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Handel, a Pittsboro resident and the
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THREE LOCAL EXPERTS SHARE THEIR ADVICE FOR PICKING NATIVE SPECIES
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BY CC KALLAM
ctions have consequences, says Debbie Roos, an agriculture extension agent for the Chatham County Center of North Carolina Cooperative Extension. Clear-cutting forests to make room for new commercial or residential development can disrupt the balance of nature, leaving land vulnerable to invasive plant species like kudzu or English ivy. “The choices we make in our landscape can really make a difference,” Debbie says. She uses native plants in a demonstration garden at Chatham Mills in Pittsboro to benefit pollinators and other local wildlife. Out of the over 225 species in the pollinator garden, 85% are indigenous to North Carolina and essential to the food web. “An ecosystem that is out of balance is an unhealthy ecosystem,” says Neville
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This is something that we need to take care of, especially when it’s on your own property where you can have a really strong impact.” – Johnny Randall
conservation land manager at North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. “Ecosystems provide lots of services for humans, even if we don’t understand [them],” Neville says. “If we don’t take care of the landscape, especially when you get close to streams, rivers, creeks and drainage, then we can really see declines in water quality. And the worse off your water is, the more expensive it is to treat it and to clean it and make it safe to drink. When you have an area that’s overrun with invasive [plant] species, your ecosystems are potentially going to be degraded … in terms of filtering the water.” Neville says nuts from trees like white oaks and shagbark hickories provide food to birds and animals. The common milkweed is the host plant for monarch butterflies, so without it, monarch butterflies would disappear. “All of those [endemic] plants are [ones] that evolved in this place, they’re part of the systems we have here, and they all have their place. Ecosystems are really complex webs,” says Johnny Randall, the director of conservation programs at NCBG and adjunct faculty in the UNC environment, ecology, and energy program. “Our native butterfly and moth caterpillars really cannot use anything but the plants they evolved with as host plants,” Johnny says. “And without caterpillars, birds do not have food for their babies, even seed-eating birds, like cardinals, feed their young caterpillars. So without native plants, you don’t have caterpillars, and you don’t have baby birds. It’s a really simple connection.” Johnny explains invasive plant species are flora found outside their native range, threatening the survival of native plants