Renowned naturalist and author Douglas W. Tallamy explains how, by simply adding native plants to our own backyards, we ourselves can become nature’s best hope. Recent headlines about insect declines and three billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that keep us alive. The good news is there’s still time! Tallamy discusses simple steps each of us can take by adding native plants to our home landscape to increase biodiversity. You can watch a webinar here and you can find more videos and important information on his website Homegrown National Park
If you live in the Piedmont Triad area and are interested in advocating for and conserving native wildlife through education, habitat restoration, and enjoyment of the outdoors please check out Triad Wild, a community chapter the North Carolina Wildlife Federation. We’d love to have you join us.
Monarch populations are in decline across North America. Last year the International Union of the Conservation of Nature, IUCN, listed them as Endangered. Loss of milkweed host plants due to the extensive use of herbicide has been identified as one of the major contributing factors, Loss or degradation of nectar-rich habitat from other causes, climate change, and widespread use of insecticides are also contributing factors.
One of the greatest actions we can take to help monarchs is to provide nectar rich flowering plants and more host plants, native milkweeds. Adults depend upon nectar rich flowers throughout the year and their caterpillars depend upon milkweed to eat as they grow and go through the different stages of their development. An inadequate supply of either of those is equal to a loss of more monarchs.
The Xerces Society has very helpful lists of native, nectar rich flowering plants and native milkweeds, depending your area, on their website. Start here and then choose your region.
Need help finding local, native plants? Here are a few good places to start:
Homegrown National Park Plant Finder
National Wildlife Federation - you can look up host plants, nectar-rich plants, and keystone species by ecoregion/state
NC Botanical Garden - great resources for learning about natives! They even have native plants sales!
Rachel's Native Plants located in Pittsboro, NC offers a wide variety of native plants, shrubs and trees. Available natives are listed on her website.
Carolina Native Nursery located in Burnsville, NC offers a wide variety of natives on their website and in their retail butterfly shop. Available natives are listed on their website.
Garden for Wildlife - online plants by zip code or state
Joyful Butterfly - shop online by state
