LOWER MERION, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — How does a beautiful landscape without mowing, weeding or raking sound? Turning your yard into a habitat for birds, bees and butterflies is as simple as planting trees, shrubs and plants that are native to the area and removing non-native plants like lawn grass and the ever-popular hostas and crape myrtle, which are native to Asia.
Ecological gardening not only cuts down on yard work, but it can help undo the damage caused by planting things that don’t belong here.
Kate Cronin has turned her Lower Merion yard into a wildlife oasis for birds, butterflies, bees and fireflies, which are at risk of extinction. She estimates she has about a thousand plants in her small yard.
“I have aromatic aster where it’s dry. I have violets, I have penstemon digitalis. I have sedges that look like grasses, but they’re sedges,” she said.
And, not a spot of lawn grass. But she allows the leaves to stay. Cronin said she created a dense layer of leaf litter in the fall by not raking.
“I think I got a lot of lightning bug larvae overwintering in my garden. And so I saw different types of lightning bugs. I saw lightning bugs that came later in the night. It’s exciting to see all these things using my space, and I have less than a quarter of an acre. It’s nothing.”
Except that it’s everything. Nationally renowned wildlife ecologist and University of Delaware professor Doug Tallamy said our lawns are an ecological disaster. He said we are in a biodiversity crisis, putting us smack in the “middle of the sixth great extinction event the Earth has ever experienced.”
Tallamy said there are 3,300 species of non-native plants that are displacing the native plants that run the food webs. But he believes we can still turn it around. Like Cronin, he said we simply have to plant plants that support the food webs for the birds and insects that run ecosystems.
“We have to include them right where we live and where we spend our days. It’s not hard,” he said. Those places include not only our yards but also community gardens, municipal properties and corporate campuses.
The manicured lawn is deeply embedded in our culture, a symbol of the American dream that took root after World War II. We began seeing plants as simply decoration. It’s how we ended up with yards full of non-native plants and invasives that don’t support the essential insects and birds that are native to our part of the world. Just because a plant or tree can survive here doesn’t mean it belongs here.
But when you plant the plants that do belong here, the results are almost immediate. Cronin sees insects, butterflies and birds in her yard regularly now.
“It’s about seeing those birds and seeing an American lady butterfly lay eggs on my pussytoes between my stepping stones and seeing those caterpillars grow and metamorphose into butterflies,” she said. “It’s about seeing warblers I never had before. I mean, I live right outside Philly, and I see these warblers in my goldenrod in the fall when they’re migrating and it’s thrilling to me.”
Tallamy writes a blog called Homegrown National Park, where he shares information on how to get started and which native plants to use, including ones that you can put in a container garden on a balcony or patio.