I am writing in response to the March Chronicle article, “Native plant guru,” which included an interview that indicated non-native plants can “take up real estate” and may not provide food for “other critters” like bees, butterflies and birds.
But it’s important to note that non-native plants can be very beneficial. It depends on the plant.
I love native flowers. I am a member of Wild Ones, the national nonprofit started in Milwaukee that promotes native landscapes through education, advocacy and collaborative action. But I also love many aliens. At Heritage Flower Farm we grow several acres of plants with hundreds of taxa of natives and non-natives all together. I know how they behave and see the critters they feed.
It is easy to debunk the impression that all non-natives are invasive. Some are – lily of the valley, for example. But most are not – monkshood, bleeding heart, Siberian gentian, and others stay in their garden spaces.
Is it OK for natives to be invasive? Some are very invasive – Canada goldenrod and prairie petunia, to name two. Some native enthusiasts may say that’s OK, because of the benefits of native plants to pollinators, but a monoculture of these or any plant elbows out other plants with pollen and nectar.
The reality is that any invasive plant, native or alien, can be problematic. Invasive plants prevent others with different bloom times from growing. This reduces pollen and nectar for insects that feed in different seasons. Biodiversity is reduced by invasive plants, regardless of their origin.
In fact, non-native plants can be helpful. Lurie Garden in Chicago grows both native and non-native plants intermixed. The Garden reports: “Current research indicates that mixing some non-native plants in a designed native landscape can increase pollinator habitat.” Studies have found that certain non-native plants can attract a greater abundance of pollinators than their native counterparts. A 2019 study published in the Journal of Pollination Ecology concludes, “. . . using native and non-native plants improves habitat gardening by increasing opportunities for attracting a richer diversity of bee species and for longer periods.”
A pair of University of Ottawa researchers wrote in the publication The Conversation in 2023: “Increasingly, scientists are reporting examples of positive roles that non-native species play such as providing food to native species, creating habitats or playing a role in ecosystem restoration.”
My experiences confirm what these experts say. In February every year, the Korean boxwoods bloom with small, white flowers. It brings out hundreds and hundreds of the tiniest bees I’ve ever seen. No native plant blooms in February. These bees would be gone without the non-native boxwood. Reportedly, bumblebees are in danger of extinction. Not here — we have many every summer. Last summer, customers at the nursery were amazed to see the Monarchs. Cocoons of unusual butterflies hang down from branches of branches of Magnolias and a Spicebush, both aliens. We grow Angelica gigas, native to Korea. Every year in late July to August, they bloom. Swarms of Bald-faced wasps, considered a beneficial insect, land on the flowers during the day. I can get within a foot of the otherwise dangerous wasps, and they ignore me with their feeding frenzy. When the Angelica is finished blooming, they are gone. We grow a Dutchman’s Pipevine, native to the east and southeast, not as far as the Midwest. It hosts a Pipevine swallowtail butterfly.
Don’t count out non-native plants. They can help us save our native habitats.
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Betty Adelman is the proprietor of Heritage Flower Farm in Mukwonago.
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