Bringing Nature Home

What Hacker News says

1. bmitcFeb 2023
   After getting a house with a decent sized yard and trees, I have been having a lot of fun with planting native plants. While my neighbors are cutting down trees, which is honestly hard to watch, and paying landscapers to plant non-native plants, I'm spending a lot of time researching and planting native plants. It is honestly one of the more fulfilling things to walk outside and see all sorts of bees, butterflies, moths, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, and birds living their lives. They all work so hard that it is inspiring. I'm looking forward to spring again for this exact reason.

   I sort of disagree with the article though. I think one should actually take a relatively hardline approach to planting only native plants. Just because you have a lot of activity around a plant doesn't mean it's the right activity. You could be attracting non-regional and non-native species which is generating the activity.

   And honestly, native plant species are easy. If you plant them in the right place, they will grow very easily and strongly with minimal care. Then you can collect their seeds. I am really hoping that all the milkweed we're planting brings more monarchs. Last year, we saw a couple.

   I like Douglas Tallamy's books Bringing Nature Home and Nature's Best Hope.

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2. quercusaFeb 2023
   As others have recommended, check out Douglas Tallamy's Bringing Nature Home. He's an entomologist and sets out a very clear connection between native plants, native insects, and the larger ecosystem.
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3. quercusaFeb 2021
   That does seems like kind of a strange thing to say. Raptors may not sit in the native trees but they certainly depend on the food chain below them that needs the natives.

   Doug Tallamy's Bringing Nature Home makes a convincing case for the importance of native plants to healthy ecosystems. (Hint: it's the insects.)

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