- by Grey County Master Gardeners

What a weird title for a column about gardening!

Let me explain. All members of Grey County Master Gardeners have taken courses in horticulture and keep up to date on science-based knowledge about gardening practices.

But with an increased awareness about the importance of native plants we have been learning more widely about the connections between our gardens and the natural world around us. We have begun to see that we cannot, and should not, think of our gardens as separate from our wild places. They are intimately connected.

Neither can we separate our work and pleasure as home gardeners from our responsibility towards the natural world. Nature is in trouble, and we should help.

So, Grey County Master Gardeners are expanding our knowledge of ecology – the science of connectedness in the natural world – and applying it more directly to our gardening practices and to our presentations and teaching about gardening.

But we can’t all get PhDs in ecology! What do we, as gardeners, need to know about ecology to make gardening decisions that support a healthy world? Can my garden choices be “informed” by some knowledge of ecology? We think so, and we plan to share that knowledge through our Seminars, our Website and Facebook page and through this column.

Here is an example of how what we plant in our gardens influences the natural world. It is about nature’s connectivity.

Birds play an essential role in maintaining the balance of nature. They are also wonderful to watch at our feeders and on walks through natural settings. We know that both the total number of birds and the number of different species of birds, is declining. After reading “Bringing Nature Home” by Doug Tallamy, we have learned how our gardening practices can help prevent this decline in bird populations.

It is simple, but complex. Baby birds eat caterpillars. I was surprised to learn that the average clutch of baby chickadees eats several thousand caterpillars over the course of their first few weeks of life. Think of those parent birds searching for caterpillars day after day to keep their brood alive until they can fly the nest. It puts the years of making school lunches into perspective.

Caterpillars are the larva, the early life forms, of butterflies and moths. Caterpillars eat leaves to survive until they pupate, that is, form cocoons and emerge as butterflies. What most caterpillars eat is species specific, which means a certain type of caterpillar eats the leaves of a certain type of plant. An example familiar to us is the Monarch butterfly which only eats the leaves of the Milkweed plant. Without Milkweed leaves for Monarch caterpillars to eat, we have no Monarch butterflies. We also have fewer birds.

Many other less well-known species of butterflies, or more specifically, their caterpillars, are food for our birds and most require specific plants to survive. Most of our non-native plants do not provide the appropriate leaves, or food, for our native caterpillars. We need native plants to provide food to support our native caterpillars to support our native birds.

See what I mean? Simple, but complex. When we choose to include native plants in our gardens, we help support the birds we see around us. It is all connected.

We will discuss this topic and address other aspects of ecological gardening in future columns. Our hope is that we can all become Eco-Responsible Gardeners.

Grey County Master Gardeners is hosting a series of three free ZOOM seminars about “The Eco-Responsible Gardener”. Please check our website at www.greycountymastergardeners.com for more details. We are also on Facebook.

Seminar 1: Native Plants for Grey/Bruce presented by well-known garden author Lorraine Johnson on January 30, 2021.
Seminar 2: Ecological Gardening presented by local gardener from Wiarton, Julie Lambert from By the Bluffs Nursery on February 27, 2021.
Seminar 3: Insects and Trees presented by Jennifer Llewelyn from OMAFRA on April 11, 2021.