Hello all! Are you ready to kick off the 2022 #nativeplantsseries?
We'll have our first post tomorrow, but I wanted to have a quick review of why planting native plants is important. If you've been following me for any length of time, you know I promote the use of native plants in my landscape design plans. If you haven't thought about it before, you may wonder why this is important. I could throw a bunch of facts at you about the number of birds that have disappeared in the last 30or 40 years, the number of insects, especially bees, that are declining, but I actually don't want to look those up right now. Basically, wildlife cannot exist without the native plants that they have evolved with. Plants convert energy from the sun into food, the base of the food chain for all life on Earth. Insects eat plants and all other wildlife eats the insects or something that has eaten an insect. Many insects have only a few plants that they're capable of eating, and they generally cannot eat plants that come from somewhere else. You may be surprised by where the plants in your landscape originated. I suggest you look up a few, if you don't know. There are plenty of other reasons to plant native plants, but this is MY primary motivation. Since we're trying to support local South Central PA wildlife, I have tried my best to focus on local South Central PA native plants, although many of these have a wide distribution. If you have any questions, check out my saved story highlights on native plants (check out the one on invasive plants while you're there!), or ask your question below!