Have you noticed how many people on social media try to make you feel guilty about not planting native plants exclusively? Native plant purists seem to be multiplying rapidly, or at least becoming more vocal in the comments sections. They extol the virtues of natives as pollinator host plants, bird food factories, and giants of ecosystem services. And they're right.
Native plants are vital to the survival of native animals including all manner of invertebrates. Without native plants the animals that evolved with them and depend on them disappear also.
The good news is that homeowners with small urban or suburban lots who plant natives and follow good practices such as eschewing pesticides can make an enormous difference. Change is often noticeable in the first season as insects and birds appear where there were none before.
Yards restored with natives are often oases of food and shelter in deserts of barberry, nandina, and boxwood. This is why it's important for those with small yards to avoid non-native species: until you convince your entire neighborhood to go native, ever inch of your yard is precious and and you have to make it count. Planting all native species with an eye toward helping pollinators especially is probably the best way to use your yard.
For those us farther out, away from city centers, and surrounded by wild(er) areas, the native only mentality makes less sense. If I stand in my yard in the spring I'm surrounded by cut leaf tooth wort, may apple and spring beauties. Later in the season there's iron weed, goldenrod, wingstem, jewel weed and asters. Large swaths bordering roadsides and farm fields, in swampy areas and along streams, are home to native plants. Non-natives including invasives are everywhere, mingling and fighting for space, but there is a huge difference between this habitat and the alien plant deserts that dominate suburbia.
Eradicating non-natives makes much less sense here. Mindfully choosing how to best use your cultivated space is key.
Here are some things to ponder as you consider the choice between native and not:
1) Many plants are not native, but not invasive either. By invasive I mean able to spread to uncultivated areas beyond the borders of your yard or garden, and compete with established plants already there, becoming difficult or impossible to eradicate. People often use the term invasive to mean a plant will take over your garden bed. This is an aggressive plant, not necessarily an invasive one. As long as plants are not invasive (or likely to become invasive) there is no reason not to plant them.
2) Many non-natives are incredibly useful medicinal plants. If you're interested in herbalism and natural healing, you can grow your own apothecary. By growing only natives we would miss out on incredibly useful plants from Asia and elsewhere.
3) Perhaps you love a plant for the way it looks, or it has sentimental or cultural value to you, or it just makes you happy every time you see it. Not invasive? Plant it.
4) Climate change is real, we're in the midst of a mass extinction, and we might see the loss of important plant species soon. Plants are constantly performing important services like stream bank stabilization, shading homes and outdoor spaces, and mitigating flooding by sucking up lots of water. The loss of a key species could be devastating and the need to find plants to take over important jobs trumps the need to maintain native purity.
5) Climate change effects may include drastic changes in rainfall patterns. If natives plants are unable to cope, what plants will take over? If you've watched what happens in abandoned fields, you can probably predict exactly which pioneer species will move in. In the future we may be grateful for invasive alien plants, because the alternative could be desert.
But...if you plant barberry shrubs you will go to hell because they are infested with barbs and often ticks, and the world has enough of those things.
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