10 ARTICLES
FOREVER YOUNG
A NATIVE PLANT TASK FORCE
Gardening as though our lives depend on it BY SALLY CUNNINGHAM
Goldenrod (solidago) is a great late-blooming native with many manageable varieties.
T
he Western New York Native Plants Collaborative brings together government entities, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and the green industry around the same goal: healing the Western New York ecosystem. Co-founded by two longtime leaders of the local environmental/conservation movement, landscape architect Linda
Schneekloth and native plant expert/ educator Ken Parker, the NPC has the following goals: • Restoration of the unique ecology of natural areas, the value of each place recognized not only for the pollinators and songbirds, but for its uniqueness. • A new definition of what front and back yard landscapes can be, to include less lawn (with ecologically sound management where lawn is desired), layered plantings, hedgerows with native plants between properties, and pollinator plants and edible landscapes in front of homes. • Public understanding that the current status quo is unsustainable, including the sprawl of sterile, ecologically valueless housing developments and the degradation of wetlands.
Expert voices for change Schneekloth
and
Parker
are
working with a diverse group of other environmental advocates, who also have well-defined views on what the local ecological landscape is and what it should be. For example, Paul Fuhrmann, a habitat restoration specialist long associated with Ecology and Environment Inc., has provided leadership across many organizations and projects. He cites positive examples of urban habitat restoration using native plants in Tifft Nature Preserve, Forest Lawn Cemetery, Times Beach, Seneca Bluffs, and parts of the Outer Harbor, but adds that there’s a long way to go to restore damage and recoup losses: “This is where municipalities and private landowners can make a difference. There is no land area too small to have positive ecological impacts. Backyards, lawn aprons along roadways, vacant lots can all support native plants.” Another NPC member, Joshua Konovitz works on restoration
projects for Applied Ecological Services. He comments, “One of the most disturbing tendencies I see is the homogenization of the urban environment, manifested today as the landscape aesthetic of manicured lawns and pristine perennials that are typically undisturbed by wildlife of any kind (meaning that they are not involved in the life cycle of any organism, and contribute nothing to the ecological function of the landscape). Native plants are considered undesirable weeds and are removed in favor of 'exotic' plants that are to be found in the garden of any house of a similar climate, worldwide. Naturalist and Spree columnist Gerry Rising regrets that movement toward action on behalf of habitat has been so slow in coming: “Until recently only professional botanists—and in fact not many of them—have understood the important role that native plants
