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The Deep Middle


Gardening & writing in the prairie echo

Ticks, Natural Gardens, & Kids

9/22/2023

 
Anytime I post a meme that espouses kids don't need lawns to play in -- that in fact kids are healthier if they play in more biodiverse habitat -- a cavalcade of responses ensue about ticks. Fair enough. To be sure, the diseases that some ticks carry are terrible and can impact us for a lifetime (so can covid, another zoonotic disease just like lyme), and a variety of viruses and pathogens, as well as dirty outdoor urban air and dirty indoor air in schools and office buildings. I don't know if the tick argument comes about as genuine concern or simple whataboutism, in any case, let's take an initial stab at ticks; I'm sure I'll add research over time here just as I have for the honey bee vs. native bee post.

First, it's well established that kids need to be outside running around, touching, breathing it all in, getting dirty. Richard Louv's books are a great starting point. Kids who spend time outside are less likely to develop allergies as they are exposed to a wild world of microbes. Kids playing in nature develop better balance and stamina, they cultivate empathy for others through interaction with wildlife, and they become more creative in their thinking and response to challenging situations. Kids with classroom window views of more diverse habitat have higher tests scores and are better able to work in groups. Heck, hospital patients with views of trees recover faster. KIDS NEED NATURE. And so do adults. Get your 10 minutes of sun at midday to get that good dose of daily vitamin D, for example.

So back to ticks. It's easy to see the symptom -- there's a tick latched on to my skin -- and freak out. I do. I have. I will continue to do so. But saying we need to protect kids form interaction with nature because of ticks is a bit problematic because the benefits far outweigh the risks (maybe true for sending kids to school with no HEPA air filtration).

Ticks will thrive even more in the future thanks to us. We are a big problem. Of course we can also be the solution but that's unlikely to happen. Tick populations and their diseases will thrive with climate change: as winters warm, as ecoregions shift and change, ticks will grow in populations.

Habitat loss is a big one, too, in particular if we focus on lyme disease and especially in the northeast, where I'd say 75% of tick concerns come from when I have the "kids don't need lawn" conversation. Deer are not vectors for lyme disease (even though deer do breed ticks like crazy) -- white-footed mice are. Without large, intact habitats, as well as fewer fragmented habitat like we see in most urban and suburban and even semi rural areas, those mice will thrive due to a lack or predators. Fewer foxes and wolves and coyotes and owls and snakes (yes, snakes are good!) mean more mice.

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So we have climate change and less habitat, the two core issues we must address, otherwise the tick issue won't go away. We also love to live in nature -- homes in forested areas and near lakes fetch top dollar for a reason. Now, we should always practice safety first -- we get flu vaccines, and polio vaccines, and chicken pox vaccines, we buckle up in the car, we look both ways before crossing the street, we bring water on long hikes and maybe a first aid kit. So we should absolutely tuck pants into shoes, wear insect repellent, and do tick checks, among other strategies. But like anything else, even basic precautions aren't always enough -- stuff happens -- but it doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bath water and proclaim only lawns as healthy places for kids to play in. Heck, we haven't even addressed all the poisons put on lawns to maintain their lush monoculture goodness, let alone the fact lawns don't hold a candle compared to meadow gardens in cleaning the air or soil, or reducing stormwater runnoff -- or, ahem, providing habitat for tick predators and predators of other species that are disease vectors.

As for what we can directly control in our home landscapes, hey, I've seen ticks on our front door. Still, there are some things we can do design wise in small suburban spaces and larger rural ones. The low-hanging fruit is simply wider paths to explore the landscape, say 4-6 feet wide. Ticks usually latch on by questing, which is reaching out their front legs into the air as they balance on the tips of foliage. We can also, obviously, work to increase the biodiversity and habitat structure to foster predators. (Do note that the opossums-eat-10,000-ticks-a-day-thing is a myth.) Little patches of lawn make nice places to picnic or stargaze in, while also providing negative space -- a design technique that helps show order and intention in a wilder landscaper (it's a cue to care).

If you are able to use fire in your landscape, it's a great management tool to increase biodiversity and reduce ticks. Ticks don't like fire, says Kyle Lybarger of Native Plant Habitat Project. In fact, you'll find more ticks in woodlands than grasslands. As for No Mow May, mowing less does not increase tick populations. But you should probably also not participate in No Mow May. If you live in the Great Plains, the invasion of eastern red cedar trees increases tick populations.

Ticks aren't going anywhere. And they suck. Ahem. I will scream and nearly pass out when I find one on me like anyone else, but knowledge is power -- and habitat is key in reducing tick populations AND in fostering physical and mental health for ourselves.

Pollinators Don't Justify Exotic Plant Choices + Human Privilege in Hort

9/4/2023

 
Here are some reasons why seeing an adult insect on an exotic plant's bloom isn't justification that it doesn't matter what you plant and / or we've so wrecked the world the answer will always be plant diversity to mend the fabric:

  1. Identify the species. Is it a generalist or specialist? Native or exotic? Is it gathering pollen or using nectar.
  2. What else is in bloom nearby? Nearby means with a few yards, the entire garden, and at least several city blocks. Maybe there's no better option?
  3. Get out your chemistry set -- what's the nutritional make up of the pollen and / or nectar? Is it "better" or not? Is it what that adult species requires?
  4. What habitat does this insect need to thrive in? Is that available on site or nearby? Habitat for nesting etc.
  5. Does the insect requires a host plant for its larvae, and are those available?

And I want to say this, too, which I explore in A New Garden Ethic: when we use casual observations to justify our beliefs, that does not a peer-reviewed-and-replicated-study-in-you-region make. No matter where you fall on the plant origin spectrum, observation is just step one.

A common argument is, again, that we've so altered the world that plant diversity is key to supporting wildlife and adapting to all the changes we've caused. That's hogwash. It's also a defense of human privilege and supremacy, aka greenwashing, and an avoidance of critical thinking and certainly empathy for other species -- and it's totally ignoring that we need to dismantle the extractive, colonizing systems that CONTINUE TO ERODE LIFE (systems of which mainstream horticulture is a part of). Was that a lot? It's in the book, and we go through it a lot slower there in those pages if you're willing to take the ride.

Native plants HELP SPECIES ADAPT TO CLIMATE DISRUPTION. It gives them a fighting chance. It gives evolution a very small window to do its thing (see book). Most species can't and won't evolve within decades as climate disruption speeds along faster and faster. But this belief that we know better (human supremacy) than millenia of co-evolution is a little absurd, disgusting, and racist toward other species. That's right. Because another thing you'll often hear is that native plant proponents are racist, practicing some sort of eugenics by privileging plant species local wildlife have evolved with. No, it's racist to violently colonize a place, to replace a culture with another, and assume you are better, that what you do is benign, and that gardens are privileged art and thus natural and thus devoid of having any sort of environmental responsibility. (Did I mention a certain book?)

For a long time horticulture has been a colonizing force -- just consider the global plant trade, or how many invasive plant species are escapees from gardens. Plants are also often named after white males who "discovered" them. It's systemic human (and white and classist)) privilege, and until horticulture reckons with its hand in colonialism -- of humans and ecoregions -- any discussion about native vs exotic plants is just a pecking on the surface (Star Wars reference!).

The real conversation about indigenous plant species is about running roughshod over other cultures, human and plant and animal, and being unwilling or unable to notice and process the repercussions because they "make us feel bad" or feel too much like "shaming" (also something you'll hear a lot in reference to climate change and social justice anything for POC or the LGBTQ community or sick people or old people). Often, when someone feels shamed it's because they're being asked to do some difficult introspection that confronts a comfortable, self-defining ideology or dogma (which can occur all over the plant origin spectrum) that, when destabilized, makes us feel unmoored and lost. Again, A New Garden Ethic flushes this all out (it was published 6 years ago and is in its fourth printing, fyi).

This is hard work. It will make us feel very uncomfortable. It's good that it does. It's natural. And it's necessary if we are to grow.
Confronting systems of privilege and power will never be without pain -- and that's exactly what native plants are about, whether we know it or not. Native plants don't bring division to horticulture -- horticulture does by privileging aesthetics for one species over what the rest of the planet needs, and doing it via violent colonization. Native plants are just the spotlight brought to bare on some uncomfortable realities we'd prefer to remain under the rug. To some, that makes native plant proponents feel doubly threatening -- not just that they are about "limiting" plant choices for a privileged species (natives aren't really limiting), but that the discussion is also about the systems in place that we lash on to which provide stability to our reality; just when we thought we had something figured out, it proves to be more complicated. But c'est la vie -- and thank god, too, because it's exciting to learn and grow. We are gardeners, after all, and the lessons never, ever end.

So I ranted. It's an opinion. A very different one, probably, and one that has irked plenty for around 10 years now. There's plenty to agree and disagree with, which I'm sure you will below -- just keep it civil please or we'll delete / close comments.

TLDR ---- Above all else I want this to be where we come together to think critically and evolve our thinking in the garden: we all value plants, we all honor and treasure them and the wildlife we see using them. But it's long past time to deeply and fully explore the ramifications of gardening, the connections it has to larger socially systemic issues within and beyond our species, and how gardening as we've known it is no longer tenable -- and that's exciting and hopeful, not something to be angry or depressed over (at least not for any longer than we have to be to cultivate change -- see the book when it explores the five stages of environmental grief and how we're all processing grief right now).

    About

    Benjamin Vogt's thoughts on prairie gardening in Nebraska. With a healthy dose of landscape ethics, ecophilosophy, climate change,  and social justice.

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    In a time of climate change and mass extinction how & for whom we garden matters more than ever.

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prairie inspired  design

Lincoln & Omaha, Nebraska

Monarch Gardens is a prairie-inspired design firm. We specialize in lawn to meadow conversions as well as urban shade gardens.

Employing 95% native plants, our designs are climate resilient, adaptable, and provide numerous ecological benefits while artistically reflecting wilder landscapes.
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