your situation. It also assumes fairly large yard sizes.
The author says at the beginning that he