Landscaping our home environments with native, flowering shrubs and small trees introduces wild beauty and vitality through the seasons. A diversity of pollinator moths, bees, butterflies, and microorganisms, co-evolved and attracted to the bushes, enliven the landscape. A diversity of birds arrive for the fruit, adding to the surprise and delight of human observers.
Shadbush (Amelanchier), a small tree with attractive grey bark, continues to paint the hills and cultivated landscapes with drifts of white flowers that develop into edible, rose-pink “service berries.” In May, many-stemmed Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) bushes develop exquisite magenta to burgundy-red umbels that become lilac-like blossoms, which, in turn, become spires of berries.
For the summer solstice, broadleaved, evergreen Mountain Laurel’s (Kalmia latifolia) pink to white flowers bloom profusely, creating a wedding-like atmosphere. Fragrant, crinkly-petaled yellow Witch Hazel blossoms (Hamamelis virginiana) catch our attention in late October into November.
Winterberry holly’s (Ilex vercillata) small, white flowers may go unnoticed in summer, on separate male and female plants. In fall and winter, the female’s bright red berries are focal points in wild and garden settings.
Colorful flocks of robins and grosbeaks may alight in an elderberry, winterberry, or shadbush and feast until all the fruit is harvested. I observed the largest extant North American woodpecker—the pileated—perform the most riveting acrobatics as he/she foraged among the small stems of a winterberry bush.
The sequence of events that involves each gardener’s planting natives supports biological diversity on a landscape scale. Native wild plant communities are increasingly diminished by choices that have dominated garden retailers and landscape designs for generations. Among other invasive, introduced plants, Japanese Barberry shrubs and Asian Bittersweet vines, escaped from yards and gardens, are at epidemic scale.
From New Hampshire Fish and Game Department: “A need for the ‘big picture,’ is clear. Only by working together on shared invasive plant “battles,” across differing land ownerships and political boundaries, can we effectively protect our native plants and wildlife habitat in the long-term. Invasive plants know no boundaries. They can easily reestablish from surrounding areas unless a landscape-scale strategic approach is taken to prioritizing control projects.”
From Entomology Today: “Japanese barberry infestations are vast monocultures that stifle native plant regeneration, reduce biodiversity overall, and amplify blacklegged tick abundances. The existence of Japanese barberry on the landscape is detrimental to the health of the public and native ecosystems alike.”
Here’s a book to read with a youth or give to a young reader and to a library: Doug Tallamy’s “Nature’s Best Hope for Young Readers.”
Let’s join Tallamy! “Start a Homegrown National Park.”
