It’s November. The air is cooler. Pumpkins and mums will soon give way to holiday decorations. You’ve raked your yard; you’ve trimmed bushes.
So what’s up with your neighbor?
The neighbor who has leaves covering the grass. The neighbor who hasn’t cut down dead flower stems or trimmed bushes. You might conclude that lack of action is laziness. But actually, it may be that your neighbor has joined a nationwide movement called Homegrown National Park. Its followers have decided to reduce their lawns and instead plant native flowers, shrubs and trees to help restore biodiversity and support pollinators.
This movement started with University of Delaware professor Doug Tallamy, a man The Washington Post called “the godfather of the native plant movement.” Tallamy has written five books about restoring the environments around us. He has posted a number of videos that can be found through online searches.
In essence, native plants are those that existed in an environment before landscaping changes made by settlers who brought plants from other regions of the United States or from other countries. Native plants nourish pollinators such as butterflies, moths, bees and birds in ways that many introduced plants do not.
Heeding Tallamy’s call to restore biodiversity on our properties doesn’t have to be a heavy lift. Native plants can grow in pots. People can plant small islands of native plants or add native plants to existing landscapes. Or, like some folks, you can eliminate your lawn completely to create your own “homegrown national park.” No matter what one decides, there are fellow native plant enthusiasts ready to help.
Andrew Plunkett, a science teacher at Allentown High School, and Kari Lloyd, a K-5 STEAM teacher at Princeton’s Littlebrook School, are two people helping others navigate the “how” of native gardening. Plunkett and Lloyd manage a Facebook page called Hopewell, New Jersey Native Plant Swap.
Plunkett, who holds an environmental science degree from Arcadia University, initially started the page during the COVID-19 pandemic as he navigated planting native gardens in his Hopewell yard. He learned about plant communities, groupings of plants that complement one another under optimal conditions, whether in shade, constant sun or moist soil. He consulted books and local experts, and, like many who start to embrace the concept of native planting, he found the task a little overwhelming.
“I read Doug Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home,” Plunkett said, “and I learned about the impact growing native plants makes on birds and insects.” He used his time during the pandemic to dig up his yard to prepare it for planting. The more he read, the more complicated the process seemed to become.
“I started making notes for myself in Google Docs,” Plunkett said. He also realized that he had a lot of the same native plants on his property and wanted more diversity. It was that need for different native plants that led him to create a Facebook page where like-minded gardeners could easily swap plants from their gardens and share experiences with one another. Those Google Docs now reside on that Facebook page, providing starting points, tips and other resources.
“I joked with my wife about how neat it would be to have 50 followers on the Facebook page,” Plunkett chuckled. The page now has 4,400 members.
Kari Lloyd loves to garden with children. Her first college degree was in art, but her love of nature and science led her to pursue a second degree in education. She enjoys introducing children to the wonders of digging in the dirt and growing plants. While she helps manage the Facebook page, she also plays the role of “Native Plant Party Planner.”
For her, Plunkett’s native plant passion was contagious. “I couldn’t name one native plant when I met Andrew. But I could see that he was doing important work and he had his Facebook page,” Lloyd said. She brought her community organizational skills to Plunkett’s efforts.
Lloyd plans family hikes, trivia nights and plant-swapping events. Plunkett and Lloyd found a fellow native plant lover in Ros Doremus, the owner of My Backyard at Nectars in Titusville. The garden center has hosted events organized by Lloyd. On Saturday, Nov. 21, the Hopewell Library, located near the high school, will host a Native Seed Swap event organized by Lloyd from 10 a.m. to noon.
Some Mercer County residents have found support for their native gardening interests in a group hosted by the Mercer Chapter of the Native Plant Society of New Jersey. The society has 15 chapters across the state and about 1,600 members statewide.
Earlier this year, Mercer Chapter member Ann Vaurio suggested to her steering committee colleagues that they organize a study group to work through a book titled Nature’s Action Plan, written by environmentalist Sarah F. Jayne, who lives in Oxford, Pennsylvania. Inspired by Tallamy’s work, Jayne’s book helps readers take easy steps to support local ecosystems, which in turn help pollinators.
Each month, about 15 people gather at the Tulpehaking Nature Center in Hamilton to discuss how to apply actions outlined in the book’s chapters.
“My own interests in this project really started with my training as a Rutgers Master Gardener of Mercer County and, more recently, as a Rutgers Environmental Steward,” Vaurio wrote in a note. “Over the years, I have added lots of native plants and water features in my own garden and love seeing the variety of wildlife that find their way to my back yard as a result.”
Steering committee member Kelly Rypkema also helps facilitate monthly meetings.
“When Ann brought her idea of hosting a study group to the rest of the Steering Committee, we thought it was a great idea that fit right in with our efforts to help people learn to manage their homes with nature in mind,” said Rypkema. “To support the book study, the Mercer Chapter purchased about 25 copies of Nature’s Action Guide and donated them to the Mercer County Library system.”
Vaurio said the group has already worked through several chapters. “We have discussed the importance of turning lights off at night; the need to protect birds from cats, and window strikes. We have looked at the various approaches to reducing the amount of lawn which does little to support wildlife.”
Eric Fleming has been attending those discussions. His Yardville property is filled with native plants. He was drawn to planting natives after realizing that plants he had bought at big-box stores were pretty but did little to nourish insects and birds. That’s when he started to learn about host plants and native species. Like Plunkett, while he likes planting, he has at times found the process challenging.
“I have made so many mistakes,” Fleming said. “But, it’s part of the process.” He noted that more nurseries are selling native plants and there are more online groups where native gardeners can go to learn from others. Fleming also likes swapping plants.
“I feel good giving away my plants,” he said. And meeting once a month with other like-minded gardeners means he always learns something. “You always pick up a thing here or there no matter how much you know,” he said.
But while many have wholeheartedly embraced the call to plant natives, neighbors aren’t always as enthusiastic. Such is the case in a West Windsor neighborhood where some residents see one neighbor’s corner property as a nuisance. Plantings are encroaching on the sidewalk and reducing sight-line visibility for cars at a corner of the property. Parents whose children walk past the property on the way to and from school are concerned about ticks potentially living in the encroaching plants.
Those concerns have led to numerous discussions among members of the West Windsor Township Council about whether, and how, to regulate native gardens. Of greatest concern are native meadows, which have densely planted tall plants.
“Meadows are a little more controversial,” said West Windsor Township Council Vice President Andrea Mandel, “especially when it starts looking like: Are you letting your weeds grow?”
Mandel said the council wants to focus its response to these concerns through the lens of safety.
“The town and mayor have generally been supportive of these native plant and pollinator plant movements,” Mandel said. “But, we are looking at different ways to protect people who are concerned from a safety point-of-view.”
The council has had two discussions about how it might amend the nuisance ordinance, which covers situations like this one. There has been talk about requiring a 3-foot border on a property abutting the sidewalk. There have been discussions about allowing only plants that are 12 inches tall or less along a property’s perimeter. Council members have also considered whether the ordinance should prohibit plants more than 30 inches tall at the corners of properties abutting roadways.
“But, we don’t want to create a situation where established plantings would have to be ripped out,” Mandel noted.
The council hopes to have an amendment to the ordinance ready for its first meeting in November. Mandel said the council is trying to be balanced.
“If I am going to do something to affect every property owner in this town,” she added, “I want to be fair.”
In the meantime, as fall arrives, native gardens have become brown and shaggy-looking. Many lawns are covered with leaf litter. Tallamy notes, “leaf litter can be home to a rich assortment of native plants while it is fertilizing, mulching, and watering your land.”
Plunkett says he tells newcomers: “Brown is a color,” adding, “winter, the fourth season isn’t always about beauty; it’s about leaving plants to help the pollinators exist over the winter.”
For more information see: Homegrown National Park: www.homegrownnationalpark.org; Hopewell Library Native Seed Swap — events.mcl.org/event/15388701; Hopewell, NJ Native Plant Swap — facebook.com/groups/218825469498260; or Native Plant Society of New Jersey — npsnj.org.
