In Praise of "Weeds"

You have been sold a bill of goods if you believe that all "weeds" are created equal. Weeds is in quotation marks because the majority of what we call weeds are simply native wildflowers and grasses that volunteer themselves in our carefully orchestrated urban and suburban landscapes. Allow me to explain.

A primrose sprouts defiantly from a sidewalk crack

We create villains to open opportunities for the invention and marketing of products and services to kill them. Meanwhile, the actual villains are exotic plants propagated by the nursery and landscaping industries, which then escape cultivation to wreak havoc on natural ecosystems. Everybody in the business sector wins, but you are out of pocket for a good deal of expense, and natural habitats are abused or at least compromised, in the process.

Lawn services and weed killers should be trending down by now

This is not a conspiracy as much as it is a marketing strategy that has gone so far as to encourage legislation of local municipal ordinances that may explicitly prohibit homeowners from allowing their property to revert to any semblance of a natural ecosystem. Ostensibly, these "nuisance laws" were created in an effort to ensure public health and safety, seeking to eliminate refuges of "vermin," pests, pathogens, and excessive pollen, and mitigate fire risks. The stereotypical weed ordinance is one which prohibits grasses or brushy vegetation to exceed a specified height. The junk vehicle discovered while mowing the lawn is a running joke.

Home Owners Associations (HOAs) have taken this to a whole new level, with their attention to minutiae rooted in preservation and enhancement of property values. In the case of the authority my spouse and I are under with our townhouse, this has resulted in removal of some trees, replacement of juniper hedges with rock substrates, and continued embracing of water-guzzling lawns. Keeping up appearances means more to these organizations than enhancing the health of local ecosystems.

Clover is a bee magnet and fixes nitrogen: Win-win!

What we should be doing is advocating what I call "weed tolerance." Even naturalized plants have their benefits. Dandelion is among the first plant to bloom in spring, offering a vital nectar and pollen resource to butterflies, bees, and other insects when nothing else is flowering. The clover in your lawn is a bee magnet, plus the plant is fixing nitrogen so you don't need to fertilize as often, if at all.

Ok, Chinese Clematis is a genuine noxious weed

In fairness, there truly are weeds that have no place in the landscape. You can find them as state-listed noxious weeds. The United States Department of Agriculture has conveniently compiled a database of these most-wanted (maybe most-despised is a better term) plants for you to use in determining which plants you need to eliminate from your yard and garden, or avoid when shopping for plants. This is an ever-changing list as more information is gathered about the impact of each commercially available plant. It was not until recently that Bradford Pear and Butterfly Bush (Buddleja davidii) became enemies instead of friends in the landscaping community. Keep tabs on the list for more additions.

Wild rose, with more open blossoms, is friendlier to bees than cultivars are

Increasingly, more attention is being paid to providing for native pollinating insects, and supplying breeding birds with the insects necessary to raise a brood of chicks. You can search endlessly online for resource after resource, but you may wish to start with books like Bringing Nature Home, by Douglas Tallamy. Dr. Tallamy and his colleagues and students have worked tirelessly to demonstrate conclusively the differences in ecological impact between native plants and exotic plants. Native plants, including many species we currently define as "weeds," sustain far more species of insects and other wildlife, as they are already adapted to soils, precipitation, and other variables where they thrive naturally. This makes the plants hardier, better able to withstand heavy impacts from herbivores, diseases, and other agents that affect plant health.

Yellow and white composites are favorites with bees and butterflies

Want help that is even more localized and informative? Join your state's Native Plant Society. Here is a list of them in the U.S. and Canada. Also avail yourself of the Cooperative Extension Service, typically associated with your state's land grant university. There is usually at least one office in each county, located in the county seat.

The tide does appear to be turning, even with those weed ordinances. While some cities have begun relaxing their codes, other municipalities have reversed course completely, actively encouraging citizens to "go native" with revised laws and financial incentives. Use these success stories to argue your case locally for similar innovative strategies.

Don't forget about evening- and night-blooming flowers like blazingstars when landscaping

Lately I have been enjoying the weeds that have been flourishing here in Colorado Springs thanks to an exceptionally wet, cool spring. There are flowers blooming that I have never seen before now. How do I translate my appreciation for vegetative rebellion into something meaningful to those who have bought into the neat and tidy vision of the marketplace?

Penstemon growing in a vacant lot in Colorado Springs

Lessons From The City Nature Challenge

This year, Colorado Springs joined the ranks of those metropolitan areas participating in the fourth annual City Nature Challenge, which started in 2016 as a contest between Los Angeles and San Francisco to see which city could find the most species of wild organisms inside their municipal boundaries. Today it is a global event.

Blue Jay spotted during City Nature Challenge

Why The Nature Challenge Matters

Professional scientists cannot be everywhere at once, so "citizen scientists" are needed to help understand if animal and plant populations are healthy or declining. Unless an organism has an economic impact, positive or negative, chances are we know very little about it. We do not even know all the geographic areas certain species are found in. Your observations are critical and valuable.

Buttercup

Logistics of the City Nature Challenge

The City Nature Challenge is recorded on iNaturalist, an online platform that also has a smart phone app. Participants register on iNaturalist for free, look for their town's City Nature Challenge project, and subscribe to it. Observations of wild organisms (no people, pets, livestock, or cultivated plants, please) taken with phone or camera are then uploaded to the project. Observations are made in a four-day window, Friday through Monday. After that, you can still upload any observations made during that period, but most of that following week is devoted to identifying the animals, plants, fungi, and other living things already uploaded. City "winners" at the end of the project include most participants, most observations, and most species seen.

Black Swallowtail female

Limits and Pitfalls

At one point, the home page for iNaturalist gave the following disclaimer:

"iNaturalist had record levels of activity this week due to the City Nature Challenge, so notifications of activity such as identifications and comments are delayed. You may receive notifications out of sequence as we work through the backlog as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience."

That the website did not crash completely is a testament to its server capacity. This aspect of the City Nature Challenge seems to be in good order. Other problems remain, however.

1. Participation. Recruiting people willing to make more than a casual effort, if that, appears to be the greatest shortcoming of the City Nature Challenge. Here in Colorado Springs, we maybe had one brief announcement on a television newscast. We had a total of 142 participants, many of them "accidental," in a city of roughly 800,000 people.
2. Automatic suggestions for identification. iNaturalist has image recognition software that will "suggest" a species, family, order, or other level of taxonomy for the image you post. These suggestions are often wildly inaccurate and lead people to identify a North American insect as something from Africa, for example. Users should ignore this feature and instead assign the most obvious level of recognition, such as "grasshopper."
3. Little or no crossover with other apps. One thing my wife and I noticed was a lack of birders making observations for City Nature Challenge. The avian-inclined prefer the app e-Bird. There is no excuse for not having e-Bird observations during the City Nature Challenge export automatically to iNaturalist. The technology is surely there. Likewise, other apps should be compatible with iNaturalist, at least for bioblitzes and the City Nature Challenge.

Many-lined Skink

Have a Plan of Attack

One thing I personally learned was that it would help to have a plan of attack, or at least a "plan B" if the weather is uncooperative. What can you count on for observations? Bird nests? Insect galls? Mealybugs on the houseplants? You would be surprised by the biodiversity indoors, in your basement, garage, or tool shed. Make a list to remind yourself of those places you can look, or species you know can be found reliably at a given location.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Beyond The City Nature Challenge

If this is the first you have heard of City Nature Challenge, no worries. See if your city participated this year. No? Contact your parks department, local museum, or nature center and ask that they initiate an effort for next year. Meanwhile, you might want to make a habit of participating in other citizen science projects through iNaturalist and similar portals like Project Noah. You will make friends, learn much, and contribute positively to our understanding of planet Earth in the process. The idea that nature-watching can be a social activity is slowly catching on, and that common, widespread interest is what will ultimately protect and restore wild places.

Gilled fungi on a tree

The Kinds of (Landscaping) Codes We Really Need

© Naplesgov.com, Naples, Florida

I have reached wit's end with code enforcement in cities, towns, and other municipalities. Do not even get me started on homeowner's associations (HOAs). The emphasis is clearly cosmetic and does more harm to our environment than even simple neglect of yards and gardens in this age of climate change. We need a total overhaul of the statutes.

Were I a conspiracy theorist, I would be claiming that local governments were in cahoots with landscapers to create standard urban and suburban landscapes that feed the landscaping industry, as well as pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer manufacturers. Why do we continue to insist on models of landscaping that are no longer sustainable, if they ever were to begin with? The only thing "sustainable" about lawns and exotic shrubs, trees, and flowers is the heavy upkeep they require simply to stay alive. That usually necessitates contracting with lawn care services and other businesses that feed our addiction to showy gardens and pristine lawns.

Let's face it, lawns alone have become a status symbol, especially in the western U.S. A large, uniform expanse of grass says that you have the large sum of money needed to cover the water bill, and pay for a landscaper. What that speaks to me is an attitude of "I don't give a damn about water scarcity, native vegetation, or the future of the planet." You would rather spend money creating what amounts to an advertisement of your wealth. Wow. How responsible of you.

Meanwhile, municipal code enforcement tends to center on "weeds," many of which are actually native wildflowers that sustain pollinators and other desirable wildlife. If your grass gets too high it is subject to fines until you are in compliance. Tall grass and herbs are ironically considered a haven for mosquitoes and other disease vectors, as well as being "unsightly." This, in my opinion, is an overblown argument, if not even fallacious. You have undesirable rodents, for example, in urban areas lacking any vegetation. Feral pets are more likely to carry diseases than most wild animals, save for skunks, the odd raccoon and, sometimes, bats.

Were I writing the codes, they would be almost the polar opposite of what is in place now. I would limit the size of lawns to a percentage of your total outdoor landscape. I would enforce strict outdoor water use limitations, regardless of the current weather conditions because most regions are becoming more arid, with no end in sight for that trend. I would mandate that a percentage of landscape plants be native, drought-tolerant, and wildlife-friendly. I might require a permit for the use of any chemical treatment outdoors. This may be an area where contractors could really benefit because leaving chemical applications as do-it-yourself (DIY) has accident-waiting-to-happen written all over it. Failure to follow label instructions for applying pesticides and herbicides is a leading cause of household poisonings, let alone environmental hazards.

I would raise fines for feeding wildlife other than birds, and require anyone in bear habitat take down their feeders every night. I would raise fines for neglect of swimming pools and other water features, even including bird baths, as stagnant water is a breeding environment for mosquitoes and other biting flies. I would reduce outdoor lighting to prevent the interruption of normal behavior by nocturnal animals. Using wildlife-proof waste disposal containers would discourage raccoons, opossum, and other mammals from doing damage and maybe even frequenting urban areas at all. Ok, that is probably wishful thinking.

No entity raises my ire more than HOAs. They are entirely consumed with keeping up appearances, and have complete disregard for the mental health of residences and the environmental health of their communities. Raising property values is their bottom line, even if it means tearing out everything green except lawns, as our own townhouse property management agency is in the process of doing. HOAs put forth arguments for "improved security" as justification for removal of shrubbery and increased outdoor lighting. Baloney. You want increased security? Hold informal events so everyone can get to know their neighbors. Enforce codes of personal conduct instead of landscaping rules.

We need to collectively begin calling for changes to codes that begin to address what could be called environmental impoverishment. We deserve better, more diverse landscapes in our communities, but that cannot happen without some major alterations in governmental mindsets.

In Praise of Vacant Land

Growing up in Portland, Oregon in the 1960s and 1970s, I spent my lonely childhood exploring the forests, fields, and vacant lots around our neighborhood. Maybe it was the time period, maybe it was the culture, but I was allowed to roam freely for the most part. Not today. Our vacant parcels of land, whatever their size, have gone from implicit invitations to traverse them to extreme possessiveness and a clearly uninviting nature full of fences and other explicit boundaries and "no tresspassing" postings. I long for the good ol' days.

It would be an interesting exercise to plot a timeline of American land use over the centuries, from the frontier to current efforts to shrink public lands. Some things stand out from my own education, both formal and subsequently informed by "alternative media." We clearly usurped indigenous peoples in our effort to conquer the wild landscape and settle what were apparently chaotic ecosystems prior to our arrival as European colonists. Resource extraction went from individual mining claims during the Gold Rush to mountaintop removal for coal, to fracking done by faceless corporations. We tamed forests through logging and fire suppression.

If you believe that to have value, a given parcel of land must provide an economic return, then you are starting with the wrong premise.

Eventually, individuals with great foresight and appreciation of wilderness brought us the concept of parks, wildlife refuges, and roadless wilderness. Then came Aldo Leopold's land ethic, and Garrett Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons. Our population boomed in post war celebration, and prosperity seemed boundless. The interstate highway system replaced the railroad as the way to move freely about the country, unfettered by fears of peak oil. Everyone could have everything, including their own piece of real estate. We could feed ourselves, recreate, work, and live, all in different locations. Sprawl was not the name for subdivisions back then.

Where once land was appreciated on several levels, today there is but one consideration: financial gain. If you believe that to have value, a given parcel of land must provide an economic return, then you are starting with the wrong premise. Land already has value as the ecosystem engine that keeps us breathing, keeps us grounded, keeps our minds resilient and stokes our creativity, awe, and curiosity. The idea that human activities enhance the value of land is a corruption of economics that ignores biology. I have personally never seen a natural landscape improved by the addition of a strip mall or suburban housing project. Indeed, such projects diminish the value of land at best.

Undeveloped acreage is protected the way ranchers protect their cattle before they take them to the slaughterhouse. The average lot is merely reserved for something "better" at some future date.

Today, the vacant lands of my youth are protected from children, and all other innocent and worthwhile interests. Undeveloped acreage is protected the way ranchers protect their cattle before they take them to the slaughterhouse. The average lot is merely reserved for something "better" at some future date. I ask what could be better than wildflowers, the hum of bees and songs of birds? What could be better than an unofficial playground for our wonderfully wild, exuberant children? I never got curious about illicit drugs because I was curious about insects and reptiles and other wildlife. I was able to satisfy my inquisitive nature precisely because I had places I could go, safe or not, where I could find and observe other organisms. This is saying something considering that I am an only child who was raised mostly by an overprotective single mother.

Vacant lots are only as much of a blight as we allow them to be, at least in urban settings. Why not take that weedy block and turn it into a butterfly and bird garden, or even a community garden that feeds people as well as wild things? Grow something other than another concrete and steel building. Density and infill are not dirty words. Apply them humanely and shrink your city's sprawl. Leave the larger pieces alone or manage them for all the biological services they provide us. Leave them for the kids.

Mow to Hell

Remember those foxes living behind my residence that I showed you about a month ago? Fat chance I’ll ever see them again. They are (were?) living at the edge of an enormous vacant area that is the former site of a pickle factory, long since torn down. The weeds, wildflowers, and sapling trees had grown up fairly tall, perhaps owing to the large amounts of rain we’ve been getting here in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. Well, apparently we can’t have any of that. Tonight I discovered that somebody in a tractor (the tracks were evidence of that) mowed the entire area. That act has effectively ruined my after-work life of exploring in these days when the sun lingers until around 8:30 PM.

Citizens of the United States have become entirely too good at destroying urban, suburban (and increasingly, rural) wildlife habitat in the name of cosmetic appearance and liability issues. It is this latter notion that has really gone over the top. God forbid that a mosquito carrying West Nile virus, or a tick harboring Lyme disease should be lurking in the tall grass waiting for some poor soul to walk by. We certainly can’t afford to have a dead tree fall on a parked vehicle, or the roots of a living one buckle the sidewalk where a person could trip and fall. We collectively no longer tolerate risk of any kind from natural sources.

Meanwhile, our culture celebrates stupid risk, be it the stock market, legalized gambling, or extreme sports. Nature must be conquered in eco-challenge reality shows, but the natural world must not be allowed to fight back.

Neighborhood associations and government municipalities are also keen on instituting codes of uniformity for the appearance of yards, gardens, lawns, playground structures, and the exterior of homes and buildings. The result is a sterilization of nature, the introduction of hoards of exotic ornamental plants and their associated insect pests, and the release of who knows how many chemicals into the environment from the application of fertilizers and pesticides.

Weed ordinances provide for stiff penalties if your grass exceeds a certain height, or the clover, daisies, and Queen Anne’s lace compromise the integrity of your lawn. Well, I am here to tell you that one man’s weed is another man’s wildflower. The clover actually benefits your lawn, by the way, by fixing nitrogen and making it available to the grass. As far as I’m concerned, though, the “weeds” are those very lawns, a blight of turf in a land meant for meadows and and glades

I have an idea for a cartoon I want to draw and submit somewhere. It starts with a panel depicting a man sitting on his front porch watching a conflagration in his yard. The next panel shows his neighbor rushing to the fence and screaming “Your lawn is on fire!” In the final panel, the man casually replies “It’s a prairie.” That will be the day my friends.