Native Suburbia

07/05/2026

As my entire metropolitan area is dealing with flooding, I just want to remind everyone that native plants have feet long roots that hold onto water and soil a lot better than non-native turf grass with its mere 2 inch long roots.

The more native plants there are in the ground, the better the chances of avoiding floods. If towns would encourage more native plantings and landscaping, there might be less flooding to worry about in those towns.

Food for thought

07/04/2026

🌿 You planted native. Your neighbor has opinions.

Join Lorraine Johnson, author, activist, and longtime advocate for native plant gardening, for a practical conversation on navigating HOA rules, responding to neighbor concerns, and building support for ecological landscapes.

Part of the Less Lawn More Life Challenge, this free webinar will help you communicate the value of native plants with confidence.

Register for the free webinar: https://wildones.org/how-to-talk-about-native-plants-with-your-hoa/

Not part of the challenge yet? Join thousands of people transforming their outdoor spaces into habitat: https://www.lesslawnmorelife.com/?ref=wildones

Wildr Places

07/02/2026

These common flora can cause blisters, poison pets, and attract ticks.

06/15/2026

American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus)

04/15/2026

No, dandelions are not saving the bees. Watch.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Ju44LnYoz/

03/27/2026

Lawns are for sheeple. Stop keeping up with the Joneses and do some research before you decide how to landscape your scrap of land. Make the most of your space by adding native biodiversity to support native wildlife and the ecosystem at large. Save some time and money while doing it.

The best-looking yard on your street is probably the worst one for the planet.

And the "messy" one? That's the one everything depends on.

THE PERFECT LAWN:
→ Cost: $2,000-5,000/year (chemicals, mowing, watering, edging)
→ Species supported: grass
→ Insects: near zero (that's the goal of the chemicals)
→ Birds: almost none (no food source)
→ Pollinators: none (no flowers)
→ Water use: 96 gallons/day average
→ Carbon: net EMITTER (mowing, leaf blowing, manufacturing chemicals)

THE "MESSY" YARD:
→ Cost: $100-300/year
→ Native plants: supports 10-50x more insect species than non-native
→ Birds: dozens of species (insects = bird food)
→ Pollinators: bees, butterflies, moths
→ Water use: minimal (native plants are drought-adapted)
→ Carbon: net ABSORBER (healthy soil sequesters carbon)

The science is clear:

→ Homes with native plants support 70% more caterpillar biomass (the #1 food for baby birds)
→ Doug Tallamy's research at University of Delaware: a yard with native oaks supports 557 species of caterpillars. A non-native ginkgo? 5.
→ 96% of North American land birds feed insects to their young
→ No insects = no baby birds = population collapse

You don't have to let your whole yard go wild.

But even ONE native plant bed, ONE unmowed corner, ONE section where you stop spraying — changes everything.

Beauty isn't measured in how green your grass is.

It's measured in what's alive in it. 🦋

03/13/2026

Know your natives from your invasives and discriminate responsibly.

The brown shield-shaped insect crawling out from behind your window trim right now is the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug — Halyomorpha halys. It arrived from East Asia in the late 1990s, first detected in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Within two decades it spread to 46 states and became one of the most damaging agricultural pests on the continent.

Here's the problem. There's a native insect that looks almost identical — and it's one of the best predators your garden has.

The Spined Soldier Bug is the same shield shape, the same mottled brown coloring, roughly the same size. Most people can't tell them apart, so they kill both. The difference is in the shoulders. The Brown Marmorated has smooth, rounded shoulders. The Spined Soldier Bug has sharp spines jutting out from its shoulder line. That's the fastest ID. Look at the shoulders.

The invasive one feeds on over 100 crops — tomatoes, peppers, apples, peaches, corn. It pierces the skin and injects digestive enzymes, leaving brown necrotic spots that ruin the harvest. It costs U.S. agriculture hundreds of millions per year.

The native one hunts. It eats caterpillars, beetle larvae, Colorado potato beetles, cabbage loopers. Gardeners actually buy them as biological control. One Spined Soldier Bug can take out dozens of pest insects per week.

One is destroying your harvest. The other is defending it. Check the shoulders.

03/11/2026

Nature is messy!

Healthy ecosystems are rarely tidy. 🌎🌿

In Wild Ones upcoming webinar Rethinking Horticulture with Real Ecology, Joey Santore draws from years of field work in disturbed and urban landscapes to explore what plant communities actually look like when they function on their own terms and why irregular growth often signals ecological strength.

Premieres March 18 on YouTube. 👉 Register now: https://wildones.org/joey-santore/