The Little Things That Run the World*

First published: The Victoria Naturalist, Vol. 79.5 (March/April 2023); Updated here: July 3, 2023.

Just inside the entrance of the Oak Bay library is an oval book table, with shelves facing out all around, where the library staff put new books, for easy perusing. When I walk in the door I always tour all around the table, looking at the newest titles. Sometimes a book I’ve been hearing about is there, but more often books I’ve never heard of catch my eye. And so it was when I walked in recently and saw a new book, Gardening for Wildlife, by Adrian Thomas (2017). Wildlife and gardening: my favorites! After a quick flip through its pages – text in easy to read boxes and overflowing with lovely photos – I checked it out.

[Please note: this post contains one or more affiliate links where you can purchase the book(s) I mention. If you buy as a result of following a link, I may receive a small commission.]

I was feeling cautious about this book though. At one time I would have unhesitatingly hung on every word, but I’ve been re-inventing my gardening recently and I’ve become sensitive to where I get my advice. This book claims to be “a complete guide to nature-friendly gardening” and prominently displays an RSPB “giving nature a home” logo, suggesting the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds approves. It’s a thoroughly British book.

It’s very pretty, and enthusiasm and love for the topic emanate from every page. It overflows with good ideas for British gardeners. But that’s my hesitation. Lovely as it is, it’s out of place here. We cannot continue gardening as though we live in Britain. If we wish to have a living world around us, with functioning ecosystems that support life, we must change what we’re doing.

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For many years I gardened for butterflies following the advice in books like Create a Butterfly Garden, by L. Hugh Newman (1967) and the “A Butterfly Garden” chapter in Theme Gardens, by Barbara Damrosch (1982). I thought I was helping the world by growing these lovely, flower filled gardens. Numbers of butterflies were never impressive though.

My gardens weren’t sustaining butterfly populations. Only when we moved to Vermont, and were living in the middle of pastures and woods, did I finally find lots of butterflies in my garden. But I was simply drawing butterflies from pre-existing populations into the garden where we could see them.

We always had bees though, far more bees than butterflies, and interesting varieties of wasps too. I marveled, transfixed by the beauty of the iridescent deep-blue wasps with long thread-like waists, using the flowers of the over-my-head lovage growing in our herb garden.

When I heard a radio interview in July of 2014 with Laurence Packer, author of Keeping the Bees (2010), it dawned on me that my gardens were bee gardens first, and butterfly gardens second. Now I claimed to be pollinator gardening. The plants were the same, but I no longer worried so much about butterflies, which were too few, and embraced the joy of wild bees.

Then came the coup de grace. I learned of the work of Douglas Tallamy, a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware. I had always ignored the idea of gardening with native plants because I thought what I was doing already was beneficial. But when I heard about Tallamy’s work I was struck dumb.

In a YouTube video of a presentation given to a community group, Professor Tallamy described how many species of caterpillars are supported by native plants compared with non-native plants. He put the numbers into perspective by discussing the ability of song birds to rear young, which requires caterpillars, lots of caterpillars. Tallamy explained that over eons native plants and native insects have developed in tandem, in the arms race of plants developing defensive chemicals and insects developing ways to overcome those defenses.

Non-native plants, however, have different chemical defenses, developed in their own native settings, in tandem with their own insect predators. Insects here can’t eat the plants from over there. I was filled with horror.

I am familiar with plants having secondary compounds, chemicals that deter those who eat them. I have a wildlife degree. I have worked as an ecologist. I thought I was ecologically aware. But still I was blind to the obvious.

The gardens I had been cultivating for more than three decades were not beneficial. When I learned that our native oak trees, and poplars, and willows, and birches, support hundreds of species of caterpillars, whereas most of the non-native, horticultural varieties of trees support many fewer, I was aghast.

Years ago I planted both a ginkgo tree and a zelkova tree, and between them they might support one, possibly two, species of caterpillar. That yard, where we lived 25 years ago, is now burdened with trees that are ecologically useless. From the perspective of birds looking for juicy caterpillars to feed growing babies, those shelves are bare.

Many of the native plants I’m working with now are new to me; I’m learning how they behave in the garden, but it’s taking some time.

Standing in my chilly driveway early last spring, talking with a new neighbor out walking with her daughter as dusk gathered, I was describing my new effort learning to garden with native plants. She waved her hand ever so slightly, she is too busy for that, and said “I’ll probably just plant a buddleia. That’s good for pollinators.” This neighbor is acquaintance enough that I persisted, gently. Not a great choice. Fairly recently arrived from England, she might not think twice about using the plants she is used to.

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And so, this new book at the library is written for British gardeners, but here it is on the shelves of the libraries in Victoria, British Columbia. We won’t be led astray (but British gardeners might) when the author recommends red flowering currants, mock orange, and Oregon grape, as they are native here. But many other plants are very troublesome.

I was shocked to see broom recommended! “Common broom … native throughout much of the British Isles … is good for bumblebees” and caterpillars of at least two moth species eat it. Bees and caterpillars! It’s a double-win. That’s in Britain though. Here it’s terribly invasive.

Shock turned to despair when I read that ivy is outstanding for wildlife gardens. In a British setting its leaves are eaten by caterpillars of several moth species and the flowers by a butterfly caterpillar. Ivy is native there; it works in British ecosystems. It doesn’t work here; here it’s another destructive invasive. Think of all the thousands of hours volunteers spend removing ivy from our parks. Ivy! I hang my head in my hands.

Simply the title of Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything (2014) changed my thinking. We cannot continue the same. This applies to so many things, including gardening. The ecological collapse that is all around us, the declining populations of insects and birds, is evidence enough that we must change our gardening. We can make a huge difference by replacing our non-functioning landscaping with native plants that support insects and birds.

And not just any native plants; some are much better than others for supporting large numbers of caterpillar species. Tallamy explains (Nature’s Best Hope, 2019) that about 5% of local plant genera host 70-75% of the local caterpillar species, and by focusing our planting on those keystone plants we can disproportionately benefit our garden ecosystems.

Looking for the best plants for my garden on the National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder website (https://www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder) I learned that in this area, among our trees, oaks are known to support 201 species of caterpillars, Pacific crabapple 181, and black hawthorn 98. (As I’m in Victoria, I entered the zip code for nearby San Juan Island: 98250.)

I wanted to plant a mixed hedge along a side fence, creating a bird highway between our front and back yards. Of the shrubs I was considering, June plum supports 10 caterpillar species, and mock orange supports only four. Hazel, on the other hand, supports at least 84 species of caterpillars, and Rubus sp. (including red flowering currant) support 110.

I reduced the number of June plums and mock oranges and added several hazels. There are new Garry oaks out front (thank you to the municipality) and we’ve planted Pacific crabapples and hawthorns. Our waist-high hawthorn was a beautiful bright yellow last fall, fading to a reddish brown. I have high hopes for its future beauty. I haven’t resolved whether a Scouler’s willow (339 caterpillar species!!!) can fit in our urban yard.

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I fumble to respond when someone says “I don’t need native plants; I’m already gardening for pollinators.” No one wants to be badgered by someone who has recently seen the light and now is preaching their new persuasion. So I try to stick to describing my successes. Like the spring show-stopper woolly sunflowers (pictured above), which are incredibly beautiful, attract myriad pollinators, and support at least five species of caterpillars, two of them woolly sunflower specialists. It’s a three-way winner: beauty, pollinators, and caterpillars.

In his 2008 book Around the World in 80 Gardens, British gardener Monty Don thrills to find something different, particularly when it is rooted in its place, using its own indigenous plants. He remarks several times on how uninteresting it is to encounter gardens in the traditional British or northern European style as he travels the globe. He understands the history of colonists endeavoring to recreate home by planting to mimic English country gardens, but is disenchanted with modern gardens “that ape European ideas”. He often finds British horticulture “pompous and dull”.

And I would add lifeless. As newlyweds, many years ago, my husband and I visited Kew Gardens in England. It was a hot June day; what I most remember is dragging ourselves around endless lawns and wondering where the bees were. There were many flowers, but very few bees. Pesticides came to mind and I wondered if Kew was drenched with poisons to create the “perfect” garden. The lack of insect life was so eerie and unsettling that more than 30 years later that’s how I recall Kew. A healthy garden should be buzzing and hopping with life; insects are essential.

Butchart Gardens gives me a similar feeling, and I hesitate to visit. It’s so well known, and so admired, that I refrain from commenting when visitors wish to go there. It is indeed beautiful and colourful. It’s not as lifeless as my memories of Kew, but I recall that plants busy with bees are the exception, rather than the rule.

At the end of last summer we stepped through the gates of Abkhazi Garden for the first time. Friends were visiting, and our little tour took us right past the door, so we popped in to see about having lunch. We’ve heard so often that the tea house there is wonderful. The tables were full and there was a wait, so we simply paused outside to look at the beautiful garden setting. I was struck by the staggering silence. Granted, end of summer is a quiet time for birds, with nesting completed and the shortened days of fall yet to arrive and trigger fall-singing. But silence? Why would it be silent? Shouldn’t there at least be insects buzzing and trilling?

Maybe it’s not pesticides making these gardens silent. Maybe they are so filled with exotic plants that they hardly support insect life.

It’s time for a paradigm shift in gardening. Monty Don tells of an extraordinary garden in South Africa where the gardener is encouraging as many insects as possible, making it a “reserve for insects”. Now that’s a garden that would be worth visiting!

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*The Little Things That Run the World (The Importance and Conservation of Invertebrates) by Edward O. Wilson, Conservation Biology Vol. 1, No. 4 (Dec., 1987), pp. 344-346 [ https://www.jstor.org/stable/2386020 ]

Image credits: Ann Tiplady