The North Fulton Master Gardeners will hold its annual Garden Faire on Saturday, April 20, 2024 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in partnership with the City of Alpharetta at The Grove at Wills Park, 175 Roswell St., Alpharetta. This year, the North Metro Atlanta Chapter of the Georgia Native Plant Society will feature a variety of Georgia’s native plants for sale and provide information to visitors on best practices for planting natives. As a preview, here’s an interview with the Georgia Native Plant Society’s Ellen Honeycutt about frequently asked questions about native plants.
First, what is a native plant?
A native plant is one that was here without direct human intervention. Generally, that means before settlers from Europe arrived, but it also addresses plants that were moved around by indigenous people, such as corn, beans, and squash. These are plants that have been here long enough to have developed a life-sustaining relationship with native insects (usually thousands of years).
Why is it important to plant natives now?
Native plants are a critical part of the life cycle of native insects, as I mentioned. Without their host native plants (milkweed and monarch butterflies is a good example), native insect populations would decline, as would the populations of those that depend on them, such as birds. Hundreds of years of human settlement have reduced the population of native plants, replacing them with non-native ornamentals that native insects usually can’t use for their life cycles. We need to start using them in our landscapes to support the food web. I like to reimagine the food pyramid to illustrate how our gardens might be. (See illustration.)
What should we know about native plants?
Native plants can be just as beautiful in the landscape as exotic plants. Native plants also help give us a sense of place, allowing us to…
Read the full article here
