Invasive plants have caused much harm and degradation to natural ecosystems, and yet they are easily available in any big box store
Is Sustainability Only for Human Benefit?
Several years ago, I posed the question at Ecosystem Gardening “Is Sustainability Only About Human Benefit?” I asked this question because advocates of bamboo as a sustainable flooring and other building materials seemed to blithely ignore the fact that bamboo is considered an invasive plant (a plant from a foreign location that is causing damage to natural ecosystems), and has degraded many natural ecosystems, making them less able to provide for the needs of wildlife.
In the comments people left at that post, and especially at the Facebook page I was basically painted as an ignorant fool for advocating for wildlife gardens. Humans are part of nature, therefore our actions are just as benign as the bird who poops out the seed of some invasive plant, allowing it to spread through another ecosystem was the essence of the argument against what I had said.
Yes, humans are part of nature. And we have repeatedly shown that we make very poor decisions that continue to cause great harm to our ecosystems, the wildlife that depend on them, and the health of our planet. We have a very poor track record in our selfish quest for more resources, more space, and more income from development. And yet we are loath to take any responsibility for the harm our actions have caused.
The good news is that we can remediate some of these negative impacts by adding more wildlife gardens and welcoming habitats for wildlife at our own properties.
Invasive Plants are Beneficial?
About a year later a piece of research was released which seemed to say that invasive plants were actually good for the environment, that birds eat the berries, so they must be good.
Many folks gleefully took this as an opportunity to try to trash the work of Doug Tallamy, the leading voice for the importance of native plants for wildlife and ecosystem health, and a huge proponent of creating more wildlife gardens.
Because people were so eager to call out his work, I invited Doug Tallamy to participate in an interview so that he could respond to these attacks and the supposition that invasive plants are good for our environment.
If we’re going to proclaim something good for nature just because birds may eat the fruits, we need to recognize the ridiculousness of this statement, which I responded to in Pizza is Great Bird Food.
The Permaculture Contradiction
And now the debate rages on, with people still unwilling to take any responsibility at all for the damage our actions can cause. Sue Reed sums it up this way:
I agree that humans might reasonably be called an “invasive species.” However, we at least, unlike all the others, have a brain and ought to use to it to minimize the harm we cause. If possible. And I know it’s incredibly difficult. Sadly, many of us seem to believe that we should use our brains to come up with clever rationalizations for causing more harm while doing whatever we want.
Who would have imagined that reflecting on her experience at 3 garden shows earlier this year would put our team member Sue Reed in the middle of a huge controversy about invasive plants? When Sue expressed her concern about permaculture folks recommending invasive Hardy Kiwi (which have spread out of control and are destroying some natural habitats in some areas of the country), she was met with a firestorm of criticism.
Two graduates of the Conway School of Landscape Design, Katharine Gehron and Jenna Webster, wrote a very thoughtful response to this criticism for the Ecological Landscaping Association, which published it only in a private LinkedIn Group, so it would not be widely seen. Sue asked me if we could reprint this reply so that more people would be able to participate in this discussion and share their thoughts. And I readily agreed, as this is a very important conversation to have.
This post, too, was met with a large amount of criticism from some in the permaculture community, prompting Sue to write another post where she posed the question “Why is human benefit the only issue that seems to matter to permaculturalists?” Why aren’t we also promoting healthy ecosystems that support wildlife?
Reading the comments of each of these posts is very educational, and I recommend you do so now. We’d love to hear what you think about this discussion, so please leave a comment there while you’re reading.
Some of the criticism centered around Doug Tallamy’s research stemming from his book Bringing Nature Home, and people were very critical of Tallamy, proclaiming he had not paid attention to “current research” that aims to say that invasive plants are actually good for the environment. So our team member Beatriz Moisset has done a wonderful review of Tallamy’s and other research about the negative impact of invasive plants to our ecosystems and wildlife.
Please jump into these conversations and let us know what you think!
Also, if you haven’t yet read Doug Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, we highly recommend that you do now. Tallamy has presented a wonderful treatise about how we can best help wildlife in our gardens. You’ll be amazed at how he brings everything together and shows how our actions in our gardens are connected to the health of our ecosystems.
Taking Responsibility for Human Actions
There is a way to balance human needs for food, shelter, and income with a goal to protect wildlife and our natural ecosystems. Humans are but one species living on this planet, but humans continue to destroy habitat and healthy ecosystem function.
And now it is time to take the gardener’s Hippocratic Oath
First Do No Harm!
If we can destroy wildlife habitat, we can also create it in our own gardens. We can learn to make healthier decisions that benefit not only wildlife, but our own health as well. We can learn to give something back instead of taking/destroying everything in our path. I remain hopeful that each of us will begin to do Just One Thing to Help Wildlife by creating more wildlife gardens. If each of us did just one thing, the cumulative impact would be phenomenal! So let’s get to work 
Carole Sevilla Brown lives in Philadelphia, PA, and she travels the country speaking about Ecosystem Gardening for Wildlife. Check out her new free online course Ecosystem Gardening Essentials, 15 free lessons delivered to your inbox every week.
© 2012, Carole Sevilla Brown. All rights reserved. This article is the property of Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens. If you are reading this at another site, please report that to us
About Carole Sevilla Brown
Busy writing tomorrow’s post – gardening for wildlife. Bemused by the VENOM against considering wildlife, and shocked by this http://ecowatch.org/2012/wildlife-services-under-fire-for-release-of-annual-kill-numbers/ the picture, a heap of cougar slaughtered by the US ‘Wildlife Services’
Diana of Elephant’s Eye recently posted..July garden catch up
Well let me tell you that we have 3 1/2 acres in Bellingham, Washington and someone planted ivy many years ago. It is running rapid through our beautiful forest and up all the trees killing them. We are trying our best to continue getting rid of it but what a big job it is indeed. I wish people would realize how invasive this plant is as well as the ones you mentioned. We have lost several beautiful vine maples because of this ivy.
IVY OUT
When I moved into my home a few years ago, aside from some shrubbery, everything in the yard was weed (invasive and native, but not doing much for wildlife either way) or invasive. Buckthorn everywhere, ivy smothering the house and trees, and vinca choking out what was left. If you name it, I had it, except hardy kiwi and bamboo! We are on our third backbreaking summer and are finally starting to see a real and quantifiable difference in the yard. At any given point during a day we might have four or five species of bird at our feeders or eating from our
plants, chipmunks (what are ya gonna do), rabbits, and deer out there. We are teeming with beneficial insects. I never imagined we could see so many bees in one 1/3 acre plot. I buy native plants when I can but they can be very expensive… My yard would be sparse indeed if I went completely native because I just can’t afford it. I do agree that a few actions from each person in the world can make an enormous difference to our ecosystem, and have done it in my own yard, but yet I won’t ever go so far as to remove my fantastic flowering quince!
This feels like a crusade with just one scientists, Mr. Tallamy, contributing over and over to the argument. Also, I wonder about food production. Nearly everything I have growing in my vegetable garden would be considered non-native by the European definition. Likewise, the large agricultural production, using the invasive ideology, in this country could certainly be considered harmful to the planet. But then, where would we get all of our food? I practice due diligence when I garden but, really, it comes down to not only the environment but what I like and eat. I have removed, arduously, identifiable invasives from my adjacent woods and in my garden but I also happen to love Peonies. I have added many natives but retain some flowers and fruit (peaches, plums, pears, etc.) that I find tasty from my own yard. I think there is a balance to be had and the pendulum for all sides is still swinging.
Dr. Tallamy is not the only one to study this matter. Here is a sample of publications by other authors (just some of the most recent ones). You will see that a few results may seem to contradict him; that is the way nature is and that is the way science is. It is important to balance all the information and go with the stronger proof, not like some people who use the solitary exceptions to prove their points.
The conservation value of residential yards: linking birds and people
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/10-0423.1
Preferences for exotic flowers do not promote urban life in butterflies http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204610000460
Urban biodiversity: comparison of insect assemblages on native and non-native trees
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g1x18330852781m2/
Effects of Invasive Exotic Grasses on South Texas Rangeland Breeding Birds. A. A. Flanders, et al. The Auk
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4090639?uid=3739864&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=47699110761837
Possible Impact of Multiflora Rose on Breeding-Bird Diversity in Riparian Forest Fragments of Central Delaware http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1656/045.017.0410
Mortality of a herbivorous insect is greater on non-indigenous congeneric compared to native rush in coastal salt marsh http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-6055.2010.00787.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
Influence of invasive palms on terrestrial arthropod assemblages in desert spring habitat http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320710004404
Insect Assemblages Change Along a Gradient of Invasion by a Nonnative Grass. A. R. Litt and R. J. Steidl. Biological Invasions, 2010 http://www.montana.edu/litt/Litt%20and%20Steidl%202010%20Biological%20Invasions.pdf
Reproductive Success of Chestnut-collared Longspurs in Native and Exotic Grassland. John D. Lloyd and Thomas E. Martin http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1650/7701
Attractiveness of Michigan Native Plants to Arthropod Natural Enemies and Herbivores http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1603/0046-225X%282007%2936%5B751:AOMNPT%5D2.0.CO%3B2
That said, the reason Doug Tallamy deserves special credit is that he was able to see a connection that others have missed before. Many works prior to Tallamy’s show that relatively natural or stable ecosystems (composed mainly of native plants) support a wider variety of wildlife, or have more biodiversity, than ecosystems where introduced plants predominate.
Because of his many years studying the chemical warfare and coevolution of plants and their herbivores, he saw an important link. In a nutshell: native plants support higher numbers of herbivore insects adapted to their chemical defenses. In turn, larger numbers of insects provide more food for other wildlife. The trophic chain, or food chain, becomes broken by the presence of non-native or introduced plants (invasive or not) because many herbivores cannot take advantage of them.
I hope this helps. For more on this follow the link in this article about Tallamy’s and others work.
As for food, we all know that most food crops are introduced, here and everywhere. Fortunately, most of the ones introduced centuries ago are not invasive because they have been cultivated for so long that they have become dependent on cultivation. We have to be pragmatic about it. We are not giving up bread or potatoes. We won’t stop growing tomatoes or apples in our yards.
Beatriz Moisset recently posted..Pollinator Conservation Short Course
I really liked your article Carole especially that portion where you have suggested that If we can destroy wildlife habitat, we can also create it.
Thanks Carole for reminder that we can create a wonderful habitat for wildlife and try to strike a balance without doing harm…you know that is my mantra…if it does harm then i don’t do it…simple as that…and i love my garden more…it has a purpose and I am learning so much every day.
Donna@Gardens Eye View recently posted..Grocery Gardening
I used to live next to a field that was full of trees, I would take the kids there to see & hear the singing of the hundreds of birds. Then, in came the owner of the land, who for some unknown reason bulldozed all of those beautiful trees & never gave a second thought to all of the birds he displaced. He destroyed an entire community, & he didn’t care.
The ignorant & uneducated believe planting invasive species is not harmful. The dangerous & reckless believe their actions are not harmful to the environment.
After I learned about the benefits of planting native, I greatly increased the number of native plants & turned my ornamental garden into a butterfly garden that is a living eco system. Unfortunately, there are people who don’t know any better, don’t care, or are out to make a buck.
I wish you would have left a link to that face book page, so we could have left some comments to set them straight.