Growing native plants in the garden gives it a sense of place and a connection to local ecoregions. That simple sounding idea sometimes seems to ignite deep passions. True believers want to cast out all exotic (non-native) plants from the garden and even commercial sites with a goal of restoring the landscape to precolonial conditions. On the other side, skeptics argue trying to recreate an imagined pristine natural habitat ignores the reality that people and birds and the wind have always moved plants around the globe. Evolving to grow in a particular site means an organism is sufficiently suited to grow there, but not necessarily better suited than plants that evolved somewhere else.
The debate extends into whether or not anything can or should be done to contain invasive exotics. Do invasive plants decrease biodiversity? Does maligning exotic plants carry a subtext of nativism or xenophobia?
Natives and naturalized plants in the garden and wildlands reading list
- Books in the Miller Library (10 books)
- Confronting introduced species: a form of xenophobia?
- Botanical decolonization: rethinking native plants
- Changing Our Attitudes Towards Invasive “Alien” Species
- Facing the broader dimensions of biological invasions
- Against Nativism
- An Evolutionary Perspective on Strengths, Fallacies, and Confusions in the Concept of Native Plants
- The Native Plant Enthusiasm: Ecological Panacea or Xenophobia?
- Pollan’s Nativism Needs a Major Refresh
- Native or Invasive
- Why Native Plants Matter
- Moving Beyond the Natives/Exotics Debate