I'm in my 4th growing season of native plant gardening, and I'm seeing all types of pollinators & critters showing up to my plants so far (bees, flies, wasps, moths, ants, beetles, lacewings, hummingbirds, etc.)… It's definitely site and weather specific, but I've seen quite a few comments from people on social media saying they're seeing less pollinators than last year. This kind of solidifies, for me, the importance of providing places for these critters to overwinter, nest, find shelter, take a break, etc.
I have a very "messy" property (in the traditional sense). I leave brush piles and dead wood all over the place. I've got rock piles (it's nesting habitat!). I hardly remove any leaves (granted, I only have one Silver Maple and its leaves decompose quickly). I leave all seed heads and stems until early summer and then cut the ones I want to "tidy up" to 8-24"… I then throw those cut stems onto brush piles.
And the most important aspect, in my opinion – I avoid soil disturbance unless absolutely necessary and I rarely mulch (unless its leaf mulch). ~70% of native bees in the eastern US nest in the ground and a ton of other beneficial critters also nest or are active in the ground. I only dig if I'm planting new plants or removing non-native and invasive species that can't be controlled otherwise, and I only lightly mulch with leaves taken from around my property (if I even do that). These critters can't nest in the ground if they can't get to it!
Also, and maybe this is controversial, but I think it is really important that we stop "weeding" in the conventional sense (ripping big plants out of the ground)… And that also goes for transplanting and dividing plants. Instead of traditional weeding, I selectively cut non-native plants to the ground a couple times a week throughout the growing season to prevent seed production (this actually works really well if you stick with it, and it's way easier in my experience).
Who knows what's going on in the soil. There could be all types of critters trying to live their lives down there and reproduce. To simplify, I guess, if the soil disturbance I cause is something a squirrel could have done, that's acceptable. Anything more than that is unacceptable (this kind of falls apart with groundhogs, badgers, prairie dogs… but hopefully you get my point haha)
Edit: Most of my views on this were inspired by Heather Holm (Pollinators of Native Plants, Bees, Wasps) and Larry Weaner (Garden Revolution). Oh, and Xerces Society has a great guide
by LRonHoward
4 Comments
While these goals are admirable for more established native plant gardens, this is really hostile to beginners and gardeners with limited means.
If your property is entirely occupied by lawn and invasives, you absolutely have to rip out big plants and/or massively disturb the soil in other ways (solarizing, cardboard etc) before you can give any native plants half a chance to survive.
If you’re a beginner and want to plant trees, shrubs and/or native plants that are large enough to provide wildlife habitat quickly, rather than a decade or more in the future, you will need to
1. massively disturb the soil by digging holes to plant them and
2. quite probably use a ring of conventional woodchip mulch around the new tree or shrub, to make sure it gets enough water in its first year or two, especially if you don’t have time to water the plant every day.
Using leaves as a natural light mulch is great, but the standard of “don’t move them” is absolutely impossible for people who don’t happen to have conveniently located trees. For example, my next door neighbor has a Norway maple and I have to get the leaves off the sidewalk because they are a safety hazard. For other people, their most cold sensitive plants may simply not be directly under a tree.
I don’t think it’s controversial to cut weeds back rather than pulling them up, but this is only an option for people who have loads of free time and/or very gentle, slow growing weeds. People with extremely aggressive invasives and limited labor hours have to chose between using harsher removal methods, or else letting the invasives smother their native plants.
Native plant gardens with heavily dug-up soil, some use of mulch, ‘leave the leaves’ achieved by moving leaves around, etc still provide wildlife value for many species and are MUCH better than conventional ornamental gardens–which is what many gardeners will go back to, if they feel overwhelmed and discouraged.
**TL;DR: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Be cautious when you promote standards of native garden perfection that are impossible for many gardeners.**
Well all the moles in my yard are gonna take this news pretty hard.. Those little rascals plow up and disturb more soil than I could ever manage
I appreciate the spirit of this post and I take a similar approach. I do think it goes a bit too far, however, in one key ecological aspect:
Moderate disturbance is a feature of healthy meadows and other ecosystems! Ripping out large plants, digging, some trampling, etc might cause an immediate, short-term disturbance but can also open up new space and habitat for other species. Animals browsing, digging burrows, leaving footprints, etc are all natural examples of this kind of disturbance. Fire is a major disturbance that we typically can’t use in residential settings, but is part of how grassland habitats are maintained naturally.
On a regional scale, the “Intermediate disturbance hypothesis” predicts that there will be higher biodiversity when there is moderate disturbance. Think of a large tree falling in the forest that creates a canopy gap, allowing light-loving plants in the seed bank to emerge and thrive for a few decades.
I have found fewer pollinators this year despite no changes to management. We had a very wet spring lasy year and numbers seemed a little down, and this year it was three days of heat followed by a freeze, a few times. All my plants are weeks behind. We also did not have much insulating snow, though I do not The advantage to cutting is that the organic material below ground and the fungal life is not disturbed. I have always doen this in my vegetable beds, and it seemed natural to do this with natives that are growing right where I need to walk. I do not have many leaves of my own, but a large maple across the street lets many blow in and my standing stems catch them and hold them in place. Lots of bare soil, mulch only in the veg beds, and I also prefer to cut things off at the base unless they are vining things like Glechoma or Convolvulus (found some bindweed seedlings in my garden this year – gotta pull those while you still can). My back path is so thick with violets that not much else can grow back there, though it is not much of a path anymore. C’est la vie!