Ecologist speaks on native plant importance
Author Doug Tallamy is bringing his message for a “Homegrown National Park” to Mississippi this week. Tallamy is headlining the Mississippi Master Gardener’s State Conference May 1-3 at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi. He will also speak in Hattiesburg at the University of Southern Mississippi Friday night.
Other speakers at the master gardener’s event on the coast includes: Felder Rushing, the Gestalt Gardener; Martha Whitney-Butler, The French Potager; James M. DelPrince, a horticulturalist with Mississippi State University; Aaron-Lynn Vogel, facilities director at the Mississippi aquarium and many more.
Events in Biloxi as well as in Hattiesburg are open to the public.
Tallamy is not new to Mississippi. The ecologist has attended the annual hummingbird festival in Holly Springs on several occasions and has spoken at Mississippi State in the past. He has been spreading the word about the benefits of native plants to gardeners and nature enthusiasts for more than 30 years. Tallamy is author of four books, including “Bringing Nature Home” and has initiated his “Homegrown National Park” project to encourage homeowners to plant native species for pollinators and other wildlife.
Native plants are species that occur naturally in an environment. Because these plants thrive without interference, they are incredibly hardy and low maintenance. That also makes the easy-tocare-for plants a good choice for beginning gardeners. They don’t require a lot of care to grow successfully.
He will first speak at The Digging It on The Coast event Thursday afternoon and then again on Friday morning before traveling to Hattiesburg. On Saturday, there will also be a panel discussion that will include native plant specialist Robert Ballard of New Albany’s Camp Creek Native.
Tallamy, who will speak on the topic “Nature’s Best Hope”, is a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware.
“The message is that you are nature’s best hope,” Tallamy told the Clarion Ledger. “We have a biodiversity crisis and have lost 3 billion breeding birds in the last 50 years. We have a global insect decline and our ecosystems are collapsing. Once of the reasons for that is that we, as humans, don’t share our spaces with nature.”
His message is small changes to our backyard landscapes, like planting more oak trees, make a big impact on habitat for native wildlife. Tallamy writes in detail about the impact of oak trees in his book, The Nature of Oaks.
“You can do that by choosing the right plants,” he said. “The reason everyone is responsible is that everyone needs nature. Everyone needs functioning ecosystems for life support. Living in a way that kills nature is not going to help us.”
3 easy ways to make your yard nature friendly
Tallamy has three suggestions for normal folks to help in the process.
1 Reduce lawn area: Tallamy said there is 40 million acres of lawns in the United States, which is an area larger than New England. “Reducing the amount of lawn and replacing it with the native plants that do support nature,” he said.
2 Add an oak tree: He said that after adding an oak, put a bed of other native plants underneath it.
3 Attract pollinators: Bees and other pollinators are in trouble. So, do your best to add plants, particularly native plants, that provide for pollinators.
One other tip he gave is to change outdoor lights to yellow lights instead of white lights.
“Light pollution is a major factor in killing off our insects,” he said.
Finding native plants
“It’s really a business opportunity,” he said. “More people are recognizing that and are having more native plants on hand. If they don’t, ask you local people to get them. If they won’t, don’t shop with those people. They will get the message.”
A few plant nurseries in Mississippi
If you go
If you would like to see Tallamy speak in Biloxi, contact the Mississippi Master Gardener’s Association State Conference.
For more information on the events in Hattiesburg, contact USM. specialize in natives like Robert Ballard’s Camp Creek Natives. He says that Tallamy is really helping to leady the way for a more reasonable approach to home lawn care.
“His first book was really so important, because it put into laymen’s terms so that the average home gardener can understand what is going on with their actual home ecology,” Ballard said. “Anyone can pick up the book and understand how important our native plants are for us. His book made the light bulb go off for a lot of gardeners.”
Now, Ballard has one of the few native plant nurseries.
“We are probably the largest grower of native plants within about 300 miles of New Albany,” Ballard said. “Missouri does have a great place for natives, but for Mississippi, I consider us to be ground zero for native plants. We have more than 400 different species that we are introducing to people. We are doing the best we can to teach and educate people and trying to get these plants back into the hands of local gardeners.”
Both Tallamy and Ballard suggested Black-eyed Susan as an easy to get native for the area.
Ross Reily can be reached by email at rreily@gannett.com or 601-573-2952. You can follow him on Twitter @GreenOkra1.