We’ve examined a range of well-documented reasons that inspire midwestern gardeners to choose true native shrubs and trees. Regardless of the concepts that resonate most with you, we offer some great choices. For the best results, take your time. Go beyond our suggestions. Develop your own ideas based on observation and your own research. Enjoy the aesthetic—and bird and butterfly results—with friends and neighbors. Share the seedlings, root sprouts, seeds, nuts, and acorns that can grow into treasured trees and shrubs. Include native flowers, grasses, and sedges in your yard or garden and create an even more varied, beautiful, and welcoming natural habitat. Collect native plant nursery catalogs and spend time marveling at images of beautiful native trees and shrubs. Ask your local nursery or garden center to stock true native species.
For yards, gardens, and landscapes, large and small, our book can serve as a handy guide for choosing true native midwestern shrubs and trees.
Purveyor Note
Locating purveyors of native plants can seem challenging, but native plants can be obtained from a variety of sources. (Please see Selected Resources in the bibliography.) Check local newspapers for native plant sales held by park districts, forest preserves, municipalities, local environmental and native plant organizations, and individuals seeking to share the bounty produced by their beautiful native gardens. Ask these entities to suggest nurseries, retailers, wholesalers, and landscaping services that specialize in native plants. For a wide variety of native midwestern species, access online native plant sellers. Obtain catalogs to peruse at leisure; they are informative and sometimes suggest garden layouts. Their large inventories, the ease of ordering, and the convenience of deliveries right to one’s door are attractive features. If a local retail nursery, “big box” garden center, or all-purpose online plant seller offers some native selections, be sure the listing or the label substantiates that the plants are true native species. “In scientific names, cultivars are mentioned within single quotes, as in Juniperus virginiana ‘Taylor’ for Eastern redcedar. But in commercial names (common and scientific), quotes are sometimes missing.”55 Even without quotes, names like Taylor put one on notice. Purchasing true native plants will become easier as customers let sellers know they want the true or straight midwestern native species.
Environmental Reminder
Removing native plants from their natural environments increases their vulnerability. Removal also decreases survival chances for the beneficial insects, including butterflies and specialist bees that depend on the native plants for survival. We urge you to patronize purveyors of native plants, shrubs, and trees (see the Selected Resources section in the bibliography) and to share native plant bounty among friends, relatives, and neighbors.
1
SPRING
THE MIDWEST’S LONG, cold winters inspire dreams of flowering shrubs and trees, musical birds, and colorful butterflies. Serviceberries, cherries and plums, and crab apples and roses are prized by homeowners and landscapers for their fragrance and beauty. In centuries past, Native American foragers esteemed these species for their fruits. They were eaten fresh or dried, in soups and stews, but the most common use was to add them to pemmican, an ancient mixture of pounded dried meat and fat. Archaeologists have discovered the pits from chokecherry, serviceberry, and American plum at prehistoric prairie Indian sites.1 Early explorers, travelers, military expeditions, and settlers also enjoyed eating the wild fruits.
Nature captivated 1830s Illinois pioneer Eliza W. Farnham. “It is always pleasant to resume communication with the world around, when the icy fetters of winter are cast off. . . . The spring of ’37 opened with delicious beauty on the prairie land!” She appreciated “a floral hedge six or eight feet in height” farmers planted. She felt “a thrill of gratitude” toward men she saw planting a tree. “Though set on private property,” a tree “is a public blessing. . . . Its beauty may be seen, its glory appreciated by all. And the rapid growth which the locust, cotton-wood, aspen, and some other species have in the strong soil leaves no excuse for living long in a treeless and birdless home. Oh, I love nature. Living much with nature, makes me wiser, better, purer, and therefore, happier!”2
Walking through the woods in the spring of 1900, naturalist and writer Alice Lounsberry was struck by “the music passing through the tree-tops and quivering in the insects’ wings, and . . . the subtle unfoldings of spring. There is no passing it by; it is one of the spirits of nature that the dullest eye must see and admire. . . . It is then that the knowing ones sigh as with relief and feel grateful that the spring is indeed on its way. The winter has passed.”3
Most home landscapes are dominated by lawn and by Eurasian ornamentals, some of which Lounsberry identified as they were becoming popular. Most “native” plants are cultivars (nativars) of a native.4 Gardeners occasionally remember once-abundant birds, butterflies, and fireflies, but rarely connect their declines to plant choices and landscaping practices that ignore the needs of wildlife. Human recognition of the mutualistic interactions between native plants and native wildlife is essential when we consider spring cleanup. Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) need native host plants as places to lay eggs and as food for their caterpillars. Nesting birds need Lepidoptera caterpillars to feed their nestlings. A decline or absence of native host plants results in a decline or absence of caterpillars, butterflies, and birds. Red admiral (p. 192), green comma (p. 103), mourning cloak (p. 62), and question mark (p. 176) butterflies spend winters in bark and crevices in trees, woodpiles, snags, and logs. Eastern tailed-blue, frosted elfin (p. 329), gray hairstreak, Ozark swallowtail, and black swallowtail butterflies spend winters on or near their herbaceous host plants.5 Leaf litter holds dormant insects, snails, bugs, and worms that support robins, native sparrows, brown thrashers, other hungry spring migrating birds and firefly/lightning bug larvae (glow worms). Spring cleanups that eliminate leaf litter unwittingly create firefly-free zones, depriving people of a magical aspect of summer evenings. Wholesale disposal of woody material, standing native flowers and grasses, and every errant leaf has the unintended consequence of a diminished future with fewer butterflies and birds. Spring is a good time to rethink routine gardening practices that prevent much of our desirable wildlife from surviving. Choosing native woody and herbaceous host plants, forgoing pesticides, and conducting suitably restrained cleanups are sustainable techniques for the many homeowners and gardeners who love birds, butterflies, and fireflies and want to help them prosper.
Native trees and shrubs furnish wildlife with the essential elements of life, including food, shelter, and the ability to reproduce. Although many trees and shrubs introduced from Asia and Europe are beautiful, they can never match the combination of beauty and benefits to birds and butterflies that the native species provide. Eurasian shrubs and trees spent thousands of years developing in parallel with the needs of European and Asian wildlife. In contrast, midwestern shrubs and trees spent thousands of years developing simultaneously with the needs of midwestern wildlife. This shared midwestern developmental history enables true midwestern shrubs and trees to provide midwestern butterflies, bees, fireflies, and birds with the food, shelter, and reproduction sites they need to in order to succeed.
When it comes to planting, spring is a window of opportunity. Will my new tree be one that everyone else has? Will my new shrub be the latest fad, trend, decorative novelty, or whatever happens to fit in with some landscaper’s agenda? Or will I choose native shrubs and trees that thrive in the Midwest, provide fragrance and beauty, and also provide a future for midwestern bees, butterflies, fireflies, and birds? In the Spring