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Why We Champion Native Plants In Landscape Design

Mar.17, 2011

All good landscape design employs a combination of art and science to create beautiful, functional, outdoor spaces for human use and enjoyment using living plants, landforms, and “hardscape” elements such as walks, drives, decks, water features, boulders, statuary, and the like.  But not all landscape designers are the same.

With the staggering loss of biodiversity globally, we have made the conscious decision not to make a bad situation worse by continuing to displace native species with aliens out of habit.    American history, for the most part, is about people preoccupied with carving a place out of the wilderness, and they considered exotic plants to be a symbol of their success.  Native plants have always been beautiful, but until very recently the greatest challenge to using natives in landscape design was that they simply weren’t available in commercial quantities.  Fortunately there is an ever increasing list of native trees, shrubs, flowering plants and ornamental grasses available from nature-loving specialist growers, nurseries, and tree farms so that we no longer have to continue to do the same old thing just because of a lack of availability.

There are several ways you can incorporate natives into your landscape design.  The simplest is to “naturalize” your existing landscape by adding  wildflower, butterfly or rain gardens within the context of your existing design, or by replacing part or all of your existing landscape materials with native plants.  Next in order of complexity would be designing a completely new “traditional” naturalized landscape using native material, or a blend of native and non-native materials.  This is also a great option for new construction where you may have a blank slate.

While they aren’t for everyone, for the ultimate in sustainable landscaping we will work with you to design a native landscape, a landscape that is accurate for your particular site using native plants and materials in associations found in nature within the context of regionally appropriate landforms.  A landscape that functions ecologically as nature intended.  Surf over to our native landscape page to learn more about this exciting alternative to traditional landscapes!

We can also help you  by developing management plans to restore degraded natural areas, improve wildlife habitat, control invasive, alien, plant species, or maintain healthy natural areas.

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Phenology ~ The Four Seasons

Jun.02, 2010

Our planet, Earth, has had variations in the amount and location of sunlight falling upon it since it began swirling around the sun at the beginning of our solar system.  Early life forms probably needed to live in tropical conditions where the climate was pretty constant and water was a liquid all of the time.

Once life got a toe-hold here bacteria, plants and critters of all sorts began adapting to survive in places different from the one they were currently living in to take advantage of new resources and lack of competition, even if the climatic conditions weren’t as uniform as life in the tropical regions.  These organisms slowly developed adaptations to  allow them to survive in drier conditions, colder conditions, darker conditions, and wildly varying conditions caused by the changing seasons until we have the rich crazy quilt of life we see around us now.   Fortunately for us the seasons are more or less predictable and serve as a natural calendar to which everything from plants to people have adapted.  All life on earth, whether aware of it or not, follows these cycles that have come to rely on them.  As Pete Seeger (borrowing from Ecclesiastes)  wrote,

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven.

Today this natural calendar is called a “Phenology.” and is one of the tools landscape designers spend a lot of time studying (and worrying about!) in order to provide our clients with landscapes that have that vaunted “four season interest.”

Phenology is the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate. The word is derived from the Greek phainomai ( to appear, come into view) and indicates that phenology has been principally concerned with the dates of first occurrence of biological events in their annual cycle. Examples include the date of emergence of leaves and flowers, the first flight of butterflies and the first appearance of migratory birds, the date of leaf colouring and fall in deciduous trees, the dates of egg-laying of birds and amphibia, or the timing of the developmental cycles of temperate-zone honey bee colonies. In the scientific literature on ecology, the term is used more generally to indicate the time frame for any seasonal biological phenomena, including the dates of last appearance (e.g., the seasonal phenology of a species may be from April through September).

Because many such phenomena are very sensitive to small variations in climate, especially to temperature, phenological records can be a useful proxy for temperature in historical climatology, especially in the study of climate change and global warming. For example, viticultural records of grape harvests in Europe have been used to reconstruct a record of summer growing season temperatures going back more than 500 years. In addition to providing a longer historical baseline than instrumental measurements, phenological observations also provides high temporal resolution of ongoing changes related to global warming.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Follow the links below to phenology studies being done by “citizen scientists” in North America and Europe.  Lots of great photography and information!

Filed Under: Landscape Design, Nature, Seasons
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Great Lakes Environmental Education

Mar.18, 2011

In the mid-1980′s I was a naturalist at Huron Clinton Metropark’s Kensington Nature Center, in Oakland County, MI. I averaged 300 public programs a year, with the majority of those school programs at the park or in schools. There were 4 of us at Kensington and roughly the same number at the other large metroparks.  In the ’80′s we still had bus-loads of students coming to the park throughout the school year.

Today many school districts can no longer afford to run buses at all, let alone for field trips. Here in Michigan we have specific, arbitrary standards for what children MUST learn in order for the schools and teachers get a passing mark, and I don’t believe that Environmental Education (EE) is high on the list.

These are very real issues which are impediments to expanding EE.  Still, expand it we must because we are raising generations of environmentally ignorant citizens, and the ramifications surround us and are lowering the quality of life for people on a global scale.   How is the problem.

Can we afford to spend more on EE and environmental interpretation when money is so scarce? I would suggest that we can’t afford not to spend money on them if we ever want the pot to grow bigger. Until we have an educated citizenry we’ll never be able to begin to address the looming environmental issues facing the Great Lakes in particular and our global environment generally.

I think it would be great if EVERY Great Lakes restoration project had a component of public education in it, maybe even have teachers on the project teams. Doing so would add the obvious benefits of capturing current work on the Great Lakes (And current is always more interesting.) and engaging a much broader community in these restoration projects.  Such an effort would have to be well planned and developed by folks who knew what the heck they were doing in order to avoid wasting those scarce dollars, but the opportunities for partnerships with school districts and universities to create the new curricula we need is vast. It would need to be addressed to K-12 grades, and university students, and it would have to be repeatable for other schools all across the watershed. Ideally all educational materials would be collected and available through one highly organized, amazingly interesting and outrageously fun internet site that was built for teachers and provided help and support for those teachers to be able to integrate EE into their lesson plans easily. Because we all know that if it isn’t easy it isn’t going to happen. Teachers, like all of us, are way too busy to be able to hunt through long lists of stuff, no matter how good it is.  And it should use current technology, not old technology (though there could certainly be overlap). Like developing units that can be presented with interactive white boards so that students can become really engaged and enthused. The world doesn’t need another coloring book.

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2010 – 2011 Holiday Card

Feb.16, 2011

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REVEALING SECRETS ABOUT ~ the birds and the bees

Jul.05, 2010

This fact sheet  is part  of a series of materials  on
ecosystem services available through the Ecological
Society of America and  the Union of Concerned Scientists’

POLLINATION: An Essential Ecosystem  Service

Our Future Depends on  Pollination

•   Many people think only of allergies when they hear the word pollen. But pollination—the transfer of pollen grains to fertilize the ovaries of flowers— is an essential part of a healthy ecosystem. While some plants are self-pollinated or wind-pollinated, most flowering plants require help from pollinators to produce fruit and seed.

•   Pollinators come in all shapes and sizes. Over 100,000 invertebrate species—such as bees, moths, butterflies, beetles, and flies—serve as pollinators worldwide. At least 1,035 species of vertebrates, including birds, mammals, and reptiles, also pollinate many plant species.

•   Pollinators play a significant role in the production of more than 150 food crops in the United States — from almonds, apples and alfalfa, to melons, plums, and squash. Almost all fruit and grain crops require pollination to produce their crop.

Valuation of Pollination Services

•   In Alabama, a single southeastern blueberry bee pollinates approximately $75 worth of berries by visiting nearly 50,000 blueberry flowers in a year.

•   The most important pollinator for agricultural purposes is the honeybee. One estimate of the annual benefit of managed honeybees to American consumers—when they supplement the services provided by native pollinators—is $1.6 billion. When native pollinators are not available to service crops, the estimated value of managed honeybees rises to $8.3 billion. The benefit of all other pollinators to US agriculture is estimated between $4.1 and $6.7 billion annually.

•   Declines in pollinator activity could have serious economic repercussions throughout the United States. In 1994, for example, honeybee shortages caused by parasites and pesticides forced almond growers in California to import bees from distant states to ensure adequate pollination of their $800 million crop.

Predicting the effects of the loss of a particular pollinator is extremely difficult, but it is important to remember that no species exists in isolation. Each is part of an ecological web, and as we lose more and more pieces of that web, the remaining structure must eventually collapse.
— KEARNS AND INOUYE

Are Pollinators in Decline?

•   Evidence suggests that some populations of pollinators are diminishing. The US Fish and Wildlife Service lists over 50 pollinator species as threatened or endangered, and wild honeybee populations have dropped 25 percent since 1990. Continued declines in pollinator activity could mean rising costs for pollinator-dependent fruits and vegetables and the disruption of entire ecological systems.

•   One of the greatest threats to pollinators is habitat destruction caused by changes in land use. When people convert wild lands for domestic uses the food and nesting requirements of many pollinators are disrupted.

•   Pesticides are also a major threat to insect pollinators, although precautions such as better regulation, avoidance of overspray, and changes in the type and timing of pesticide use can reduce the threat.

•   The number of domestically-managed honeybee colonies in the United States has decreased by 50 percent since 1945. This problem stems largely from pesticides and recently introduced parasites and diseases, but may also be affected by an invasion of Africanized honeybees. The decline highlights the danger of overreliance on a single species, such as the honeybee, for pollination services.

What You Can Do

•   Create your own pollinator-friendly garden using a wide variety of native flowering plants. Encourage the planting of native flowers in open spaces and outside public buildings.

•   Reduce the level of pesticides used in and around your home.

•   Encourage local clubs or school groups to build artificial habitats such as butterfly gardens, bee boards, and bee boxes.

•   Support agriculture enterprises with pollinator-friendly practices such as farms that avoid or minimize pesticide use.

•   Encourage government agencies to take into account the full economic benefits of wild pollinators when formulating policies for agriculture and other land uses. Stress the need to develop tech- niques for cultivating native pollinator species for crop pollination.

•   Bring the importance of biological diversity to the attention of your state and national representatives. Stress that diversity includes beneficial native insects. Be prepared to provide local or regional examples of important species.

•   Support funding for research on pollinators and the economic benefits they provide.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

This fact sheet  is part  of a series of materials  on ecosystem services available through the Ecological Society of America and  the Union of Concerned Scientists’ “Communicating Ecosystem  Services Project.”  For more information about the project, contact:

•      Ecological Society of America, 1707  H Street,  NW, Suite 400, Washington DC 20006; 202-833-8773 • ces@esa.org • esa.sdsc.edu

•      Union of Concerned Scientists, Two Brattle Square, Cambridge, MA 02238; 617-547-5552 • ssi@ucsusa.org • www.ucsusa.org

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WATER PURIFICATION ~ An Essential Ecosystem Service

Jul.05, 2010

*This fact sheet  is part  of a series of materials on ecosystem services
available through the Ecological Society of America and the Union
of Concerned Scientists’ “Communicating Ecosystem  Services Project.”

We All Need Water to Survive

Water Purification is one of the many services provided by ecosystems. Pollutants such as metals, viruses, oils, excess nutrients, and sediment are processed and filtered out as water moves through wetland areas, forests, and riparian zones. This purification process provides clean drinking water and water suitable for industrial uses, recreation, and wildlife habitat.

•   Economic Benefits. The U.S. spends more than $2 billion annually for clean water initiatives. It is much easier to prevent pollution than to clean contaminated water. For example, rather than spend $8 billion on a water treatment facility in New York City, New York State opted to spend $1 billion to restore the watershed that provides the City’s drinking water.

•   Health. Once in water, pathogens that are harmful to humans can be difficult to remove; but natural purification processes can often keep them from even reaching source water. Giardia, an intestinal parasite that is difficult to remove from drinking water sources, occurs in higher concentrations in water receiving urban pollution than water flowing through protected forested watersheds.

•   Eutrophication Reduction. The excessive input of nutrients, eutrophication, is a major cause of fish kills. It accounts for about half of the damaged lake area and 60% of the damaged rivers in the United States.

•   Recreation. More than half of all U.S. adults hunt, fish, bird watch, or photograph wildlife. U.S. fishing related expenditures alone totaled more than $37 billion in 1996. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that up to 43% of threatened and endangered species rely directly or indirectly on wetlands for their survival.

How Natural Water Purification Works

Water purification depends on filtration and absorption by soil particles and living organisms in the water and soil. Human activities that compact soil, contaminate the water or alter the composition of organisms, degrade the purification process and can accelerate movement of unfiltered water through the system and into our water supplies.

• Wetlands. Wetlands can remove 20 to 60% of metals in the water, trap and retain 80 to 90% of sediment from runoff and eliminate 70 to 90% of entering nitrogen. Many types of plants are specially adapted to different kinds of wetlands, and a large percentage of the nation’s imperiled plants and animals depend on wetlands for at least part of their life cycle.

• Riparian Forests. Riparian (stream side) forests act as “living filters” that intercept and absorb sediments, and store and transform excess nutrients and pollutants carried in runoff from adjacent lands. They can reduce the nitrogen concentration in water runoff and flood- water by up to 90%, and can reduce phosphorous by as much as 50%.

• Microorganisms. Microorganisms are the natural chemical engineers of the ecosystem. Bacteria and other organisms utilize or break down nutrients, metals, and other chemical contaminants in the water.

•   Constructed Wetlands. Constructed wetlands mimic some of the filtration power of natural systems. They can be cost efficient for small communities but cannot replace natural wetlands, and may not provide the many other wetland services (such as flood control and fish and wildlife habitat).

Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children’s lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land. — LUNA LEOPOLD

What Obstructs Natural Water Purification?

•   Paved Roads. Paved parking lots, roads, and highways can funnel contaminated water into lakes, streams, rivers, and coastal waters. They accelerate run-off— increasing the threat of flooding. Urban development and sprawl are constant threats to natural wetlands and for- est ecosystems. In 1997, there were 3.9 million miles of paved public roads in the United States.

•   Altered Waterways. When water is diverted for agricultural, industrial, or navigational use, natural aquatic systems may not have enough water for effective purification. In the last 100 years, the world’s fresh- water waterways altered for navigation purposes have increased more than 50 times.

•   Loss of Riparian Areas. The removal of riparian forests for stream side agriculture or impervious surfaces such as roads and parking lots reduces rivers’ and streams’ natural ability to cleanse themselves.

•   Invasive Species. The introduction of exotic species of plants and animals can eliminate native species and alter an aquatic system’s productive capabilities and its ability to cycle nutrients. Florida alone spends an annual $7 million to combat invasive aquatic weeds.

•   Nitrogen Pollution. Excess nitrogen can result in acidification, changes in plant and animal life and loss of biodiversity, decrease in soil fertility, and conversion of nitrogen into forms that can lead to greenhouse gases and smog.

What You Can Do

The key to maintaining the services of water purification is to protect and restore the ecosystems that provide these services.

•   Avoid over fertilizing your lawn and over treating with pesticides.

•   Do not pour pesticides, oil, fertilizers, and other toxic wastes in sewers or drains.

•   Support parks and other natural areas.

•   Volunteer to monitor and clean a waterway and help plant vegetation along waterways.

•   Help to balance human and ecosystem needs for water quality and quantity.

•   Support the protection and restoration of wetland and riparian systems.

•   Support proper planning that considers impacts on waterways as part of all urban, industrial and agricultural development.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

This fact sheet  is part  of a series of materials  on ecosystem services available through the Ecological Society of America and  the Union of Concerned Scientists’ “Communicating Ecosystem  Services Project.”  For more information about the project, contact:

•       Ecological Society of America, 1707  H Street,  NW, Suite 400, Washington DC 20006; 202-833-8773 • ces@esa.org • esa.sdsc.edu

•       Union of Concerned Scientists, Two Brattle Square, Cambridge, MA 02238; 617-547-5552 • ssi@ucsusa.org • www.ucsusa.org

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