By Al Junker as seen in the Wilmot-Tavistock Gazette
On Wednesday, Oct. 2, best-selling author Doug Tallamy brought his message of Nature’s Best Hope to Wilmot Township in a presentation organized by Let’s Tree Wilmot.
Tallamy spoke to a full house at Shantz Mennonite Church with a folksy charm that enabled his audience to enjoy his talk and still appreciate the seriousness and urgency of his message.
Tallamy points out that nature is in trouble and since we are responsible, it is up to us to correct the problem. He used the term, “food web,” to describe nature’s integrated relationship which exists in our own yards.
For many of us, our yards consist of a weed-free manicured lawn, paved driveway, a sidewalk and a bunch of ornamental trees, plants or shrubs. As far as nature is concerned, this is a desert as it offers no sustenance for the food web.
It’s a known fact that the number of birds is in drastic decline everywhere and Tallamy uses the little chickadee as an illustration as to why. Chickadees feed insects to their young when they are born and the primary insect is caterpillars. In order to raise one clutch of young chickadees, their parents must catch 6,240 to 9,120 caterpillars. In order to find caterpillars, butterflies and moths need to have native plants, trees or shrubs on which to lay their eggs. These native plants are referred to as host plants. Caterpillars eat the leaves of specialized plants. Some caterpillars may feed on their host plant while others may need to crawl to their specialized plant to survive.
As Tallamy puts it, “Nature is a series of specialized relationships.” All birds need to feed caterpillars to their young. While pointing out the problems facing nature is a part of his message, Tallamy does offer a solution that is available to all of us in a concept which he has termed the “Homegrown National Park.”
Tallamy defines the mission of the Homegrown National Park as follows: “To motivate millions of people to regenerate biodiversity by planting natives, removing invasives and building a culture sympathetic to the needs of conservation.”
To achieve this mission, Tallamy outlines four steps: shrink your lawn; plant keystone plants; reduce light pollution; and landscape accordingly. He expands these steps by suggesting we establish a goal of reducing our lawn by 50 per cent and to stop spraying as it kills everything not just the “bad things.”
Keystone plants are the ones that serve as the hosts for the most caterpillars. Some examples are oak, cherry, willow, birch, cottonwood and elm trees plus asters, goldenrod, milkweed and sunflower plants. They will offer the biggest impact. Since home-security lights are deadly to nocturnal insects, in particular moths, installing motion detection lights with yellow LED bulbs is highly recommended.
In addition, most insects pupate under trees, so we should locate our flower beds under our keystone trees. Tallamy also urges us to leave the leaves and to not cut down stems as many pollinators over-winter in these stems. Tallamy endorses getting rid of all invasive plants from our property as they crowd out the native plants which form an integral part of the food web. He advocates replacing plants, trees and shrubs that have been introduced from outside our region with ones that are native to our area.
Tallamy’s talk was both interesting and informative. In a conversation I had with Tallamy following the event, we talked about the concept of stewardship and how we are the caretakers of our property for the next generation and it is our obligation to practice good “personal responsibility for good Earth stewardship.”
To learn more about Tallamy’s solutions, read his award-winning, best-selling book, Nature’s Best Hope, A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard. A copy of this book has been donated to the Region of Waterloo Library by Garden Wilmot.
In Tallamy’s words, “We can save our insects, our birds and nature itself … but we’ll have to change the way we landscape to do it.”
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For those you missed the event but want to hear his talk at another event, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBWhaTbe_x0&t=618s
Best-selling author Doug Tallamy signs his book, Nature’s Best Hope, A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard, at a speaking engagement in Wilmot recently. Contributed photo
