Provide the Plants = Feed the Birds
Written: Mar 19 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Insights, Powerful illustration and reminder of wildlife and plant codependence
Cons: Not a how-to book, Best for NW, SW, NE, and SW United States
The Bottom Line: Why we want to develop sustainable gardens for wildlife becomes better understood in this valuable investigation of native plants.
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| pestyside's Full Review: Douglas Tallamy - Bringing Nature Home: How Native... |
The theory, knowledge generates interest and interest generates compassion, provides the foundation for Bringing Nature Home, a book not for teaching landscaping but instead for providing reasons for selecting native plants. Douglas Tallamy presents the question, “How do native plants sustain wildlife in our gardens?”
What is the link between native plants and native wildlife? What has happened between insects, birds, and the plants they have grown so accustomed to—for the past thousands of years—and what happens when those plants disappear? As a child he witnessed the loss of insects and plants and experienced their absence in a meaningful way.
Insect Natural Food Grocery
We can feed adult birds at our feeders, keeping them sustained year round if necessary. Native and non-native plants both shelter birds, as well as insects. All animals require food, water, shelter, and space. Water and space are easily found, at least for now. Shelter can take a variety of shapes. In Dr. Tallamy’s book we see a picture of a catbird’s nest in a forsythia bush, not necessarily the bird’s preferred location but what’s available. The point that becomes clear is that your favorite birds could disappear without the appropriate native plants. If you want to feed the birds, you want to feed the food of their babies.
Insects feed upon native plants and birds require specific insects to feed their babies. Without the plants, the birds will need to look elsewhere. The bonds are tight between plants and animals and have been formed over thousands of years. Milkweed bugs migrate north and south following the steady supply of milkweed plants. Without the milkweed plants many insects, including monarch butterflies, could disappear. We could claim a dislike of all insects and shrug it off with a “who-cares” reaction; however, we might want to reconsider that shrug.
Douglas Tallamy is a professor and chair of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware. He claims this is not a “how to” book, nor is it a landscaping book. Instead he is "simply proposing a justification for the liberal use of native plants in the landscape that has not yet been clearly articulated." We benefit from nature in three ways: what we use it for (exploit), aesthetics and spiritual, and sustainability. While all three are valid, there needs to be a balance.
This book won’t persuade someone to consider gardening for wildlife and for becoming stewards of their backyard habitats. This provides sustenance for those of us who have committed our gardening resources to native habitats, either completely or more than 50%. This supports our decisions and strengthens our commitment with language.
Chapters 1-14
Fourteen chapters walk readers through the logic and some strategies. Beginning with Restoring Natives to Suburbia and The Vital New Role of the Suburban Garden he helps gardeners realize new responsibilities. The chapters are brief, punctuated with helpful photographs. "Nearly all terrestrial birds rear their young on insects, not seeds or berries. The bluebird nourishes its young with herbivorous insects that have captured the energy stored by plants."
Who Cares about Biodiversity, Why Can’t Insects eat Alien Plants?, What is Native and What is Not, and The Costs of Using Alien Ornamental help develop better understandings of the dilemma. It might look like an edible plant, but it doesn’t act like one or taste like one. Insects and wildlife that have co-existed for thousands of years depend upon each other’s familiarity and not the company of strangers.
Additional chapters, Creating Balanced Communities, Gardening for Insect Diversity, Blending In with the Neighbors, and Making It Happen provide tools for logical approaches to our gardens and landscapes. What Should I Plant, What Does Bird Food Look Like and Answers to Tough Questions complete the book with specific descriptions. Tallamy isn’t attempting to recreate an ecosystem, but rather creating a network of islands that will support native wildlife. Our gardens become the sustainable network of islands.
Bird Food Looks Like walking sticks, lace bugs, seed bugs, box elder bugs, and more. We read about creature features that intrigue and introduce us to the more interesting side of insects. Grasshoppers are rich sources of protein and fats for birds, rodents, raccoons, possums and some indigenous people. Suburban lawns with mowing schedules, alien grasses, pesticides and too much fertilizer are often void of grasshoppers and we intentionally run off any that drop by for a visit. We forget that grasshoppers are native to the area and birds are just some of the animals that feed at the Grasshopper Carry-Out Diner. Some might think that’s good, however, some birds might argue that logic. Over time grasshoppers developed large powerful jaws that capably chew the tough tissues of certain native grasses and forbs. They just don’t know what to do with some of our lawn grasses.
Dr. Tallamy concludes with an appendix on Native Plants with Wildlife Value and Desirable Landscaping Attributes, another on Host Plants of Butterflies and Showy Moths, and a third on Experimental Evidence. These lists and tables will prove valuable to anyone developing a wildlife garden; however, this is a weak section for my Midwest Illinois garden. His focus is on the four corners of the country. As he states at the start, there are many excellent books that provide how-to details and that his goal is more to explain the often misunderstood relationship of garden plants and wildlife.
As a Native Plant Gardener I appreciate his perspective and passion, how he draws upon early childhood memories, and experience-based practical recommendations. I didn’t find myself flinching from preaching—it really was minimal. His book tends to be somewhat daunting possibly intimidating for novice native-plant gardeners. The prose isn’t poetic or flowery, just factual. It occasionally reads more like a textbook than a guide for wildscape gardening.
One of the more practical thoughts he recommends is to design with natives in much the same way you might non-natives. Are you a dedicated native plant gardener? I had been waiting a long time to get my hands on this book. I enjoyed Dr. Tallamy’s shared observations. Are you beginning to explore native plantscaping? This can and will provide motivation, but unless you have a background in wildlife it could be slow reading.
He strongly asserts that removal of goldenrod, native grasses, black cherry trees and violets eliminates important food (larval and adult) sources for insects and by not feeding the insects we’re starving the birds. I agree with a closing comment on the back cover, this is a powerful illustration on how our gardening choices impact wildlife—both positive and negative—that Bringing Nature Home How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in our Gardens can help make informed decisions the next time I begin selecting plant material. As gardeners it’s probably time (or past time) for us to make the connections between insects, plants, and wildlife/birds.
Recommended:
Yes
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