Habitat Gardening: No Need to Destroy

Recent interactions with friends and relatives have made me muse about how wide the gap is between perception and reality regarding gardening, chemicals, weeds, pests and food.  Whew, that sounds like a lot to cover during one blog post.  I’ll try to be brief.

Not all Bugs are Bad

Yeah, most experienced gardeners are aware that there are beneficial insects and insects that eat everything in sight-indiscriminately.  However, most homeowners are not experienced gardeners.  Most homeowners learn everything they need to know about gardening from television commercials for Scotts or Home Depot.  How many organic gardening companies have the amount of money needed to go head to head with Miracle Gro?  Not many.  Hence my mini-rant about to follow.  I might like to think that most people know that butterflies come from caterpillars, but that is not necessarily the case.  A lot of people really don’t know the difference between good bugs and bad bugs, or the basics of metamorphosis, and other basics of gardening life.  Below, is a completely innocent exchange between an acquaintance and me during a recent gathering.

Guest:  I love your fennel plants!  Did you notice they they have HUGE caterpillars all over them?

Me:  (of course I noticed. They’re the size of my thumb!) Actually, yes, they are Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars.

Guest:  But they are eating your plants!

Me:  I know they are eating my plants.  I planted those plants specifically for the caterpillars.  In a few weeks, we’ll have butterflies everywhere!

Guest:  But they are eating your plants. . .

To this guest, good bugs or destructive bugs-they’re all the same.  I suppose that some people would think that a caterpillar that can eat a plant to the ground in a couple of days is “destructive,” however, I planned for it to happen, and I wanted to welcome the larvae into my yard, and I planted lots of plants so there would be plenty to go around. The blank look on my guest’s face indicated that I shouldn’t even try to win the argument.

Have you Ever Used Preen?

Unfortunately, the same guest asked me the above question, in earnest. Here’s what went down during that conversation.

Guest:  Have you ever used Preen?

Me: No

Guest:  I know it won’t kill weeds that are already growing, but I want to put it down anyway.

Me:  My lawn philosophy is “If it is green, mow it.”  Besides, if you really want to use a pre-emergence herbicide, you should put it down in the late summer and very late winter here (in North Carolina) so that it will prevent new weeds from sprouting.  Here in the South, we have two cycles of weeds Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter.  Putting down pre emergence herbicide right now will be a waste of money, and cause pollution for no good reason at all.

Guest:  I noticed you have some “spurge” in your yard.

Me:  Yes, I am an advocate of mowing whatever is in the “lawn,” regardless of what it actually is.  I am also slowly digging up my lawn to plant vegetable gardens.

Guest:  I really want my grass to look good.

Me:  I don’t water my grass.

Guest:  I think I’ll put down Preen anyway.

Me:  *Sigh*

Well, I could have tried to talk her into corn gluten, but she is apparently ready to kill, now.

What’s With the Weed Whacker?

In Wilmington, as in many other cities and towns around the US, there are lots of houses for sale, and lots of lots for sale, upon which the lucky buyer can build a house.  I’ve had my eye on this pretty little house on a fairly busy street for about a year.  I think the person who owned it before also owned the next-door lot.  The empty lot has grown up into a lovely meadow, full of grasses, flowers, sedges, and probably wildlife (though not that wild-we’re in the middle of the second most densely populated county in North Carolina, bordered by a river and the ocean.)  Today, on my way home from the movie theater, I noticed the new owner of the pretty little house weed whacking the meadow down to bare earth.  WHY WHY WHY????  Unless I see something new being built in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be very sad.

When I lived in Vermont, I could mark the passage of seasons entirely by watching the progression of growth, bloom, death, growth, bloom and death of grasses and wildflowers along the roadsides.  Unless a dangerous curve was blocked by tall grasses, the sides of the roads were not mowed.  There was no reason to mow them.  Same as there was no reason to weed whack the vacant lot unless they are going to build a house there.  I’ll keep you posted.

In my own neighborhood, on my own street, the ECO FRIENDLY house (They had a big sign in their yard proclaiming that they were eco-friendly) owners cut down an entire acre of long leaf pine trees so that they could build another “green” house.  The market crashed, and now when I walk my dog, Lucy, I walk by a completely bulldozed, gutted lot where before there was a little forest full of woodpeckers, butterflies, owls, hawks and gorgeous trees.  It’s been over a year, and I’m still not used to the new skyline.

What Can be Done?

The whole vegetable gardening resurgence gives me a little bit of hope for ordinary people to get used to the idea of the outside as an ecosystem, rather than an extension of their climate-controlled living rooms.  However, there is still so much to be done.  I don’t know where to even start with people who just want grass.  How do you open the conversation without freaking someone out and turning them off?