Myth: Native Plants Can’t Grow In Cities!

Not only can native plants grow in our artificial urban environment but, as the excellent book Bringing Nature Home points out, it is actually imperative that we grow them. Our built environment can actually fairly easily coexist with many species of plants and animals, we simply have to make the choice to allow that coexistence to happen. Nature isn’t something that can only exist in nature preserves, it can thrive in close proximity to our homes and businesses. Cities in fact have the potential to increase biodiversity in a location! This doesn’t mean that we can restore a subdivision to the way it was before it was built. Even if we tore down every single house, that ship has long since sailed. But every east facing side of a building or drainage ditch is an opportunity for different species to thrive that wouldn’t necessarily have occurred there had that area not been developed. No environment on earth creates the density of microclimates and micro environments as a city does.

Myth: Native Plants Are Expensive!

Native plants have the reputation of being a niche product for plant enthusiasts and other weirdos willing to spend extra money on their gardens. Nothing could be further from the truth! I explore this topic in detail in this blog post, but native plants typically cost about the same as a new lawn from sod and have dramatically lower maintenance costs.

Myth: Native Plants Are Difficult to Grow!

This is untrue, but it’s also easy to see how this has become a pervasive myth. As a general rule, plants that evolved in a particular location are going to be very well adapted to the conditions at that location. But because people have become so disconnected from the natural world, many of us lack the ecological awareness to realize that the cypress tree we bought at Home Depot probably isn’t going to thrive on our Stone Oak hilltop. Not only is that box store tree probably grown from the seeds of cypress trees from the Deep South (and not the more drought tolerant central Texas ecotype), but that tree almost always occurs along waterways and probably was never going to thrive on your upland site. This kind of thing is depressingly common, a good example being all the sad dying cypress trees you see planted in strip mall parking lots. Yes, that is a beautiful and beloved native Texas plant, but not only do native plants have to be available for purchase or installation, but we also as a society need to regain our awareness of the natural world to know which natives are appropriate for our site and which are not. The golden rule of right plant, right place applies to native plants as much as they do to any other kind of plant!

Myth: Native plants encourage mosquitos, ticks and rats!

It’s true that native plants are great for native animals, but fortunately this doesn’t extend to common pests we would prefer not to cohabitate with. A large mosquito population has nothing at all to do with plant cover and much more to do with standing water. If you have a native plant garden and lots of mosquitos, you have a standing water problem somewhere. And it’s much more likely to be under the crawl space of your house or around a shed or other structure than in your garden! As for ticks, they are just not that common in urban areas. Ticks need to feed on the blood of large mammals to live. Therefore, ticks have much more to do with the number of deer around your neighborhood than they do with what kind of plants you choose to grow. Meanwhile, think about the number of rats you’ve seen around the average garage or restaurant versus the number of rats you’ve seen in a wild area or park. Just as ticks need the blood of large mammals, rats essentially need the waste of our society to feed themselves. There really is not much for a rat to eat in a pocket prairie or a native woodland!

Myth: I have bad soil so I can’t grow natives!

This is a strangely pervasive attitude considering that there is no shortage of plants in central Texas that appreciate “bad” or thin soils. Any time you are paying to import soil or compost or fertilizer, you are fighting an uphill battle. Nature is in fact quite good as its job, and any changes you make will be undone sooner or later. Unless you’re gardening in a Superfund site or on top of an abandoned concrete runway, save yourself the expense and effort and try and work with what nature (or your homebuilder) has given you. Again, internalize the mantra of “right plant, right place”.