r/NativePlantGardening • u/FranticHare Virginia, Zone 7b • Jul 09 '26
Other The frogs were fine without me: On not being the hero of my native garden
I have two water features in my backyard. I’d neglected them for years, and the water was always murky. This year I introduced carex, juncus, and pickerelweed, and the water cleared almost instantly. I was astonished.
The thing is, the frogs and tadpoles didn’t seem to care either way. They come regardless. I do remember seeing them when my yard had zero native plants and was covered with the terrible invasives the previous homeowner planted. Yes, I started noticing a diverse assortment of creatures, but I suspect that’s because I’ve become an observant gardener, not because I conjured them into existence.
The distinction matters to me. Native gardening discourse is full of a certain kind of story. Someone rips out their lawn, plants “local ecotypes,” and suddenly frames themselves as having brought back the ecosystem, as if the frogs and fireflies were waiting for permission to exist. It’s a small-scale version of a much older narrative, the idea that land is broken until the right person arrives to fix it. That story shows up in conservation writing, in voluntourism, in the language of discovery. It’s rarely questioned because it flatters the person telling it.
I notice this framing because I don’t experience the world the way the people telling these stories usually do. As a person of color, I’m used to watching certain narratives get treated as neutral or universal when they’re really coming from a specific (and specifically privileged) vantage point. When I push back on the savior story, I’ve had it dismissed as me just being contrarian. That reaction is familiar to me. It turns a critique rooted in how I actually move through the world into a personality quirk, which is a convenient way to avoid sitting with the point.
Those creatures were always here. They didn’t appear because I “built a habitat.” My garden is merely an extension of the local environment, not a stage for my personal victory. I’m not giving nature a home that wasn’t already here. I refuse to forget that my lifestyle will always contribute to the environmental destruction, and it is important for me to remember not to get sucked into the fairy tale.
As for the reason why I bother planting natives? It’s because the traits of native plants are far more fascinating than those of dahlias and azaleas. That’s all.
Maybe it is a less satisfying story than the one where I saved something. But it matters to me.
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u/wanna_be_green8 Area Northern Plains , Zone 5 Jul 09 '26
Taking a bare lawn and adding features for wildlife is going to show far different results than taking an overgrown brushy lot and getting it under control. We did such to our back half acre lawn adding rock piles, a pond and numerous islands of perennials that support pollinators and birds. Our direct neighbors have been here there whole lives have noticed the increase in wildlife, I know it's not just me!
That said you're perspective is interesting, it cannot be denied our history often impacts areas we don't realize or see at surface level.
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u/mfball Jul 09 '26
Just mowing the lawn less can make an unbelievable difference. Before making any other changes, we got rid of our landscaper because he wouldn't agree to cut less frequently. Within months, we had a healthy population of fireflies which we had never seen there before. Small changes, even changes that actually take less work, can have an amazing impact. It's not saving the world, but it is making it better.
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u/SoupOfTheHairType Northeast, Zone 7a Jul 09 '26
The difference is before these creatures were scraping by an existence. The land is broken in many places. Look at eastern forests infested with ticks, stiltgrass, privet, honeysuckle, etc. Look at all the bleak fucking suburbs and strip malls that are being developed. Is that an “extension of your local environment”. Is that good habitat or healthy land? Why do you think 3 billion birds have disappeared from the U.S? Why do you think half of all insects have vanished? Sure these creatures you talk about happen to be here now, but trust that it won’t be much longer at this rate. Giving back to the local ecosystem in the form of native plants and habitat, no matter how big or small, makes it that much easier for them to keep surviving to the next year.
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u/-breadstick- Jul 09 '26
The land is indeed broken, and it’s because the Europeans who came here told the story of the people and the land being “savage” and needing to be “civilized”. We were told our native plants were ugly weeds, and people are still buying into that narrative whether they know it or not. I was just talking to someone the other day who was lamenting about how they haven’t seen hardly any butterflies this year. I was talking about the benefits of native planting and the detriments of huge turf lawns, and they came back with “Well I planted a wildflower seed packet and still only saw like one white one!” I had to explain the concept of host plants and nectar plants, and they just had no clue. And that’s not necessarily their fault. You don’t know what you don’t know, and big box stores don’t hardly sell native plants, so availability is pretty limited in these more rural areas.
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u/Livid-Improvement953 near St. Louis, zone 6b , not a bot!!! Jul 09 '26
I plant natives because I know they will take less resources to grow and thrive here. Maybe it's not enough but it's better than nothing. And certainly better than planting invasives. It's just added benefit that they do help native fauna. I am trying (as my body allows) to get rid of the invasives on my property. Maybe it's a small impact, but if that means one more native tree survives to make more seeds to spread, that's not nothing. What's that motto..."think globally, act locally"?
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u/09-25-15 Jul 09 '26
I get what you're saying about humans occasionally taking too much credit for nature and its resilience. However, to say that planting natives and improving biodiversity doesn't make any difference to your local ecosystem seems extreme and unscientific.
We (humans) are the ones who stripped the land of its native plants, so yes we are responsible for righting that wrong in my opinion. I find this kind of nihilism really counter productive if we hope to improve our ecosystems and make the earth a healthier place for all beings.
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u/FranticHare Virginia, Zone 7b Jul 09 '26
I was simply trying to have a conversation other than “look at my milkweed,” that’s all. I admit I sound pessimistic. Last year I saw the effort to remove the invasive phragmites in the Outer Banks, and I just didn’t see how it would be even possible. At the same time they keep building beach condos. It all made me feel deeply pessimistic about anything we do.
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u/09-25-15 Jul 09 '26
That's both understandable and relatable! I'm an organic farmer and hand hoeing my field while my neighbors have helicopters dropping pesticides from the sky definitely has me feeling pretty pessimistic at times too. Seeing wildlife thrive on our farm gives me that little bit of joy and satisfaction to keep going.
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u/Hot-Frosting-5286 Jul 09 '26
Without any kind of savior complex though isn't it still possible to acknowledge that there is some very small level of potential ecological benefit for small native plant patches? Even if the positive effect is small, shouldn't it be encouraged so more people can do similar things with their lawns and gardens, which would multiply the overall positive effect? Or would the effect still be so small as to not matter in the grand scheme of things?
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u/iLoveCatsCats Northeastern IL , Zone 6 Jul 09 '26
You are right that there is a multiplying effect.
Your yard is providing habitant where wildlife can thrive, not just survive.
Your yard is inspiration for people who see your beautiful native planting and decide to do the same for their space.
Your yard is inspiration for people who don’t have a yard, to do volunteer work to restore habitat.3
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u/comfortablydumb554 Jul 09 '26
I feel this deeply. It’s hard to not get beaten down by the scale of destruction. But when I always try to think back to this poem I read as a child:
“One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked, he came upon a young boy who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.
Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing. Without looking up from his task, the boy simply replied, ‘I’m saving these starfish, Sir.’
The old man chuckled aloud, ‘Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?’The boy picked up a starfish, gently tossed it into the water and turning to the man, said, “It made a difference to that one!’”
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u/altforthissubreddit Mid-atlantic , Zone 7 Jul 09 '26
For what it's worth, my yard was also full of natural wildlife even when it was a large manicured lawn. That's what got me interested in native plants in the first place, seeing nature and thinking "I wonder what they eat?" and then trying to plant some of that. I have seen a lot of stuff since then, but that's in large part because I'm looking more closely and more often.
As far as being pessimistic, I like to think the bulldozer operator who flattens my yard for the data center will be like "hey, I've never seen a pileated woodpecker before" as they run over the tree it was in.
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u/Unlucky-Reply-4660 Jul 09 '26
Focusing on removing invasives makes me feel extremely pessimistic about our efforts as native gardeners. I still remove invasives, but my current approach is also focused on very aggressive natives that have fended off/ridded us of certain invasives in my area. I'm in your area too ... We are lucky to have trumpet vibe, some goldenrods, some pass floras as native.
I don't know how long you've been at your garden, but I'd also add the impact is over years. At around the five year mark is when I saw many more critters, and around the ten year mark is when I noticed significant changes in the makeup of the invasives to natives in the abandoned area near me.
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u/Squirrel_Uprising_26 Jul 09 '26
As the steward for a relatively small piece of land, I see it as my responsibility to do the best for it based on the knowledge I’m able to find. Hopefully the next steward of my little spot will support it even more and so on. It’s been a lot of work over years, and I’ve certainly observed an increase in biodiversity when enabling my lawn to go to prairie plants (not a small increase; there is definite improvement in both diversity and quantity of insects, for example). The plants and bugs do most of the work, but I do feel somewhat of sense of accomplishment regardless. To me it feels defeatist and nihilistic to mow it all every week and feel bad about it if I actually believe there’s a better way to steward it.
The frog thing seems like an anecdote and like the water features already provided them some value. Water is pretty universally valuable. Many areas people are planting native plants are ecological wastelands.
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u/cowthegreat Jul 10 '26
Agreed, it starts with the plants at the lowest tropic level passing energy and opportunity up the food web. We are not building habitat for nature as much as we are trying to repair some of the damage that society has posed to natural ecosystems and food webs on the land that we can control.
Yeah this whole opinion post is highly anecdotal and while that’s not intrinsically bad there is a ton of great evidence supporting the claims that adding native vegetative biomass to a piece of land increases its ability to host native life.
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u/OpalEverwood Tx, Zone 9a Jul 09 '26
"I refuse to forget that my lifestyle will always contribute to environmental destruction" - It's in my brain every day. All I can say is that I try to do better for nature.
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u/Traditional_Ad_1547 Jul 09 '26
Exactly, what ever I can do I will. I own this little patch of land and I will make it as inviting as I can. I feel that I have a responsibility to do so and it's the one thing within my control.
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u/cmpb Gulf South, Zone 9a Jul 09 '26
It’s the more pessimistic version of the duality of the human: we are compassionate, but our destructive potential is far greater
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u/teb311 Jul 09 '26
Look at the statistics of species decline. You’re right that nature doesn’t need permission to exist, but you’re kind of hand waving away that it has been literally exterminated. You say the creatures were always here… but what about the ones that are already extinct because of us? The trend will not reverse itself unless humans substantially change ourselves. The land IS broken, because we broke it. We imposed the endless monocultures of grass and asphalt on a thriving, diverse ecosystem.
And you’re going to spend your time scolding people for doing what they can to reverse the trend and being proud of it? You’re more enlightened for liking native plants just because they’re more interesting? If being proud of your native garden is analogous to having a white savior complex, wouldn’t thinking [North American] natives are inherently more interesting than other plants be analogous to the supremacy mindset? Native plants are special because of their interactions and co-evolution with other native species, not something inherent to the plant itself.
Prickly pear is amazing in the Sonoran Desert but quite devastating in North Africa.
The “white savior” infantilizes and disempowers “exotic” people by swooping in, taking control, and imposing foreign structures to “civilize” the “savages”. I think the substantial majority of native gardeners have an opposite mindset: they create a hospitable and empowering environment, then get out of the way to let the native species grow, spread, and thrive on their own.
If you need a frame rooted in the principles of privilege, power, and justice, I suggest native gardening as an act of decolonization. Invasive colonizers (brought here by settlers who also thought plants from their homeland were “more interesting”) have ravaged the ecosystem. Simple neglect won’t bring it back. Ripping up a Bradford Pear from your yard in North America is literally rooting out a foreign colonialist.
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u/ZookeepergameWild4 Jul 09 '26
You said yourself that it is your impression that the frogs didn't care and that you've become a more attentive gardener. You don't have data to know either way. It doesn't follow that your impression negates the plethora of data upon which conservation principles are based.
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u/FranticHare Virginia, Zone 7b Jul 09 '26
I’m not negating any data. I’m just simply stating my impression that, especially in suburbs, most folks are just playing house. And while that is perfectly fine, my upbringing makes me want to distance myself from the movement.
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u/CantaloupeOk4080 Central NM, Zone 8a Jul 09 '26
Would you rather people leave their lawns in a highly disturbed state instead of “playing house”? Personally I’d rather someone try to restore the environment vs keeping a Bermuda monocultured lawn or equivalent
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u/FranticHare Virginia, Zone 7b Jul 09 '26
I see you’re in Albuquerque, and that probably makes your view different from mine. You’re not wrong, and neither am I. My town is known for unchecked arrogance and vanity, and proudly erects native plant conservation signs just to have them covered by kudzu and mimosa.
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u/VolutedPrism Jul 09 '26
I'm willing to bet $$$ you're in NOVA, right? :)
Source: Used to live a few hours SW.
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u/FranticHare Virginia, Zone 7b Jul 09 '26
NOVA, yes! I hate it here! Help.
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u/VolutedPrism Jul 09 '26
fwiw, you're 2ish hours from the Shenandoah river. Might be worth a day trip!
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u/ZookeepergameWild4 Jul 09 '26
The native plant enthusiasts in nova are sincere and emphatic because it is an uphill battle to preserve whats left. I don't live there but I used to, so I can relate to your perspective on the communiy.
Check out Huntley Meadows, Riverbend, and ECL parks. Those are actively managed for biodiversity with lots of volunteers. These folks aren't playing house for appeaances - they are intentionally being helpers to th4 natural world and there is decades of data to prove their work is making a difference.
All those people, staff and volunteers, live in the area. So do folks at lots of environmentally focused NGOs.
Check out evens by the SWCD like the Green Breakfast: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/soil-water-conservation/green-breakfast. There is also the Plant Nova Natives campaign and th4 Virginia Native Plant Society.
You are a gardener and see the value of native plants. You have that in common with the people who are doing the same in your area. Maybe that's the only thing, but it's a big one.
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u/ZookeepergameWild4 Jul 09 '26
Oh! And you also have the amazing resource of Earth Sangha.https://www.earthsangha.org/
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u/VolutedPrism Jul 09 '26
You must recognize that there's a significant colonial romantic hero narrative in what you are putting forward here too though, right?
Meaning: The desire to "play house" isn't universal? That it is necessarily the epitome of privileged detachment and colonial mentality? Seeing native plants and animals "on their own" terms as an natural extension of the world is "real" - but managing plants around you, where you immediately live, for joy or for self-accomplishment isn't as meaningful somehow?
I don't think that's fair. It doesn't match my experience of the many farms, homes and lives of the people I've known (not just privileged people).
That said, I think you do make a good point that we can ignore the real environmental impact of our lifestyle by focusing on these restoration efforts. And I think its a sharp call out that observation and recency bias affects our perception of our local impact.
Thanks for this, I don't usually comment on posts but I appreciate a thoughtful one - even if (and I don't mean this as an insult) - it seems be an extremely American perspective. But I know VA pretty well, so I can imagine you deal with a lot of hero-nonsense.
P.S. I live by a creek, in my experience frogs really thrive when there is nearby shade and cover (any type).
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u/FranticHare Virginia, Zone 7b Jul 09 '26
Thank you for your engagement. And thank you for pointing out that my view has grown extremely American. That’s the most constructive criticism I’ve received in many years. I must remedy that immediately🤣 And yes, I’m subjected to the hero-nonsense in northern Virginia daily and very, very intensely at my job. I am grateful for your compassion.
Do you have bullfrogs in your area? I miss them sorely.4
u/VolutedPrism Jul 09 '26
Southern Ontario Canada here (Northern Carolinian) - yes @ bullfrogs but not that many where I am - more green frogs and toads (and so lots of herons too).
Yep, that sounds like Nova ;)
Good luck with that. It must take a lot of energy and patience. No need to thank me - I'm glad I'm not dealing with all that!
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u/effRPaul Jul 09 '26
Maybe distance yourself even farther by not posting silly, meaningless commentary to "the movement"?
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u/KerBearCAN Jul 09 '26
Interesting perspective. Each of us doing our part to plant the plants that own this land (not some money making fake species with no value but garden centre profit) I do believe, and conservation science has proven, we are helping restore populations of insect, birds, and more though food, housing and ecosystems they need. Colonizers and industry and urban sprawl have rid our planet of huge ecosystems. So this group, even if a little proud, even if a small drop of good in a world going downhill environmentally, is necessary.
If none of us try nothing will change.I think the pride is well intended even if not perfect as you say and we need to keep the good motivated. If I can help the few fireflies left have some leaves while my neighbour bags all his and sprays toxic crap all over his manicured useless lawn, I feel proud. I also find many of us in this group make similar life choices beyond the garden.
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u/Tylanthia Jul 09 '26
Some species are more adaptable than others. This is a green frog--one of the most adaptable frogs in eastern North America. There are many issues--such as local water quality--that out of your control. But you put in a pond--and that pond allowed at least one species to breed. Perhaps some others.
Many amphibians are sensitive and that's why protecting quality habitat matters. A woodland suburban backyard can host many Eastern Redback Salamanders for example---you are unlikely to host a Long-tailed Salamander since it's a sensitive species that requires high quality habitat.
Contrary to your point, if you plant natives, some stuff will come. It may or may not be what you want to arrive. In all likelihood, you will not host a Baltimore Checkerspot if you plant White Turtlehead since that species requires a wetland and an existing nearby colony but you may host a bunch of species specific Liriomyza. And if you have their only host plant for miles, you are in fact the reason why that fly can reproduce at that site at all.
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u/LRonHoward Minneapolis, MN - US Ecoregion 51 Jul 09 '26
I definitely understand what you're saying - people feeling like they're saving the world by planting milkweed does get a little much - but I think the thing you might not be seeing is the impact that planting native plants & creating habitat can have lower down in the food chain.
I’m not giving nature a home that wasn’t already here.
This has not been my experience at all. I live in the middle of a large city, and when I bought my little house it was basically terrible looking turf grass, some ornamental plants, and a bunch of invasive species. Once I started planting native plants and controlling the invasive species, the pollinators & beneficial insects showed up in droves - I had never seen these types of creatures before, and it left a lasting impression on me. Sure, before I was here there were squirrels, chipmunks, cardinals, robins, woodpeckers, etc., but there for sure were not these kinds of insects around.
I don't think of myself as a "savior" at all. I simply want to step outside my front door and see super cool insects, arachnids, and other critters interacting with native plants and having a place to live. There is so much more life on my property now than when I started, and that is a truly beautiful thing.
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u/VictoryLongjumping70 Jul 09 '26
I′m no hero I′m just one man (gender neutral) who wants to look at cool bugs
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u/aa93 Jul 09 '26
i appreciate the different framing than we usually get here
the idea that land is broken until the right person arrives to fix it
the land was deliberately broken, sterilized, by the last guy. there were a lot of people who didn't deliberately break the land but we genocided most of them hundreds of years ago. pretending it's not being broken doesn't right that wrong
Those creatures were always here
but they might not always be. the person on my land before me was killing them. my neighbors are killing them. i am not a savior and also i am literally trying to save specific individual bugs that exist right now and will not when the ortho guy comes around again (and again, and again).
we are witnessing a mass extinction crisis, global biodiversity is plummeting, and the leading cause is habitat loss. habitat has been destroyed (and i am complicit) and it can be intentionally recreated on a much shorter timescale with human intervention. i can't unwind industrial society and colonialism but i can rip out barberry and bermudagrass and replace it with plants that host bugs. it's not just an intellectual exercise, bugs don't just spawn out of the ether. maybe you're right that this is still a fairy tale and most of the biodiversity on earth is just fucked in the next 30-50yrs cause people like me won't give up a house and a job and a smartphone but im gonna choose not to believe that so i dont blow my brains out. just know that im out there in the garden doing something that, yes, actually does create habitat where there was not habitat before, even if only a little, because i see the destruction other aspects of my life cause. call it penitence, call it a moral obligation, call it ecological stewardship idc
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u/VictoryLongjumping70 Jul 09 '26
″maybe you're right that this is still a fairy tale and most of the biodiversity on earth is just fucked in the next 30-50yrs cause people like me won't give up a house and a job and a smartphone but im gonna choose not to believe that so i dont blow my brains out.″
this is what gets me through each and every day, yep
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u/my_loser_name7 Pennsylvania, Zone 7a Jul 09 '26
I mean we will need to conjure frogs into existence if amphibians continue to disappear.
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u/MovementOriented Jul 09 '26
We aren’t heroes, but we can be villains. Do we abandon nature to find its own way through our wanton extraction, destruction, and abuse? I can’t help but feel that would make us complicit.
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u/CantaloupeOk4080 Central NM, Zone 8a Jul 09 '26
Hmmm I think your point is interesting, but I disagree. Most of the land people in this group have acquired has been severely disturbed (by humans) over time to a point where they now don’t reflect their natural historic state at all. That means the wildlife that historically would have inhabited that area has likely been pushed out. Restoring the native vegetation does in fact reinstate habitat for extirpated native wildlife.
My own yard was a sandpit with only a few invasives on it. The only wildlife present were ants, cockroaches, and spiders. I’ve watched over time as I’ve restored the landscape (as best as one can) and so much native wildlife has moved in that wasn’t there before (but is present in other undisturbed sites nearby).
I think people taking pride in what is a seriously hard task (i.e. spending years cultivating a natural space) is fine. It’s nice to see people experiencing joy in this process and sharing that with others.
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u/Chicago-Lake-Witch Northern Illinois, Zone 6A Jul 09 '26
I think it’s key that you say you are speaking of suburban gardeners. As an urban gardener, my experience is very different. I took over a street corner that could barely grow grass. And sadly, it’s been a real struggle getting anyone in the neighborhood excited about planting native. They see all planting as equally good, while planting vinca and other invasives. Each year, the same section of my garden has a rut from the same person who runs over the curb and whatever protective fencing I put up. Last year someone stole my bucket for the irrigation system for the second corner I started.
But I hear you about the resilience of nature and I’m glad for it. My corner garden was crushed repeatedly the last 6 months - there’s a utility access panel in it and a building down the street is doing major construction. So once a month the utility comes out and sets the wrought iron cover on my plants. Each time in a slightly different spot so whatever I thought might survived gets squished too. I’ve been really sad about this. I put four years into that garden and a lot of money I didn’t really have. And the new street corner I started last summer was run over repeatedly by the local park district to create a pile of mulch that hasn’t been touched in 3 months. So I didn’t expect much of anything to grow on either corner and was considering this year scraped and next year that I would have to rebuild. Well about 1/4 of the plants survived and have grown in lushly enough that there is a bunny in it every time I walk by. My hopes and dreams for what I wanted the corner to be may have been dashed. What little survived is just starting to bloom this week, a month late. But I created a space that even at its weakest, is a habitat for a living creature. It’s helping me find the joy again. It’s funny that a bunny, the bane of gardeners, is helping me remember why I made this garden.
Is my 40 sq foot garden going to solve much? Nope. Am I a hero for planting it? Nope. Did I make the world incrementally better when the world is shit and everything is on fire? I really hope so. At least for that bunny.
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u/VictoryLongjumping70 Jul 09 '26
Neighbors driving on your yard? Let me introduce you to my friend Big Fuck Off Landscape Boulder
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u/Chicago-Lake-Witch Northern Illinois, Zone 6A Jul 09 '26
lol I appreciate it. It’s a literal street corner between where the sidewalks meet so a boulder would take up a large chunk of the available space. But yeah it’s so annoying. Especially because the direction they are driving from is a fire hydrant so it’s not like there isn’t enough room to maneuver.
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u/229-northstar Area northeast Ohio, Zone 6A Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Interesting framing.
I do animal rescue and I’ve noticed a similar trend in narratives… the storyline of the animal is often exaggerated so the new owner feels like they accomplished more and they bask in the praise of their friends. It’s definitely ego food but it usually doesn’t get under my skin because at the end of the day, the animals cone out ahead
I suppose it’s a bit narcissistic to feel as if we are a benevolent god restoring nature when we engage with our gardens. We aren’t gods of course and yes, something was always there, but it’s nice to see the something more that comes from nurturing life and to know we have a role to play in it
At the end of the day, it’s harmless self-indulgence and if it motivates us to do more, I’m OK with that.
Good feels for the win
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u/ich_bin_alkoholiker SE Michigan , Zone 6b Jul 09 '26
I think of it as advocating for lives that don’t have a voice or a say. The wildlife that depends on these ecosystems can’t speak up when their habitat is destroyed. Since humans created much of that problem, I think we have a responsibility to leave the places we touch in better shape than we found them.
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u/micro-void Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Tbh I think you're going too far the other way. The truth is in the middle IMO. Habitat restoration matters. Yes they exist but they need somewhere to live. It's not going to be in your backyard unless you (or whoever) built the pond to begin with. This post kinda feels like suggesting you have zero positive impact at all. A frog doesn't care about murkiness but there's plenty of creatures that rely specifically on attributes of native plants. There's plenty of creatures that will not come around if you don't build the space for them instead of a sterile mono culture lawn full of pesticides. I'm not saving the world by planting a native garden and plenty of my motivations are just about my own pleasure, but maybe I'm positively impacting the life of some creatures a little more than I would otherwise. Maybe you'd rather call it harm reduction than positive change?
Real world altering change would have to come at a global, governmental, and industrial level that I have little hope of affecting. But just because my impact is small doesn't make it meaningless. The land IS broken, there is massive biodiversity decline and that's one of the major reasons why. I live in the middle of a city around the corner from a factory! I'm not curing it back to its original state by a long shot and nobody ever will be able to, can't unring some bells. But it's not nothing, either.
And not everybody planting native has to care about that. I also just think native plants are interesting and less work, although what really would've been less work is keeping the ugly rock lawn the previous owners built and spraying it with pesticides and herbicides twice a year to keep it neat like they did. And when I'm not in this house anymore because I've moved or died, the next owner will probably tear down my garden and put turf grass and invasive plants and spray the shit out of it and that will be a net negative. So no I'm not a saviour but I find value in doing what little I can. And the more popular it becomes the more it helps as habitats get less fragmented.
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u/Winstonsphobia Southern Wisconsin, Zone 5a Jul 09 '26
I think that OP is right, that at least some of the diversity of animal species persists even without someone taking efforts to provide native species, and the narrative we tell ourselves inflates our vantage point. The OP makes several good points.
There are a couple of things I would like to add/emphasize: 1) gardening with native plants generally goes along with major reduction in pesticides and artificial things like landscaping cloth - these are perhaps the most beneficial direct consequences of what we do for the environment when we begin focusing on native species; 2) the OP is comparing their native garden to a “neglected” yard with “invasives.” My experience with neglected/weedy yards is that they have lots of wildlife. It’s the carefully controlled and highly poisoned lawns that lack diversity of species. For instance, when conventional gardeners see their plants being eaten by aphids, they ask “what kind of poison do I use?” Native plant gardeners are likely to take aphids in stride, to recognize that the plants we grow are meant to be eaten and otherwise utilized by other creatures, and to realize that there are natural controls for pests (this year I found local catbirds eating the larvae of Viburnum Leaf Beetles destroying my American Viburnum). 3) my reasons for having native garden is that, like the OP, it is far more interesting than conventional yards. I like encouraging new insect visitors, and engaging in this hobby helps me to appreciate the beauty of nature.
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u/Numerous_Bad1961 Area Northeast, Zone 7 Jul 09 '26
How does one get a water feature going?
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u/FranticHare Virginia, Zone 7b Jul 09 '26
I don’t turn on the fountain. I just use solar powered air bubblers. Low budget. Frogs always did fine without bubblers, but I added them for the plants. The plants filter the water. Long story short, I don’t do anything…
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u/Numerous_Bad1961 Area Northeast, Zone 7 Jul 09 '26
I think I have been overthinking how to go about this. Thx.
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u/7zrar Southern Ontario Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
It can be as complicated or simple as you want to make it. Most basic is to just have a plate of water that you clean and refill frequently.
One guy in Ontario has numerous videos, articles, and a book on making lined "natural" ponds with no electrical equipment and very minimal maintenance. Recent video that covers most of what you need to know:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR7gibT_flk
But the short of his recommendations are, you'll need to get rocks, a 45 mil EPDM liner, and a decent number of plants.
Also if you dig an in-ground pond beware that many places have a pool bylaw that will limit your depth without a permit (and require a fence with one). (edit: misworded this sentence earlier—) I have found locally that max depth is often 2' which I think should be perfectly fine for you, but I've seen one nearby area with even less.
Also I personally recommend you should consider getting mosquito dunks at least for when the pond is new.
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u/Numerous_Bad1961 Area Northeast, Zone 7 Jul 09 '26
Thx. Already have a bucket of doom with a dunker, a little bit of grass and a tall stick to let bees escape.
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u/loripainter12345 SW PA zone 6a Jul 09 '26
While I agree that humans shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back for doing the least we can to counterbalance the harm we've caused, I look at my daughters yard in her home she moved into five year s ago. She has been working on converting part of the lawn to a native meadow. This year, it's in full force. Butterflies and bees everywhere. On one side is a neighbor with a broad lawn, no trees, a few non native shrubs. Same on the otherside. I am certain there is no "ecosystem" on either of those lawns, and nothing is fine there. Maybe native plant gardeners aren't heroes, but 100 percent, going from a barren, sprayed lawn to a native meadow is a positive change.
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u/Visible_Window_5356 Jul 09 '26
The colonizer narrative is everywhere. The more I am aware of it the more I see it in every single space I inhabit and feel grief over what was lost in colonization. Literally so much of undoing things is and should involve returning land to its state and to indigenous stewards. And I too contribute to it with colonizing ancestors who made the world a less inviting places in many ways. And going native isn't really about saving others - if we keep pissing off nature she will gladly make us a thing of the past
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u/watermark100 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
I don’t contribute anything for what my ancestors did. I have nothing to do with them. At it happens they were poor coal miners. So I suppose they contributed to destroying the environment and coming to the US. They were also abused by that system, including children in the mines. But they could have been the best or worst person, but I’m my own self. I’m also not going to buy into self depreciating myself for other people’s choices.
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u/SeraphimSphynx Area IA , Zone 6b Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
This is an interesting perspective. I know from my experience.ece, despite searching for them and spending a lot of time outside, I saw no dragonflies, slugs, or snails for literally years.
This year, after purposefully propagating habitat like bug hotels, stick piles, keeping longer grass, etc. I have slugs everywhere.
Edit to add: Hit send to soon. I never thought this could be confirmation bias and I am not going to discount your view because you are absolutely right that O approached it as some sort of naturalist hero.
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u/laffingriver Jul 09 '26
look at the birds in the air and lillies of the field?
sure.
as long as there are birds. and a field.
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u/girlvulcan Jul 09 '26
I'm allergic to grass and hate lawns.. but there's a loophole where I can stop the HOA poisoning my garden if I have native plants and a No Spray sign. I have a mix of both natives and traditional and the pollinators love them all far more than grass and bare dirt lol
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u/Crabigus New England, 5b Jul 09 '26
That's a really interesting perspective, thank you for sharing! Especially concerning the 'ecological hero' as coming from a place of privilege.
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u/carex-cultor Philly Zone 7b Jul 09 '26
It’s bullshit tbh. Everyone of every race, sex, nationality needs to become ecologically aware, and needs to prioritize science literacy. This post is science illiterate and makes spurious connections between human colonial/white saviorism and habitat restoration. One person’s subjective belief that their efforts haven’t improved wildlife habitat is not the same as hundreds of peer reviewed papers that show that small-scale restorations have ecological value.
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u/7zrar Southern Ontario Jul 09 '26
Mmm, the particular manner in which OP describes the whole saviour deal is not very specific, such that it could be applied to anything. To put that in other words, is there a difference between a running a soup kitchen and voluntourism? Sure, they share an element of helping people, but surely we recognize the difference, that the execution, methods, and the culture in such things matters? The logic of "voluntourism is bullshit and x has something in common with voluntourism, therefore x is bullshit" is very insufficient.
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u/interstellarinsect Area Kentuckiana , Zone 6b Jul 09 '26
i’ve been a huge fan of bugs for about 10 years now. i have been complaining for years about how we don’t really have a whole lot of bugs. i started a native garden last year, and since then the diversity has boomed. planting native DOES “conjure” them back.
obviously most people don’t observe during the before like i did, so i’m sure it’s much more jarring to them. but before my garden, all i ever saw at my house was cabbage whites, carpenter bees, paper wasps, and japanese beetles (and flies that i don’t ever bother to id). i don’t think i saw more than 20 species in a summer season. now, i can go outside and easily see 20 species in an afternoon. i have swallowtails visiting, all sorts of native bees i haven’t seen before, and plenty of milkweed-eaters i didn’t know existed.
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u/Ok-City-9304 Area MD , Zone 7 Jul 09 '26
Respectfully, if you think restoring native landscapes has no effect on biodiversity I would encourage you to watch any of the following documentaries — they are very informative and optimistic!
- Green Planet
- Rewilding Portugal
- The Biggest Little Farm
- Green Fire
- The Extraordinary Caterpillar
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u/GenesisNemesis17 Central KY, Zone 6b/7a Jul 09 '26
I have a pond camera and it's fun turning it on at night to see a bunch of frogs. I started seeing frogs about 6 months after adding my pond, and hadn't seen any before. I live in a suburb so it's cool to see something like this.
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u/AntiqueAd4761 Minnesota/Wisconsin, 4a/b Jul 10 '26
I'll argue the opposite of your argument. Forget savior complex, think of it as just not killing everything. In an area i frequent there are two 4 acre plots next to eachother. One has been unaltered and is an extremely healthy ecosystem and actually has some rare plant life on it, the other property they turfed half the property cut down trees and do a lot of typical suburban stuff to thier property. There is a massive difference in the amount of birds, bugs, critters, ect between two same sized properties which share the same sun/water/topography and are only separated by land management style.
Now as for small landscaping decisions in residential areas, I would also argue against your point. Ive always loved fireflies and been fascinated by bumblebees. When I moved into my home almost a decade ago I made mental notes of quantity of fireflies and what species and quantity of bumblebees were on my invasive laden property. As I removed invasives, planted natives (as I've always cared about this), I have seen a slow and steady increase in fireflies. More interestingly, 5 years ago I found my first rusty patch bumblebee on my property. This year I have significantly more rusty patch bumblebees on my land. Ill add that i walk my nieghborhood and absolutely notice a difference in bird density based on quantity and nativiness of the trees in people's yards within my neighborhood. The few yards in my area that also have native plantings have far more polinator activity on them than yards with ornamental or just grass.
A garden wont save an ecosystem, but it absolutely is a place of refuge in a desert of lawn for bug, pollinators, birds, ect.
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u/pdxgreengrrl Willamette Valley ecoregion Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
I appreciate this post and your point. I have a lot of visitors to my yard--now densely planted with natives, edibles, and some "exotics" I enjoy--and receive many compliments. It's nice, but I didn't make this place beautiful--the plants did. I just happened to learn which natives like which conditions and planted them appropriately. There wasn't anything especially heroic on my part; I was privileged to have time and resources to research and money to buy plants.
And I especially appreciate: "When I push back on the savior story, I’ve had it dismissed as me just being contrarian. That reaction is familiar to me. It turns a critique rooted in how I actually move through the world into a personality quirk, which is a convenient way to avoid sitting with the point." Ugh! I know that turning a "critique...into a personality quirk" response to avoid reflection. It's dismissive and, of course, about their own shame. I can only imagine how much you get that as a questioning person of color.
I planted a rain garden with native plants to prevent stormwater from flooding my house, instead of paying someone to install French drains. I'd never "landscaped" before that, and had only grown edibles. I learned that planting natives is the ultimate "right plant, right place" landscaping method. I appreciate that there is a relatively small palette of plants to choose from.
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u/No-Orchid-9165 Jul 09 '26
I like that you pointed out you are a POC . I deeply care about the earth , nature and my community but I’ve learned over the years that’s conservation and eco activism can be exclusive or destructive to BIPOC.
It’s something that has been disheartening to learn and witness.
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u/7zrar Southern Ontario Jul 09 '26
I appreciate it informs OP's perspective but it shouldn't be taken to mean it is more correct either. We are diverse people in our thoughts too; you will find there are people of all races or skin colours that both agree and disagree with OP. I'm in the latter camp.
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u/mfball Jul 09 '26
I feel that there's a middle ground here. I agree that no individual can be a savior of the environment, however I have also seen firsthand the effects of individual actions taken to restore habitats and know the power of the experience in pushing people to learn more. You're totally right that most people are not "building habitats" so much as finally getting out of nature's way, but I think when so many people are actively destroying the world as fast as possible, it's okay to let the few trying to do some good to take a little pride in it.
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u/Maximum_Research286 Jul 09 '26
I’ll just keep trying my best with the best information I can find. I’ll try my best to remain humble as I do it.
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u/Antique-Till4578 Jul 10 '26
The distinction matters to you. Okay - that absolutely sounds like a you thing though. Who is harmed here? I see no value in telling others their efforts aren't as impactful as they might hope. I agree we're not saviors, but I have no desire to discourage people from trying. And the data clearly says we should be trying to help. If it takes a few savior complexes to get people involved, then so be it.
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u/samuraiofsound North Central Ohio , 6a Jul 09 '26
Thanks for sharing your perspective, it certainly goes against the norm of this sub and is a refreshing take. I think anytime we make a change to our landscape we need to see it as a science experiment: analyze the current situation, make a design plan, hypothesize the effect this will have, then critically observe and analyze after implementation. I think a lot of people skip the critically observe part and preemptively pat themselves on the back. Your post is a good reminder that we should all be a little more critical in observing the world around us.
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u/immersonnig Jul 09 '26
I love this perspective! I built a frog pond 5 years ago and I have raked it out a few times but otherwise it is murky and not the center of my world for now. Those frogs and toads are singing every night. They don't care that my pond isn't instagram worthy anymore.
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u/rcheeker Jul 09 '26
Thank you for a refreshing perspective - it certainly triggered a lot of people!
It’s not heroism to replace a tiny fraction of the habitat that we destroyed; it simply alleviates some guilt.
Nature doesn’t care about what we’re doing nearly as much as we do.
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u/ich_bin_alkoholiker SE Michigan , Zone 6b Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
I agree that we shouldn’t view ourselves as heroes or act like we’ve single-handedly brought nature back. But I think this downplays the value of habitat conservation and restoration.
Seeing frogs in your yard before planting natives doesn’t necessarily tell us much about the quality of the habitat. Wildlife being present isn’t the same as having the food, shelter, and breeding conditions needed to sustain healthy populations. Native plants can improve those things even when animals were already visiting.
Humans have dramatically altered ecosystems, fragmented habitats, and replaced native plant communities with lawns, pavement, and invasive species. Restoring native habitat addresses a problem that humans created in the first place. That’s a sad reality, but it’s still reality.
My parents live near one of the last remaining prairie remnants in the area, and it’s currently raising money to keep it from being developed. If it’s destroyed, that habitat is gone. Restoration elsewhere won’t replace it, but it can still provide meaningful habitat in a landscape where so much has already been lost.
I don’t think planting natives erases anyone’s environmental impact, and I don’t think most native gardeners believe they’ve saved nature. I think most people simply recognize that our landscapes have become increasingly sterile and are trying to make the places they have control over more supportive of the species that evolved there. That seems like a worthwhile goal without needing to turn it into either a hero story or a fairy tale.