Botany Buddy

As yesterday would have been the 201st birthday of Charles Darwin I found it overly ironic that all I saw on the news was a barrage of people declaring that global warming was a farce because it had snowed outside. I have to admit that I am starting to find the snows I have missed from my youth a bit annoying now. However it hasn’t effected me enough to start denying reality and the evidence of real science.  I may be delirious from cabin fever and the total loss of routine from an ad-hoc school schedule, but it is not about to lead to the closing of this American mind.

Had it not been for the steady drumbeat of an old friend’s facebook status, Chuck-D Day might have slipped by me completely.  This friend is someone I new well in my youth.  For many years as children we spent every daylight hour walking up an down our town’s railroad tracks and creeks collecting turtles, snakes, frogs, salamanders and any other little critter we could get to ride home in our pockets.  Of course we evolved over time, and got smart enough to carry buckets and boxes.  At one point we even moved up to traps and converted a neighbor’s walk in aviary into an all out zoo.  This particular friend is now a Herpetologist and was leading a read-a-thon in which they finished the Origin of Species in approximately 18 hours.  (I can only assume this was faster than the last time.) As I watched the devolution of our politicians minds on TV his constant updates assured me that somewhere someone was actually evolving.

As for my own celebration, it was going on in my head all day.  As I spent all day listening to the talking heads knowing full well they were incapable of thinking,  I was thinking about how I became most aware of global warming through the spread of invasive species.   Over the years I wasn’t always aware of either problem, it took a move to a different climate to make me see how differently things react under the slightest change.  It became even more evident when I began working across the 3 distinct zones from North Georgia to Virgina that I could see how differently species adapt and react to different ecosystems.  Hybrid Burning Bush and Barberry that for years no one would have imagined spreading are not only growing from seed, but they are adapting and moving into climates that normally would have been to cold for their seed to survive.

When I hear people talk of climate chance, I always hear about it’s effect on water, and people.  How the oceans will flood the cities, rivers will run dry, and other factors that we see directly related to our needs as humans is all that seems to matter.  The only time I hear plants discussed is in how trees can offset carbon so we can create more.  Unfortunately I hear more talk about whether the change exists in the first place, than what we can to do prevent it.  However, more than fighting of global warming plants can help us see and understand it.

In some respects plants are the antithesis of humans.  Plants adapt and get stronger every year and can live several of our lifetimes, but they create a new generation and pass on those traits every year.  When winters were consistent invasive species were easier to keep in check.  The annual minimum temperatures used to keep the non-native seeds in check year after year.  As winters have gradually warmed, those seeds have have adapted and become more cold tolerant as those few extra degrees have allowed them to survive.  Now they can handle the extreme conditions that now occur once every five years instead of annually.  We on the other hand have not adapted.  Burning Bush that used to be contained to areas near it’s cousins in Georgia are now making their way up the coast to New York.  Princess Trees, Barberry, Butterfly Bush, English Ivy, and many more are making that same journey.  In less than a generation of our lifetime, these species have adapted to the climate change and produced dozens more generations while we are still arguing over whether it even exists.

As humans we are different from plants.  We may live for decades but usually only reproduce during a short window of that time and in small numbers.   While we do physically evolve generationally, we usually reproduce at a peak moment and then actually become weaker for the next two thirds of our life.  Plants and trees that can live hundreds of years get stronger and reproduce every year until that last year of their life when they actually produce the most seed.  Where we differ is in that we have minds that can evolve way beyond our physical bodies.  However, unlike a tree whose wood gets harder with age and ease, we have to work and use our minds to keep them growing even as it gets harder.  If we don’t do this, collectively as a society we can actually get weaker and devolve.  The more we separate into individual pockets of though and deny the science that exists in nature around us the weaker we actually become as a species.  Too often because of our self awareness we lose the awareness of the world around us and slow the evolution of our collective conscience.

In the United States we track plant hardiness and nativity with the USDA system for for classifying plant hardiness known as the USDA Zones.  The system is based on a ranges of temperatures, recorded temperatures by areas, and the minimum temperatures those plants can supposedly take.  The system isn’t based on where these plants should grow, but where they could grow.  It also only covers minimum temperatures and not maximums.  Even more odd, this “could” focus is based on how we can use plants to alter the environment through a commercial view not how to protect and preserve it.  This is from the Department of AGRICULTURE though, not the Environmental Protection Agency.  Throughout the world these systems vary, but an emerging and evolving trend throughout the world does not start with temperatures, it start with plants.  Aerial photography is used to map where the species that form the canopy are, and the undergrowth can be determined by combining that and other data; yet another Copernican shift in the right direction.  People are actually using plants to gain perspective rather than trying to fit them into their own perspectives and learning more about themselves and the world in the end.

Unlike trees, if our minds continue to grow after reproduction we cannot continue to pass it on year after year through our seed.  Even what we do pass on isn’t the content of thought, only the ability.  We can only continue our evolution as a species through education.   The strongest ideas aren’t the ones that are said the most often, screamed the loudest or that have the most money to advertise them.  They are the ones that come from listening, hearing, and collectively evolving with the world around us.  Our evolution as a species is dependent the recognition of our role in the community of species, listening to each other within our species, and admitting that trying to be the strongest being isn’t necessarily in our nature as a species, and doesn’t make us the fittest species.   As a species we can learn a lot from the trees around us, but the message we should learn isn’t to reproduce like the Duggars.  It is that the world is changing, and for us to become the fittest species possible we have to continue to evolve mentally every year, even after our body ceases to evolve.  The lesson is that our seeds are seeds of thought, and without them our minds cannot grow and neither can our species as a whole.

It is funny how we all develop.  I probably could have guessed that my friend leading the read-a-thon would grow up to be a turtle hugger.  As for me, while I was in horticulture at a young age, the technology I work in now was still in the form of a punch card and we couldn’t have seen this coming.  There was a third member of or 9-10 year old research team, and I don’t think I wouldn’t have guessed the future for  him either.  He is writing his dissertation on the effects of invasive species on soil fertility in the upper Midwest.  However, as kids nature planted seeds in our minds, and as we moved to different climates those seeds evolved with the world around us.  I guess our evolution is proof that passion can evolve into thought and doesn’t have to lead to the death or denial of it.  When I look at how we’ve grown, it is reassurance to me that for us to remain the “fittest” species we must continue to evolve our minds and realize that we are part of a community of species.  Likewise, by denying evolution, including climate change, we deny our role in the community of species, weaken our collective mind and species as a whole, and  jeopardize the species Earth as we know it.  How this all came about isn’t what is important, but acknowledgement that it exists and our role in it is vital to our development as a species and to the survival of the world as we know it.

It’s an age old question that can apply to many things.  Names are something we take for granted, but in reality they are the fundamental basis of all communications.  When we think of names we think of what we call one another, our pets, our children and our places.  In reality though ever word in every language is in essence a name.  Even a verb is the name for an action that takes many words to explain, that is why they all have definitions.  Imagine trying to give someone directions without a name for the action of “turn”.  Most importantly though, we use names to explain relations.  First names, last names, family trees, nationalities, and the names for the relations between these things are what derive and keep order in our world.  Even further they are the signposts to how we navigate and determine our possible impact on and place in the world. Names of course vary among languages and regions.   Different words (names) are used to describe the same thing in different languages and locations.  In the end, regardless of differences in language, the objects and actions being described by their name can be recognized for what they are and the variations in language can be translated.

The scenario where this doesn’t work is in living beings.  Verbs can vary in how they are performed, but that can be described with adverbs.  Physical objects like rocks or furniture can vary in visible traits or molecular makeup, but that variations are qualified with adjectives to help further describe the object.  Even these can easily be recognized visually and translated between languages and cultures because the “name” is essentially the same.

Where absolute accuracy is essential and qualifying additives cannot do justice to a name is when it comes to living beings.  When it comes to people, accuracy doesn’t seem to be such a problem because we are all unique and have a free will.  We will always act individually even within a community and the genetic heritage of our name has limited capabilities in determining or predicting how we will act.  People can even share the same names, but be easily qualified with adjectives or descriptors because every human is distinct.  With people and even domesticated animals, the genetic code may vary slightly within our species, but our wills, personalities, relationships and souls make us all easily discernible from one another.

With other less discernible species such as grasses, lichens, trees, fish, birds and non-domesticated animals the species may be discernible as a whole but the identity of individuals within the species is much less clear.  More importantly the collective impact or necessity of the species has an even greater effect on the world and nature as a whole.  Names of these species describe a collective whose members act on a collective instinct (or possibly conscience) instead of individual free wills.  In the end these names represents more than the one.  They give insight and understanding into the collective nature and cultural background of the species as a whole.

To answer the the title question:  Everything about and everything something and what it impacts is in a name.  A good name captures both the essence and esse of what it describes.  It captures the traits of what makes the thing being described unique (essence) as well as the intrinsic presence that makes it identifiable for what it is (esse).   Where meaning gets lost is when variation occurs in the naming itself rather than the translation of the names.  In the plant world people work in both common and botanical names.  The botanical name is a Latin based name that is used not only to identify the plant, but also gives insight into the breeding and heritage that led to it’s creation.  It is is written in Latin to provide a universal language whose meaning will not be lost in translation world-wide.  This allows us to see what the species is, where it has come from genetically, and what it might do in nature or the situation we put it in.

Common names are regional and based on local peoples’ experiences with the plant rather than the culture and cultivation of the plant itself.  Common names are extremely descriptive, but subjective and should never be used when striving for accuracy of any kind. There is much debate about what people like to use, and whether the botanical name is important if you are not a professional horticulturist or botanist.  However, you really can’t know the plant well enough to responsibly plant in nature or a landscape without the information provided by an accurate botanical name.  Common names may tell what a plant has done, but cannot give sure insight of what it is capable of doing.  Accurate and exact botanical naming of all species (not just plants) is crucial the the protection of nature itself as well as understanding it.  Nothing has been more influential to the spread of invasive species and disease than improper naming that occurs in the commercialization of plants and the mis-education that improper naming provides.

Over the last fifteen years, with the rise of genetic testing, efforts have been underway world-wide to cleanup this mess, and bring order to this problem. The Integrated Taxonomic Information System is one of the efforts that has been working across borders and oceans to make this happen.  The ITIS is a collaborative effort of governments and  academic systems, that crosses borders and oceans, but is greatly limited by the inertia and limited funding of the respective institutions.  There are others that specialized even more into areas such as fungi, cacti, wattles, and regional ecosystems.  These groups have a passion and sense of urgency but don’t have cooperative and interconnected systems to make some of this possible.  This problem isn’t limited to the plant kingdom, it is pervasive in the animal kingdom as well, and both do relate to one another.

Most of the early misnaming has been created by the limitation of communications.  Most botanical naming was done long before the Internet was ever created and the commerce of species became a worldwide phenomenon long before there was a world-wide-web.  As a result duplicate species are being sold and shipped with different names throughout the world.  Even more damaging, multiple species are being distributed throughout the world with the same name, and this is where the greatest danger lyes.  People are shipping and using plants all over the world for uses they are not suited for or with potential impacts that they are totally unaware of.   What is in the name they are buying or selling is actually of another name.  The greatest responsibility  lyes in the breeders and distributors of these species to accurately identify what they are selling, and to accurately identify what they are breeding them from.  Unfortunately, until the system is completely cleaned up and connected this cannot be done.

Commercialization has not only led to the spread of misnamed species, but people are breeding new species and varieties from already misnamed species at rates ten times faster than the original species were discovered.  When we started Botany Buddy it was created to help communicate and educate between the “classes” (for lack of a better name) of gardeners.   The tools we are creating are meant to bring the same language to educators, botanists, growers, purveyors and gardeners in a way that is easily accessed and understood by all.  Our original iPhone app was created to educate, communicate, and identify information to the user and for the users to be able to communicate it to each other.  In the end it has communicated just as much to us.  With users in over twenty counties and on every continent we have communicated with botanists all over the world to help us design our new database and systems.

Just this week we finished proofing the final taxonomic database for the upcoming web based app.  With about 60,000 species ACCURATELY represented we can now add data, photos, and even more species to the database and know that we can truly represent the species’ family heritage.  When we started this our intent was to add a thousand or so trees at a time, and just build on the library we had in the original app every so often.  In the end we realized we needed to add the ones we have now into nature’s library and to create our own Dewey Decimal System to manage it the information in it.  As a result our final product will be a tool that has literally “thousands times” more information than our initial release and will be formatted to grow at any given moment and with more accuracy than any other resource I have found in existence.  This capability would be totally impossible if it were not for a name.

Personally I like to be a little incognito in my gardening circles.  Those who “know” me know not just my name, but my botanical name as well.  I would venture to say those who read this blog regularly are probably getting to know me on that level to some extent.  The other day I was at garden center and watched someone selling an ornamental grass.  This person did not know my botanical name.   The customer asked if the plant would spread by seed.  The sales person said, “No this is Kirk Alexander Maiden Grass and is a hybrid that was cultivated by a local designer years ago.”  I pointed across the highway to about a 1/4 mile long stretch of maiden grass growing in a ditch, and said, “That may be Kirk Alexander in the pot, but those are his parents over there and they didn’t arrive until after Kirk did.”  Needless to say they looked at me like I was nuts, but that is what is in a name. If we know where we come from we know where we might go.

People are all hybrids and we may be determined not to become our parents, but it in the end both the best and the worst of them tends to come out in us.  Obviously I get my verbosity from my father.  He always used to say “the mind cannot absorb more than the seat can endure”, so I will wrap this up.  This trait about me you could definitely predict if I had a botanical name.  Our naming task has taken far longer, more mental energy, and more patience and determination than almost anything I have ever done.  It is and has to be the foundation of everything we do going forward to really be a great reference.  I like superlatives, and this may be the most important and responsible work I have done in the last thirty years and hope will help the world for hundreds of years to come.  That is what is in a name.

The holiday has come and gone, and the annual ritual of pardoning the White House bird has gone on as planned.  This time it was a 45 lb. / 18 week old broadbreasted Turkey named Courage.   According to the AP, “Obama said Courage will spend the rest of his life in “peace and tranquility” at Disneyland.”  Of course President Obama displayed some pure honesty that we should all be thankful for when right before the pardon he said, “”I’m told Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson actually ate their turkeys.  You can’t fault them for that; that’s a good-looking bird.”  If the birds that those guys pardoned had anywhere near the future ahead or life past this bird has had they should be applauded.  Let’s face it this is the worst staging I am yet to see our of a White House that really excels at staging the “green” agenda.  Having PETA standing there with The National Turkey Federation while pardoning a genetically modified bird is akin to having Monsanto host a vegan dinner with the Organic Growers Association as they serve GMO tofu fried in pure lard.

I am yet to verify the actual breed of the bird that was pardoned, but I do know that it came from a factory farm in North Carolina.  I can also tell you this, no bird that reaches 45 lbs. in 18 weeks is a heritage bird, and most definitely has been bread for one thing…eating.    Also the all white breeds of turkey that have been bred for factory farms are all genetically engineered.  There is no naturally occurring all white turkey that comes near 45 lbs. in its lifetime, let alone 18 weeks.  The closest thing you can get to a white heritage bird is the Royal Palm, which my 5-year old friend Louie (pictured next) happens to be.  For a White House that has lauded their organic garden and served from it to world leaders, to have chosen the bird they did was a Royal missed opportunity (sorry for the pun Louie).

Having grown both heritage turkeys and two broad breasted (genetically engineered) birds, this one touches a little too close to home.  Louie, my Royal Palm,  is in his fifth year, and is as happy as can be as King of Little Creek Farm.  He does live a life in  “Disneyland for birds”.  He had a mate who lived a similar life until she met her natural fate from a predator.  Heritage birds make fantastic long term companions, as well as tasty free-range fare.  Pardoning and growing heritage birds helps preserve one of the many breeds that are becoming endangered, and encourages their comeback.  It also helps to encourage biodiversity and prevents the conditions that harbor and promote diseases such as Asian Bird Flu.   However, the broad breasted birds that are bred for eating are bred solely for one thing and that is eating.  They are bread to live very short lives and develop bodies that frankly they cannot live with or physically support.  I hate to be so harsh, but they are bred to be killed before they are forced to suffer the misery that their breeding causes.

Our first year raising turkeys we ordered two broad breasted bronze birds with the intention of having them ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as our Royal Palms for pets.  After Thanksgiving came and we had done the deed with #1 (40 lbs. dressed), we decided we just weren’t up for that much bird again at Christmas and thought we would hang on to #2 and try to breed her with Louie the following year.  The thinking was we might get a smaller bird out of the cross, and since Louie had lost Marie (his mate) to the bobcat we thought he would like having a companion.  So we pardoned #2 and decided to let her live a nice long life on Little Creek Farm.  That pardon might as well have been a sentence to a concentration camp.

Broad breasted birds that are bred for eating are bred to sit in a cage and be force fed until slaughter, not free-range to their hearts content.  In fact their hearts can’t even begin to support their weight and they have an extremely short lifespan compared to Louie’s so-far gracious presence.  A turkey that gets to the weight Courage has at the rate Courage has, won’t even be able to support his weight with his own legs before long.  Unfortunately these birds are born to die, and as soon as they reach that ideal weight they are engineered to reach, they loose all the wonderful traits and personality that give turkeys their essence and that our founders found worthy of making them our national bird.

Now as for #2, she  did eventually get a name.  Unfortunately to tell you the truth by the time she got it she had lost all the personality to go with it.  Once winter set in she literally had to be carried out of the chicken house in the morning, and carried in at night.  She was obviously miserable.  She was unable to attend to her own hygiene, and she definitely couldn’t keep company with other birds.  Her breast was even permanently void of feathers because she couldn’t keep it off the ground.  What we thought was pardoning her to a life in “Disneyland” turned out to be a sentence in Guantanamo.  In the end we did what had to be done, and should have been done in the first place, and she became Easter.

I do like the message of being kind to animals, and I am an animal lover.  However, the real lesson that was missed in this wasn’t the cruelty of eating a bird that was bred to be eaten, but the cruelty of breeding things for eating in the first place.  As gardeners we are finding our roots in heirloom vegetables and discovering the superior flavors and textures.  With this year’s devastating blight on tomatoes we are even seeing how preserving that biodiversity is crucial to preventing such catastrophes.  If raised where the space, water and nutrients they need occurs naturally, these plants grow better than those tortured by over planting, over feeding, and over watering in our mono-cropped farms.

The same is true of meats as well.  Grass fed beef and pork is coming back into favor, and micro farms are even starting to grow heirloom mammals as well.  Whether you are a meat eater or not, you have to be able to recognize that we are breeding the souls out of these animals or at the very least torturing them to death.  If you have a culinary inclination you can also taste this happening.  The soul in the flavor of heritage breeds can be tasted just like it can a free-range egg or wild shrimp and fish.  It is rich and identifiable unlike the pale eggs from the poultry palaces or fish raised in mud retaining ponds on the side of the highway.  These breeds have souls and we need to protect them and encourage their proliferation.

I am certain that  Courage is a mighty fine bird.  He may not be a heritage bird that truly symbolizes what our forefathers saw in this breed, and you can’t blame him for wanting to go to Disneyland.  There must be something about him that won the hearts of these people to become the chosen one.  In the end he may have deserved that pardon.  After all he is not the one that committed the crime.  That said, he doesn’t deserve the life he has ahead of him either, and he could have been pardoned from that.

One of the things that I have never gotten used to living in the Appalachians is driving past signs that tell me I have crossed the Eastern Continental Divide.  Having worked all over Southern Appalachia this happens to me often and every time I do I am reminded of a legendary church in the mountains that straddles this line running North and South.  The water that supposedly runs off of either side of the roof either flows into the French Broad to Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico, or toward Charleston and to the Atlantic Ocean.  Legend has it that before running water the women’s outhouse was on the Atlantic side and the men’s was on the Mississippi side.  Supposedly it was to be cordial and let the ladies have the shorter journey.  Regardless, the stories of the divide somehow manage to bring people together and no matter where you go along the divide people seem to have their stories and want to hear yours.

As I point out often I am from the Midwest and grew up around the Missouri River.  We lived in Missouri, but the rest of our family lived in Illinois so the closest thing we had to a divide was the Mississippi River.  The thing about rivers is they are also about bringing things together.  As all the water flows down steam and they keep coming together and getting larger and larger, they seem to bring everyone together.  Rivers can be great dividers with only a few bridges to cross them, but when it comes to the life of the communities around and on either side of them, rivers seem to bring people and places together.  Even though they are physically divided, the people on both sides  have a desire to cross them and a shared dependency on the rivers as a source of life and livelihood.  Just like water is the source of all life, it is also the source of shared life and community.  On the other hand the Continental divides and the violent upheavals that created the mountains are definitely barriers that water just can’t cross, and all of the water that flows from them may eventually come together, but the ever building momentum of the rivers make those divides seem even farther apart.

I have been dealing with these divides everyday lately.  When we created Botany Buddy our initial plant database was from Oregon State University.  While the creator of the library is well traveled and captured most of the major species in the United States, the few that are missing are all East of the Rockies.  I knew of this divide from my years working in nurseries and my experience with nursery stock dying in the trucks at higher elevations if you tried ship it from Oregon to the Midwest through the Rockies.  What never dawned on me was just how prevalent this divide was in native species.  It isn’t as obvious here on the East Coast.  The highest point is only about 6500 feet, and there are lots of natural crossings in the 3-4,00 foot range.  However this divide has become prevalent in my life even though it is a couple thousand miles away.

This divide runs through plants, animals, insects diseases and even weather that just can’t make it over the mountains.  Everything that is found in an ecosystem on this continent is effected by the Western Continental Divide.  Since Botany Buddy has launched we have found even more divides.  Having users in 25 countries and 5 continents we have become obsessed with these divides and how to cross them.  As we have been developing our web app we are finding partners throughout the states as well as these other continents, and in many cases those people have come to us.  With all these divides in our lives, somehow in less than two months I am finding myself closer connected to people all around this world than I am many of the people in my own valley.  My local stream hasn’t brought me to these people, and our rivers don’t even run together, but our divides have brought us together.  On either side of every divide are people with similar desires, passions, and needs to bridge those barriers and open the free flow of people, trade, and most importantly ideas and information.

We have found the new rivers to bring us together right here on the Internet.  Some people use technology and the web as a divide to hide from others and work in seclusion, but there is a ground swell of people out there using the new mediums to get connected and let their ideas run downstream to the waters that feed all life.  When we started this project we were obsessed with the data, what data we had, and that it could be carried in your pocket.  We were also concerned with making sure that information could be shared and that we could bring people together so they could bring people to us.  However, before the original design of our first app was ever complete Botany Buddy as a whole was all ready moving into broader, deeper and faster moving waters.  By not focusing on solely the iPhone, we have been able to create a product that isn’t based on divvying up our information for you to put in your pocket but rather connect you to even more.  While a device can help you get connected, the app platform is designed to isolate information, and encourages keeping you isolated with native, unadulterated information contained solely on the app.

Like a flood upon launching this app it became clear to us that the rivers that would bring these divides together actually flew over those mountains, not between them, and they were the channels of the Internet.  At first this really scared me.  I have seen areas completely devastated by invasive species, and some of the first on-line garden businesses I noticed were people shipping plants internationally.  When it comes to exotic invasive species somethings need to be divided for a reason, and need to stay that way.  What was even crazier was I saw people shipping plants from England to California even though they were native to where they already were.  They were also paying five times the local price for these plants.  At first this notion of crossing the great divide was scaring me.  The last thing I wanted to be was a conveyor of ecological disaster.

Thankfully, more often we are approached by people who understand that what we are trying to create is an every changing and evolving reference source, not a sales floor.  We want to bring people the tools they need to do their jobs better and more efficiently, but most importantly we really want to make sure they have the information to do it responsibly.  We also want to make sure they can do it no matter what phone they are on, or even if they are just sitting at their desk.  I moved to this field from private design because as much as I loved the one on one interaction I had with my clients, I felt I could do more good if we all could interact and have access to equal, objective, accurate, and complete information whenever we needed it.

The very physical divides that have affected our environments continue to effect our travels, but they don’t have to interfere with the travel of our thoughts.  Just like the story of the old men and the church have brought together all stripes of people who have crossed the Eastern Continental Divide,  your stories of your endeavors are helping bring us together with people all over the world.  The shared desire to have the information we need to make responsible decisions that benefit us all is what drives us everyday, and late into the night.  These connections that we are making are real, and that is why the results will be too.  Without these divides we wouldn’t have made these connections, and we wouldn’t be a hundredth the resource we will eventually become.  In the end, we couldn’t do this without you and the stories and information that you share, and for that we are thankful for the divides that have brought us all together.

Since I started Botany Buddy and have been writing content for all of our upcoming applications, I have become somewhat addicted to reading all the old print trade magazines as well as blogs.  It seems like one of the hottest topics is and always has been lawns and the use of turf grass in design.  I have seen those that despise turf of any kind, those that don’t mind it as long as it is 100% organic, and those that think declaring your manifest destiny with acres of perfectly manicured turf is a symbol of the American way.  I hate to say it but you all my just be right, because what is actually the right thing to do may be dependent upon the situation you are in.

I always like to take nature as my guide.  Having spent the last five years designing and creating covenants for “sustainable” conservation properties, I have struggled with this dilemma myself and have come of with somewhat of a guide for decision making.  Like with everything else, I use nature as my guide.  If there was no place for grasses in our environment I seriously doubt we would have had the prairies, savannas, and wetlands to begin with.  All three of these situations are nature’s home to grasses, and they have very specific roles in the habitat of our wildlife and ecosystem as a whole.  Other than grazing,  The main roles of grass in all of these situation are erosion control, water filtration, and play.

Erosion control is pretty easy to understand, and there is a reason all best management practices in construction require very stringent seeding or sodding processes.  Once we killed the prairies, the winds blowing across the prairies would create the dust bowl and we learned this lesson the hard way.  Once grasses secure and protect disturbed soil the roots and thatch of the grass naturally convert the exposed subsoil into nutrient rich topsoil.  If you have ever lived in a brand new subdivision you see the emulation of this natural condition for the first ten to twenty years of its existence.  If you have lived and gardened in a 100 year old neighborhood you have enjoyed the benefits of the nice rich soil this process leaves behind.  Even in the woods, the herbaceous layer of perennials and in some cases grasses serve this same function.  The process of growing, dying back, and returning to the soil is emulated in our own lawn as long as we leave the thatch in place.

The other place grasses are most prevalent are in wetlands and river bottoms.  besides holding up the blooms of the beautiful wildflowers flowers for us to see better, grasses also are a vital filtration device for the water that flows through them.  This can be the same in our yards.  Running your storm water across a lawn is far better for the environment than channeling it in river rock or piping it to a storm water inlet.  Running water across 30 feet of healthy turf can remove 90% of the sediment and pollutants the water carries.  However this only works of you aren’t using even more pollutants to take care of the grass.  If managed responsibly, turf is actually one of the most ecologically friendly ways to manage surface water and drainage.  In the end the damage done poor drainage can be far worse than anything you can do with a lawn.

The final natural use of grassy areas I like to call “Play”.  If you have ever had the chance to see Elk emerge from the forest after an afternoon rain to engage in their courting rituals and graze you know exactly what I am talking about.  The same can be said for buffalo or deer, and it is not unlike watching  my daughter play games in the front lawn with a bunch of her friends.  The need for wide open spaces and battle our sense of claustrophobia is not only natural to us but most other species as well.  No matter how unnatural some can make a lawn look, wide open grassy spaces are very much a vital part of our natural landscape.  Unless a landscape is completely wooded they can look very unnatural without some form of lawn.  I have seen plenty of gardens planted to the gills.   Without a hint of negative space in the form of a meadow or lawn and they can look just as unnatural as a lawn.  Ground covers can provide this effect too, but if they grow lower than weeds it is impossible to keep them healthy and if they are aggressive enough to keep them out they are usually an invasive species.

In short the challenge to designing with lawns isn’t whether or not to do it.  The amount of sunlight and ability of the environment to support grass will determine that.  The challenge is finding the methods of installation and management that get it established quickly, and do more to benefit nature than we do to harm it in the process.  To guide you through these decisions I have put together this summary.  This in not a “How To”.  There will be an app for that.  Think of it as a “why to”…or to not.  I think you will find your answers come naturally and they will do more to help you succeed than any four-step program you buy and your local retailer.

Turf Grass Installation:

If you are looking for a traditional lawn, the two most common methods for installation are sodding and seeding. With soil preparation sodding typically costs from $1.00-$1.25 per square foot.  Seeding Usually Costs $.15 to $.25 per square foot.  However, this is very deceiving when you consider what it takes to achieve establishment.  To get seed to establish into a lawn in a landscape takes an average of 3-4 applications of herbicides, preemergents, and fertilizers per year.  It also usually requires at least one major aeration and renovation if not more, extensive watering, and frequent overseeding.  It also takes more water to establish the seed, and to maintain it in the hottest times of the year because it has less of a root system to support the blades.  This is just for one year, and it actually takes two full years of diligent, chemical ladent maintenance to beat the lifecycle of the weeds.   That is only if your timing is prefect and you don’t miss a beat.  Otherwise it can take longer.

There is no doubt that sod farms water incessantly, and pump tons of chemicals into the soil.  But the space that they pollute is limited.  They will typically get twenty or more harvests out of the same piece of ground.  They also tend to harvest and recylce their water and as a result are becoming more and more conscious of the the nitrogen levels and especially herbicides in it.  Due to the intense methods and irrigation, sod farms also produce a harvest ready turf in six to twelve months vs. two to three years.  This means it takes at the most 1/3 the chemical usage to achieve the desired thickness as it does to seed a lawn.  They are also strictly strictly regulated when it comes to run-off whereas homeowners are some of the biggest polluters with with their fertilizers running off right to the street and into the storm water system with no riparian buffer at all.  Numerous sources can be found to cite that homeowners use 10 times the number of pollutants on their lawns per acre than agriculture does.  This should make us think twice about how responsible we are.

Turf Grass Maintenance:

Mowing: The most environmental damage that results from lawns isn’t from having them, but rather how we take care of them. There are three main things to look at in the care of the lawn, mowing, fertilizing, pest/disease and weed control, and watering.  While treating pests, diseases and weeds directly contributes the most toxins to the soil and water, how you mow and water contributes to most to how much treating you need to do.  There is now greater deterrent to all of these other problems than having a healthy lawn in the first place.  Remember all of these other problems occur when what you trying to grow in the first place is weakened by not being allowed to do what it wants to do naturally.

Almost all turf grasses are bred from naturally occurring varieties that grow between six and twenty-four inches in height.  Now most of them have been bread to have thinner blades and can no longer hold themselves up naturally, but the closer we can allow them to get to that six inches the more they can do to take care of themselves and their space for us.  Other than specialty turfs like zoysia (which set you up for failure anyway), most common turf grasses shouldn’t be mowed shorter than three inches and should be allowed to grow at least two before mowing.  Not only will this make the grass perform better, but it will get tall enough to keep most weeds out, or at least hide them.  Your mower also pollutes, but that is a topic for another blog, hopefully the price of gas is starting to make you aware of that.

Chemical Treatments

Fertilizing: The two most common chemicals applied to lawns are fertilizers and herbicides.  Even organic chemicals, especially fertilizers, can create runoff if over used and pollute our streams.  Chicken manure is organic, and a great fertilizer, but you don’t want you well head next to the chicken house.  The best deterrent is to only use them when absolutely necessary.  Too often people throw down nitrogen every time their lawn looks a little yellow or brown.  Some times it just needs a simple trace mineral like lime or iron, or it just plain needs a break because it is too hot or cold out.  The only times that the need for nitrogen can be very obvious are in spring and fall when the grass is in prime growing season and it is still having problems.  Keeping grass growing in 100 degree temperatures is just as brutal as trying to keep yourself going and sometime we both just need a break.

Herbicides: Weed control is the second biggest polluter in lawn care.  It is also probably the easiest battle to lose.  That is why I recommend not even trying if you don’t have too.  My personal lawn is a mix of fescue, bluegrass and rye, but it also has some oxallis, nutgrass, and clover.  These weeds don’t get large enough to kill out the turf grass, and they provide fodder for the rabbits that keeps them out of my veggie patch.  When they go dormant in the fall, their thatch also creates a nice medium for overseeding the fescue that is slowly choking them out.   If you do have to treat something, only spot treat it, and only bother with things that can actually get big enough to kill out your grass or is a seriously invasive species like honeysuckle or crown vetch.

Pesticides and Fungicides: Aren’t used as often as other chemicals but can be just as dangerous to the water supply and wildlife even in smaller quantities.  Once again the question here is why bother.  Yes grubs will bring moles that tear up your yard, but grubs prefer clay and the moles help aerate and break it down.  Grubs also provide food for wildlife like wild turkeys and robins.  Treating fungus can slow down the organic processes needed to actually let your lawn and soil improve by itself, and the pesticides can kill the worms that provide the best fungicide and aeration of all.  Most of the problems you would treat for in the first place you can’t spot until the damage is done.  It is easily repaired with over seeding in the fall, and most disease and insect problems will usually run a natural course and disappear within a year.  In the end preventative treatments can do far more damage to your soil than the actual problems you are treating for, so think twice before applying or don’t apply at all.

Watering: I recently did a post on watering titled:  Plants Are Like People: Water With Love Even If It’s Tough. All of the same rules I go over there apply to turf.  A healthy turf can’t use more than an inch of precipitation a week, and should never be manually watered more often than once per week.  If you follow the instructions on the previous post you can get away with hardly watering at all.  We just came off of one of the worst droughts in the history of the Southeast, and in those years I never had to water my lawn more than once a month during the summer because I used the deep fall and winter  watering described in the previous post.  Also the taller you let your grass get the deeper the roots will grow.  If the roots are three inches deep, and you have watered deep enough to reach all the roots, you should be able to go three weeks without watering.  There are some common sense things you should do to prevent runoff like not watering the street or your driveway, but nothing is better for the environment than eliminating the need to water at all.

To wrap things up, lawns represent a vital part of our natural ecosystem.  They serve functions that are vital to wildlife and nature as well as our nature as human beings.  As long as we take nature’s cues on when to use them and don’t try to grow them where they don’t belong or want to be there is nothing unnatural about them at all.  What is unnatural is what we have been doing to them.

There is a dirty little secret in the gardening business that there are three things someone will spend 500 times what they spent on the plant on the supplies to grow them:  tomatoes, roses, and grass.  Next time you are in a garden center or big box store, look around and see what they have dedicated their space to.  Successful gardening is about getting plants to grow for us so we can focus on finding, growing and new plants.  If a lawn doesn’t do more to take care of the space it occupies either you are doing too much for it, or it shouldn’t be there in the first place.  There are natural uses and needs for lawns, we just have to take nature’s cues and think naturally about what we do with them.

The Morality of Sustainability

I have to admit I have had this one in the hopper for some time now.  I have been preparing and wanting to write this post for a long time, but it was a commenter on Sustaining Sustainability that finally prompting me to flush it out.  We all hear people talk about what they can do to live sustainably almost every single day.  There are no shortages of arguments and evidence for how it can save us all money, and there are plenty of people learning how to make money at it.  Finding empirical evidence as to the benefits of living sustainably is as easy as finding options in the cereal aisle at the local grocery.  I constantly hear people profess all the ways we can benefit personally from helping the Earth.  What I do not hear are cogent moral arguments for why this is the right thing to do, and why as inhabitants of this earth we have a moral obligation to protect and respect everything that is a part of it.

Unfortunately the only moral arguments I hear about sustainability are actually against it.  Time and again I hear that as part of this planet we (humans) are nature too, and that our consumption of any resource on it is a natural act.  I recently even heard a Senator say that he would not support any climate change legislation until we have used every ounce of coal and drop of oil that “God has given us to use”.  I am not going to make this a discussion about the theology of predetermination vs. systematic theology (living in Christ’s image), but I do find it hard to believe that if God created us in his image he would want us to plunder and destroy the earth.  After all he doesn’t.  Beyond being part of nature as a species we have things inherit in our nature that make environmental responsibility a moral obligation.  Consider what I am about to layout to be “An Ontological Argument for a Morality of Sustainability”

An Ontological Argument For a Morality of Sustainability

Everything on this planet has an inner essence. Even physical “non living” being, such as coal, has an inner essence that allows us to identify it even if it changes form.  I can look at five pieces of coal and know that they are coal.  I can crush that coal to the point that those five pieces are no longer identifiable, but still look at that pile and know that it is coal.  The inner presence of a being is that allows others to identify it for what it is through many phases and forms of its life is the essence.

Every living being on this planet has a soul. Living beings have an essence just like physical ones, but they also have a presence beyond that which exudes their liveliness on other beings even though the physiological actions that carryout this life cannot be seen.  When I see an Oak I know that it is alive.  When I see an Oak that is alive, I can sense its life even though I cannot see the photosynthesis occurring or the transpiration from the leaves.  It exudes something beyond that essence which is its soul.  The soul also projects its presence in various forms of instincts or consciousness that beings carry out in living to ensure their survival.  The final evidence of the soul is the continued presence of essence after the soul has left and life has ceased.  Once that Oak is dead, I still know it as an Oak, and even as a specific Oak, but I can also sense that the life (or soul) is gone, and the evidence of its absence and remaining essence is further proof of the soul’s previous existence.

Everything with a soul has varying levels of consciousness and self-consciousness. Every living being has an awareness of what it has to do to survive and reacts to its surroundings.  This may be instinctual, but also may progress to various levels of will.  In any form it implies a sense of self being.   I do not believe my grass can feel it when I mow, but it does have natural instincts to guide its reaction to my mowing, and has natural instincts to seek out water for its survival.  I believe full well my dogs are capable of feeling remorse, loneliness, fear, pain and love.  I also believe they can sense it in others, particularly myself.  I do not however believe they can empathize it.  However, though my dog can sense my remorse and feel pain itself, it cannot feel my pain.

When a being’s soul progresses from being conscious of itself and surroundings to empathizing with another it develops conscience. We as a species empirically know that we can extend our consciousness to the point of feeling what other people feel, and actively seek to do so.  When the ones that we love hurt, we hurt.  When ones that we do not even know hurt and we see the cause as unjust, we hurt.  This is the ability to empathize.  There has been speculation that other primates may have this ability, but as far as we can know for sure, we are the only species whose soul progresses from the point of consciousness to conscience.

With conscience comes responsibility. As human beings our ability to empathize combined with our free will gives us a moral awareness that requires us to take responsibility for our actions.  We have an inherit sense of right and wrong. We can rationalize our way around it, but in the end right and wrong and our ability to discern it remains.  This is the foundation of morality, and with this ability comes the responsibility act within those parameters.

The morality of sustainability is rooted in our ability to empathize with other beings. Morality is not possible unless you can make that leap into another’s heart.  This ability to empathize gives us a unique ability and responsibility to act in ways that protect and respect the essence and souls of other beings.  Sustainability is rooted not in how to get the most from our resources, but our moral responsibility to protect and respect the essences of every being, their role in our ecosystem, and the ecosystem itself as a living being.  If we can empathize we have responsibility inherit in our ability to sense morality.

As beings of conscience not only do we have the ability to sense and empathize with the essence and souls of other beings, but it also gives us the ability to make decisions that knowingly destroy and harm them and in turn the environment as a whole.  No matter how much we try to rationalize it, this wrong.  Being moral beings we need to be able to own that awareness and take responsibility for it.  As moral beings we have a responsibility to recognize and protect the essence of the earth and its beings in everything that we do.

To make the claim that it part of nature to exploit the Earth and its resources without protecting its essence is morally wrong.  We may have the right in the legal sense within the laws of man.  But it is not right in the moral order of our being.  Our nature as moral beings requires us to make morally responsible decisions not just ones that we can rationalize.  The ability to rationalize allows us to make moral decisions, but it also allows for immoral ones as well for you can not know one without the other.

In the end living sustainably is not about how protecting the earth benefits us as a species, but that it is in our nature as moral beings, and a failure to live this way is not only immoral, but unnatural.

When Americans think of endangered species we rarely think of trees.  We think of birds such as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker or Spotted Owl, or maybe some fragile flower, crustacean or reptile.  Even more familiar to most Americans are the animals that we have hunted and caused the demise of ourselves, such as buffalo, wolves and bears.  All three of those we have tried to right our wrongs and reintroduced into their native habitat.  Hopefully we have made those efforts because it was the right thing to do.  Maybe it is just because we were able to see the damage we had done by no longer being able to reap the rewards of what we were destroying.

As people look at non-hunted species, sometimes they don’t see personal responsibility because they don’t kill them with their own hands.  Sometimes people don’t realize that something else they are reaping may be what is causing the devastation to something that seems unrelated to them.  Groups got really upset when people tried to protect the spotted owl by protecting the forests they inhabit.  The argument what that individuals had a right to profit from the forests, and the trees that gave a home to the owls were needed to make a living.  However while everyone focused on man vs. owl, they missed the forest for the trees.  No one realized that before they were done arguing that debate the trees that provided that habitat would endangered as well, making both the man and the owl lose.  Sometimes we have to realize that just because we have right to do something it isn’t necessarily the right thing to do.

The following is a list of American trees that have lost over 95% of their native habitat and are now considered endangered.  These trees are actually being produced more in commercial production now than they are reproducing in their natural habitat.  I wanted to bring this list to light not just to highlight some amazing trees.  I wanted to highlight how they have gotten to the situation they are in, and the importance every being has to one another when it comes to sustainability.  

Castanaea dentata (American Chestnut):  This tree is one of the most known stories of  eco-catastrophe in our countries history.  The Chestnut was the most coveted of all lumbers in the early part of the 1900’s.  As a result was the clear-cutting of almost all of the Southern Appalachians.  The practices were horrid, and reminiscent of a scene from a slaughter house, but of trees.  Lumber that wasn’t seen as fit to mill was left in place leaving entire mountains looking like salvage yards.  Stumps were left in place, and all of the ground vegetation was smothered under the debris.  Erosion was rampant, and as a result these wastelands became a breeding ground for what would become the Chestnut blight.  Species such as the black bear were almost completely lost, deer populations dissipated, and without the nuts to forage or forest to find protection from hunters Elk eventually disappeared.

Today you can still find a few old growth American Chestnuts hiding away, but for the most part they have disappeared.  They are definitely no longer a force in an ecosystem they once ruled.  You can find sprouts coming up as under growth in poplar/oak forests, but the blight usually sets in once they reach about 2″ in caliper.  This tree was once a staple of the forest.  Its nuts fed almost every creature that roamed the forest floor, including humans.  Today it is just trying to regain a footing.  There are active breeding program at Universities throughout the Southeast trying to develop disease resistant varieties, but for now it remains on the brink. 

Ulmus americana (American Elm):  In the first half of the 1900’s this tree was the most common street tree in the United States.  It’s arching branches formed cathedral ceilings over almost every street in every city.  It become an icon of American urbanism and the America Beautiful movement.  It fell victim not to greed of harvesting, or destruction of its environment, because this tree grew anywhere.  Rather it fell victim to careless breeding and commercialization that weakened the species.  While Chinese and European varieties were being imported for breeding to create fancy bark or brighter fall color, no one realized that they were weakening the species and importing a deadly disease that would bring the native species to its knees. 

Today, on very rare occasions you will find an old native specimen, but almost always it will be diseased.  For the most part this species is kept going in nurseries where young shoots are maintained as seed stock only to be hybridized with other varieties.  Many of these hybridized varieties are wonderful and are contributing to the urban landscape in a positive way.  Still, long lost, or at least hiding like a hermit in the remote corners of woods, is the majestic tree that once symbolized the industrial revolution, and the America Beautiful movement.

Pinus palustris (Longleaf Pine / Southern Yellow Pine):  The Longleaf pine was on of the signature trees of Southeast coastal regions.  This tree is very unique in that for the first eight years of its life it grows like a fireproof grass with no trunk elongation.   Then it shoots up and it sensitive to burns, but once it reaches about 10′ it becomes fire proof again and soars to heights of up to 100′.  This burning process is crucial to its reproduction and the culling of healthy forests.  The lush wild look this process creates was the image that was burned into the minds of explorers when the new world was being discovered.  The unique habit created by the juvenile plants provide habitat to all sorts of foul and wildlife and as their habitat has become endangered so have some of them.  Red-cockaded woodpeckers and indigo snakes are most at risk, but tourtouses are in line right behind them.

The fate of this tree has been doomed by two demands.  First and foremost the lumber industry.  Only a small percentage of these trees make it from the grass stage, which is most prevalent, to the full grown tree form and mature species have been harvested at an unsustainable rate.  Secondly it has suffered from development.  Its native habitat starts at the first dry ground rising from coastal marshes and rises up to about 600′ in elevation.  These are the prime development lands in coastal areas and as a result the first habitat taken to build homes and resorts.  What is not built is often cleared for agriculture.   The development has also led to fire control, and disrupted the natural growth and reproductive cycles of the species.  One final negative effect on the ecosystem is that these habitats were the primary riparian buffer for water coming off of the Southern Appalachian and Ozark mountains.  Along with their removal came the disappearance of lower level cold water streams, the silting and swamping of what were once fast moving rivers, and a host of other problems.

Quercus virginiana (Southern Live Oak):  Yes, this tree is the one we have embedded in our heads from movies like Gone With the Wind, and every other great southern movie or novel.  As we see them in all the urban settings and plantation gardens you would not think something this majestic could be in any sort of danger.  The Spanish soss and fern growing on its branches make it look as thought this species is drooping from the weight or its virility.  However, in its native habitat it is almost gone.  The boggy soil and forests of the deltas where it thrived have mostly been drained for drilling, sugar cane, and development.  These trees made up the buffers that used to protect New Orleans from the onslaught of hurricanes.  There ability to be uprooted and fall apart but continue to grow in the loamy soil that was once its home was the constant stability that held the delta together.  Now their native habitat is down to a few remaining national and state controlled forests.  Of course other species have been impacted, but the most famous impact was the damage from Katrina that was exasperated without the natural buffers these trees created to protect it.

Tsuga hetrophylla (Western Hemlock) & Tsuga caroliniana (Carolina Hemlock):  Both of these trees have suffered similar fates.  Both are the victims of over logging.  Unfortunately both were thought to be invincible as they grew like the Red Cedars of the Midwest on either coast.  In the East the Carolina Hemlock was hardly ever used for lumber,  They were usually casualties of careless Chestnut and Oak harvest and turned into pulp or used for fuel.  By the time the species was decimated people had realized it was a beautiful lumber and turned to the bountiful west coast for the Western Hemlock in its place.  Neither were able to come back as fast as they were being harvested and as a result the faster growing Tsuga canadensis (Canadian Hemlock) and various Pines have taken their respective places.

This has greatly changed the ecosystem of the forests elimating wildflowers and other shade tolerant plants that don’t tolerate the heavier shade of the pines.  Also, these native varieties could fully develop as smaller sized trees in the shade of canopy trees.  Whereas the Canadian Hemlock can grow in the shade but is naturally inclined to become more of a canopy tree.  The Canadian version is also more prone to the woolly adelgid do to the flat placement of the needles compared to the rounder needle placement of the native varieties.  Now the adelgid has set in, the Canadian Hemlock is dying at rates comparable to those of the Chestnut blight casualties.  This has forever changed the ecosystem of all the warmer climate mountain forests where the adelgid thrives.  Since the Hemlock also likes moist soils its decline is also increasing the light on mountain streams destroying native trout and salmonid habitat. 

Picea sitchensis(Sitka Spruce):  Another victim of logging, this species is also succumbing to the woolly adelgid.  One of the more tragic consequences of this parable is that this tree is the home to the endangered Spotted Owl.  When the fight over protecting the owl versus the right to harvest came to a head the harvest rate increased dramatically as it turned into a race to see how much people could harvest as while they still could.  As timber containing adelgid infested lumber moves up and down the highways it just spreads it even more.   In the end both the owl and the loggers are losing out as they are losing the tree they both covet so much.

Thuja plicata Western Red Cedar:  This tree has been devastated in its native habitat due to logging for pulp.  However, it is thriving and making a surge in cultivation.  As the Hemlocks and Junipers used in landscapes have become  more problematic and disease prone, this tree grows with relative ease.  It struggles to outpace the pines that are moving into the native habitat because the Pines grow larger and shade them out.  While in the landscape people are finding this to be a great native alternative to give the feel of a Canadian Hemlock without the adelgids or chemicals to keep the bugs at bay.  However do to massive logging its natural disbursement patterns have been disrupted permanently and it may never be able to reestablish itself against the more aggressive species taking it’s place.

These trees are just a few that are becoming more and more endangered everyday.  These trees I have chosen mainly because they have been in some way symbolic of American culture, have been a crucial part of the fabric of our forests, and have helped to convey the essence of the places we call home.  The point of this article isn’t just to create awareness of a few trees, but also to make us realize that everything we do effects far more than us.  As humans we have a capability that other species don’t:  to make a conscious decision regarding an other’s fate.

The causes and the impacts I have discussed in this post are far from all that has contributed to or been a consequence of these changes.  However with the ability to determine another being’s fate also comes the moral responsibility to do what is right for everyone and everything, not just ourselves.  Also comes a responsibility to learn as much about the situations, plants, and creatures whose existence we can alter before we make an impact.  Everyone makes mistakes unknowingly, but what determines the greatness of society or individual is how they use their abilities to correct or make amends for those mistakes and how what they use what they have learned moving forward.  Hopefully this will create another ripple in that pool of awareness that we can all pass on.

It’s that time of year again.  I’ve cleaned out the tube bird feeders, hung a couple new suet feeders, and I have already had on ripped down by the bear.  I always like to wait until winter is really coming to start feeding.  Primarily because I like to let the birds “Free Range” on wild flower seeds and the summer fruits and berries in the garden.  I like the thought of them helping with the natural cycle of scarifying and dispersing the seeds the way nature intended.  I also like not having the bears visit everyday, especially with my daughter playing outside by herself all summer.  This is a luxury we have living on a rural mountainside that we didn’t have on an urban street corner.  Not that the bears are the threat that some of our neighbors were.  They are more akin to urban raccoons that scavenge their way around on garbage day and pilfer your bird feeders.

Being in a natural setting is a blessing in so many ways, but one of the greatest is the flora for the fauna that already exists naturally. There are hoards of native shrubs that adorn our woods and one of the reasons is that the birds love them so much and help to spread their seed.  This time of year really makes me appreciate where we are, but it also reminds me of our urban garden where we worked to bring native varieties into the garden to bring the birds with them.  One of our prouder moments was when are daughter chose “peepepper” as one of her first words.  He was the first neighbor we got to know on the mountain.  He lived in the four story highrise in the woods next door that largely resembles a dead white pine.  Of course his name eventually evolved to woodpecker, and now she boast a better knowledge of the neighbirds than myself.  Of course this started with books, but my wife’s iBird app has helped as well.

So as I see the return of the flocks, I have been wanting to spread the joy of the season and share a list of plants that would help bring some good neighbirds to you.  I am going to limit this list to natives that transfer well to an urban setting.  However, there are plenty of hybrids and commercial varieties that do the job too.  I thought I would start here because I like to save those varieties for places where natives just won’t grow.  Going native first is one of the first rules of sustainability.  What I have chosen are the five palnt families (Genus) with the widest selection of bird friendly varieties I could find.  This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should give you a great place to start with your plant and bird searches. 

Pinus (Pine):  There are dozens of native pines that make great trees for birds.  Pinus Strobus (Eastern White Pine) is the most commonly planted in the United States, but for smaller varieties in residential gardens some other native options include Pinus aristata (Bristlecone Pine), Pinus banksiana (Jack Pine),  Pinus Bugeana (Lacebark Pine), Pinus Resinosa (Red Pine), and Pinus monophylla (Pinyon Pine).  These pines are all more moderate in size than the White Pine, but still maintain a natural feel in a formal landscape.  This makes them ideal for urban or residential situations. 

Pines provide food for birds  in a variety of ways.  The cones of pines open to release as many as 12,000 seeds per pound, usually in winter when the other smaller seeds of wildflowers have been eaten.  The bark also harbors lots of insects that make it a favorite for woodpeckers. As the interior branches shed they provide copious amounts of small twigs and needles to build nests, and their evergreen needles provide protections from the cold winter winds.

Juniperus (Juniper):  Juniperus communis (Common Juniper), Juniperus monosperma (Oneseed Juniper), Juniperus occidentalis (Western Juniper), Juniperus scopularum (Rocky Mountain Juniper) and Juniperus virginiana (Eastern Red Cedar) are the most common native varieties in the continental United States.  Between these five you can find a native Juniper almost anywhere in North America.  All of these varieties have been cultivated into varieties for landscape use that can be safely used without worrying about reseeding invasive offspring.  If seed stock does emerge it will come out as one of the native varieties.  There are some hybridized varieties that could revert to something else, so if trying to stay native stick to cultivated or native varieties only.  

Junipers produce berries throughout summer, winter, and fall that provide a great source of food.  They also have a nice evergreen shell that provides protection from the wind.  Junipers provide great cover from prey. As the growth on the interior of the plant sheds it dries and stays in place becoming extremely prickly.  This makes it less desirable for thin furred animals such opossum and weasels to come after the nests.

Viburnums:  Viburnums are a favorite of landscape designers because they are extremely hardy  They also produce nice flowers, foliage and berries and provide some great fall color.  Some are even evergreen, and the flowers are often extremely fragrant.  However, they are usually somewhat of an unknown to beginning gardeners or casual retail nursery shoppers.  Native species include Viburnum dentatum (Chicago Luster Viburnum), Viburnum prunifolium (Blackhaw Viburnum), Viburnum rufidulum (Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum), and Viburnum trilobum (American Cranberry Viburnum),  All of these plants have abundant flowers and berries and can be kept as large shrubs or small trees in any landscape.  The birds love them for the berries and their height is achieved with fairly small horizontal branches that are great for perching but don’t hold the weight of predators making them a nice place for birds to hang out.  There are also many cultivated and hybridized non-native varieties that are not invasive.  If for some reason a native option doesn’t work for you, I would not hesitate to explore those options.

Cornus (Dogwood):  Everyone thinks of Dogwoods as the spring flowering tree, however they also come in some naturalizing and shrub forms as well.  Cornus florida (Flowering Dogwood) is a sentimental favorite for gardeners with the pink and white flowers at Easterand red berries in the fall.  However Cornus racemosa (Gray Dogwood) makes a great naturalizing thicket of about 12-15 feet and produces a nice white flower in May and June and a waxy white berry birds love.  Other varieties include Cornus alternifolia (Pagoda Dogwood), Cornus drummundii (Rough-leaved Dogwood), Cornus nuttallii (Pacific Dogwood), and Cornus sericea (Red Twig Dogwood).  The Rough-leaved and Red Twig Dogwoods provide a shrub form and the red twigs provide great winter interest.  All of these plants have wonderful landscape value, as well as make great naturalizers.  They all have reliable berries for the birds, provide nesting habitat, and add aesthetic value to add to any garden.

Prunus (Cherry):  The Prunus (Cherry) family covers more than the cherries we eat or the flowering trees we see in spring.  There several shrub forms and not as showy trees that can add subtle accents to the landscape, as well as habitat and fodder for birds.  Prunus virginiana (Chokecherry) comes in several forms and varieties and is a great alternative to some of the hybrid and grafted tree-form varieties.  Prunus caroliniana (Carolina Cherrylaurel) and its Asian counterpart Prunus lauroceasus (Cherry Laurel) make great evergreen shrubs, providing both protection and berries as well as a nice evergreen foliage for the landscape.  Prunuis subhirtella (Weeping cherry) is a nice pink flowering native that drops small berries mid summer. Prunus besseyi (Sand Cherry) is a great naturalizing shrub with small white flowers and black berries that are low enough to provide fodder for foraging birds like pheasant and turkey.  Finally, Prunus americana (Wild Plum) is probably one of the most common fruit bearing trees and can be found in almost all states east of the Rockies.  Of course there are other varieties as well, but as a family, Prunus may provide more food for the birds this continent than any other plant family.

There are countless other plants and plant families that I could include in this list, and look for more to come.  For now, these families provide the most variety in terms of native trees and shrubs to bring in birds, and they adapt well to the urban and residential landscape.  All of these plants look great, when used in the right place at the right time.  But when it comes down to it nothing brings out the beauty of a plant better than when it gets to do what it was born to do….be a part of nature. 

Of course, all of the trees and shrubs profiled in this post may be found in Botany Buddy’s Tree and Shrub Finder for the iPhone and iPod Touch.