Roz and I traveled down to Philadelphia in June to see Marty Moss Coane interview Doug Tallamy on the subject of Creating Native Landscapes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creating-a-native-landscape-in-your-own-yard/id1667989249?i=1000659054568). The interview was “about the role we can play in restoring our shared environment by turning our backyards, no matter how small, into interconnected conservation corridors using native plants to attract bees and insects, especially pollinators.”
Doug was very informative and entertaining. See my index of the interview below.
He also has a book: Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard by Douglas W. Tallamy.
This book could help the Meeting to define what we want to do for Earth Day and the steps we want to take more generally to make our Meeting campus more sustainable. We’ve gotten on the right path, but I think we have a long way to go regarding the care of our grounds. Some things Doug Tallamy talks about that we can strive for, given the will, are:
the less mowing we talked about in our clerks team meeting and managing it carefully such that we eliminate/minimize undesirables, especially invasive plants;
augment our new meadow areas with seed mixes for drought-tolerant native grasses;
add pollinator friendly flowers like goldenrod, asters, sunflowers, violets, evening primrose, and native willows to our meadows;
create areas where we don’t collect the leaves;
create educational opportunities for Nursery School and our hoped-for FDS about ecosystems and insects.
Memorable moments of the Marty Moss Coane interview Doug Tallamy interview:
00:00 — 03:00 Introduction
“There's millions of us. So that's millions of future conservationists.”
“… the world is gonna end if we do nothing”
06:30 — How does a well-functioning ecosystem work?
11:00 — Most people think that nature is someplace else.”
14:15 — Pesticides and herbicides
15:08 — Relationship with invasives and their berries.
16:50 — Trouble is birds rear their young on insects not berries.
17:30 — Killing our birds from all different angles.
18:00 — A nice big circle of leaf litter around a tree for caterpillars to fall into.
18:50 — Clover rather than grass; no-mow areas “with a sequence of blooming plants that our pollinators need from April all the way to the end of October”
19:40 — Pollinator gardens with “goldenrods, native asters, evening primrose, perennial sunflowers, anything in the genus Helianthus”
20:45 — The problem with honeybees… hobbyists are hurting the native bee population, i.e., the pollinators we need to save.
21:30 — The Oak tree… productive vs non-productive plants.
24:00 — Getting 127 species of birds to visit 1/10 of an acre using beautiful native plants
25:04 — Everybody has to be involved… visit the homegrownationalpark.org website, and “look at the section about container gardening, you can now find the appropriate native plants for containers in your eco region, anywhere in the country, to try to empower people who think they can't do anything.”
25:48 — Research about health benefits of exposure to nature.. shows it can lower your blood pressure and your stress hormone.
26:50 — Nature’s resilience.
28:57 — A weed is plant out of place… call it Monarch’s delight instead of milkweed and everyone will want it.
22:50 — lights
“We need pollinators more than they need us.”
33:25 — Doung’s critique of the Endangered Species Act: it focuses on one species at a time rather the whole web.
Kim Kardashian is the biggest water abuser in California and she’s proud of it… we need to change the culture.
35:51 — The destructive problem of deer.
32:32 — Ten Step Program: “Take 10 steps back from your trees, and all your insect problems disappear… don't think of them as caterpillars. Think of them as bird food. If you have a plant that's making zero bird food, get another plant.”
42:00 — HOAs.
45:55 — Ticks
49:15 — Roundup/herbicides.
49:05 — Use electric lawn equipment… not gas-powered leaf blowers.
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From The Connection with Marty Moss-Coane: Creating a Native Landscape in Your Own Yard, Jun 14, 2024
This material from the interview may be protected by copyright.