Got a couple of acres of swamp down here. Friend of mine won't visit because of the mosquitoes. Makes sense, right? Swamp = mosquitos.
But there are hardly any! Might get buzzed twice at sundown, that's it, far worse at my home. Also, unlike everywhere else in the South, there are zero fire ants. Literally not a single ant to be found.
All because I have a robust ecosystem out there. The tiny "ground attack" spiders, whatever they're called, are legion. You won't see one unless you look for 'em, or shine a flashlight across the ground at night. 100s of thousands per acre, maybe a million+.
I got banana spiders with fat webs for traps, dragonflies and hummingbirds for helicopters and jets. Tiny lizards prowl everywhere. Tiny fish in the "ponds" eat any larva or eggs that get in there, sometimes surface bugs.
All that scales up to snakes (oddly rare), small mammals, raptors, you get the idea.
tl;dr: Healthy system = hellish Deathworld for insects.
One other note: I've cleared about 1,200sq./ft. at the main camp site. Just that tiny bit of clearing is noticeably hotter than 60'-80' down the trail. Haven't taken thermometer readings, but you can feel an easy 5°F drop. Amazing that such a small spot becomes a heat island. Now look at the top and bottom pics. Does the bottom pic look hot to you? Does the top pic evoke feelings of coolness? Yeah. Imagine what our cities, roads and fields are doing to the overall environment.
I don't have a swamp, but I have a wooded yard and can attest to most of what you said. However, in addition to the plethora of bug species and legion of spiders, I also have a shitload of mosquitos.
Not in the same climate as you, but we stopped cutting our grass all the time. We mow about 3-4 times a year. It's really more of a "harvest" than mowing at this point.
While the neighbors may not appreciate the shaggy meadow we cultivated, we now have lightning bugs at dusk in the summertime. The neighboring houses? Practically none. I can only imagine what will happen when we start replacing this stuff with local plants.
I don't see mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, ants (ants especially on the vines on the house) spiders, roaches, centipedes, or a dozen other specialized bugs that eat your vegetable garden.
My yard looks like a mix of 1 and 2, but there's a lot of negatives to your daily life with any of the 3 options and this biased graphic clearly wants you to pick 1 or at least 2 over 3.
Until people stop and realize that the birds and the bees includes bugs. It's not like we can tell them where to be, but we sure as shit need them to exist.
There is something so desolate when you live somewhere that native bees and butterflies are rare in. You start to realize it's due to the lack of nature, forests. The pesticides you and your neighbors dump on your lawn. The lack of any native plants
My landlord exactly. Dude hires people to spray the yard every year because God forbid ants try to approach the building. I've tried convincing him not to but he wasn't having it. I talked to my neighbor and it turns out the guy used to edge the lawn with scissors. Luckily my neighbor is way more agreeable and we're redoing his lawn more in line with the picture
A toxic moat around the house might be a better option than sterilizing all life in the garden. Also cool to look at if you color it green and install some lighting
More time and effort. Bottom one takes 30 minutes to mow every 2 weeks. Each and everyone of those plants need to be maintained, trimmed and kept with weekly so it doesn’t look like a disaster. So unless you have 1-2 free hours a day, no one will be actually able to do the top and maintain it so it doesn’t turn to garbage.
Personally I respect nature, but don't like it to be near me. So I prefer to live in places without lawns, like apartments. If I found myself by some miracle in possession of a house with a lawn (in this economy???), I would seek to destroy the lawn and replace it with more house. House is much more useful than lawn. Until I had accomplished that goal, it would just be a useless mass and I wouldn't waste any time on it except to keep the footpath clear.
The way white people are like "I want to be responsible for additional household chores so that I can have a useless biological dead zone that 'looks nice'" is nonsense to me.
Whiteness is a social construct invented to justify slavery. It's not a real race, it's a fake race. Insulting white people isn't a race thing. People who choose to identify meaningfully as white are all racists.
All races are social constructs, but the degree to which they're harmful social constructs to self-ID as is variable. There are few good reasons to be angry with someone for identifying as maori or Haudenosaunee, for example. And getting mad at someone for identifying as black would be big time victim blaming and unproductive. But white? It was invented 500 years ago, Europeans already had less bad cultural identities, and it was a direct justification for many of the worst atrocities in history. And white people have garbage culture like lawns anyway.
It’s not a real race, it’s a fake race. Insulting white people isn’t a race thing.
All races are social constructs
Uh oh
But white? It was invented 500 years ago, Europeans already had less bad cultural identities, and it was a direct justification for many of the worst atrocities in history
Isn't the whole concept of "race" fairly new and with it came bad shit?
I identify as white simply because I recognize I have privileges other races don't have as often.
You could be more specific and say I'm by coincidence a very large part Sami, but I'm not part of the culture, all my fully Sami relatives are really far back in the family tree and I've never known them, and people who look at me aren't going to see anything more than a white person, and thus I'm afforded the privileges of being white, so therefore, why call myself anything other than white?
Once you have flowers planted they’re pretty easy to maintain. I have a much larger garden area than what’s pictured. Yes, in the spring I give up a couple of weekends to get it all established but after that it’s just watering it once a day (if required) and then enjoy it for the rest of the season.
So, that was a long winded way of telling you that you are wrong.
Well you must live in a fair weather state, most flowers need to have their bulbs pulled in less hardy places so they don’t die.
You don’t just need to water, you need to de-weed the gardens, you need to deadhead some flowers, you need to fertilize some or amend it with compost or other nutrients.
It’s more than a few weekends at the start, and it’s far more than just watering if you don’t want it to look like garbage.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinion, but don’t lie to support it lmfao.
What’s with the insults for pointing out some people don’t have all that much free time? I also never brought up the difficulty, so why are you bringing it up like I did? Nice red herring…
It’s great you have the free time, but most people don’t lmfao. Either that or your yard is a disaster, but you don’t think it is. Proper maintenance is hours a week, not set it and forget it. Thats how yards looks like shit and neighbors hate you.
You’re spreading misinformation. There is enough of that on the internet already. I called you out for that. Then you said I’m a liar. Now you’re saying my yard is a disaster because I don’t spend 1-2 hours of maintenance on it every day.
You have no idea what you’re talking about and should not speak as if you do. I’m tired of people like you.
I said it’s more time and effort. You’ve only described how it’s more time effort than 30 minutes of mowing. Oh and the top still needs a mow as well… so it’s the same + more. I really don’t see how your points apply here….
So you agreed with me first, than went on a bloviated rant.
Look in the mirror lmfao. Also, there’s more than one user who said the same as me, why haven’t you responded to them if that’s your entire issue and point here…?
Heres a great resource so you can educate yourself instead of repeating marketing verbatim.
Great point right here for you
Because native plants are uniquely suited to their geography, they are able to grow with little need for human inputs. Natives require less water, fertilizer or pesticides. They simply need to get established and then you barely need to do anything. Apparently non-natives are the exact opposite. They constantly need watered and fertilized. They are always plagued by insects and need sprayed all of the time. If you see a sick or diseased plant in your neighborhood, rest assured, it's definitely a non-native. 🙄
And another on why just native means shit
Just because a plant is native, that doesn't mean it's problem-free. Poison ivy is native to many areas in the US. But it can cause extremely harmful effects to humans who are exposed to the urushiol in its plant parts. The plant can be so toxic that humans have died after inhaling the smoke produced while burning it. Some overly righteous conservationists will promote its "benefits" to wildlife. But let's be real. If it was a non-native plant, it would be listed as a Class A noxious weed both federally and at every state level. Fortunately some localities like New York City require the eradication of poison ivy. But too many government agencies give it a free pass because of its status as an untouchable native (pun intended).
Way to eat into the marketing without putting a little thought or education into it yourself lmfao. Some people are ridiculous.
It's not true for one simple reason: we need to plan NATIVE plants! They require near no maintainence and do extremely well.
All the shit you can buy from a garden store is almost always non natives that weve all been tricked into thinking is somehow better. They aren't. They suck for the ecosystem and they suck to take care of.
There is no care with native plants. There is only beautiful growth and a healthy ecosystem.
lol must be great living in a fair weather state where stuff doesn’t die every frost.
That I’m works for places that can leave bulbs in the ground, lots of people need to remove even native bulbs since the frosts get too hard and will kill most of them.
Native doesn’t mean zero maintenance, who told you that lmfao? It still requires maintenance if you don’t want it looking like garbage. Beauty is subjective, but yeah lack of maintenance is just laziness and claiming it’s beautiful is justifying the not wanting to deal with it.
Native yards still need maintenance, flowers need to be deadheaded weekly while blooming for example.
No one talks about the finer details, just glosses over how “simple” it is. Yeah if you let turn to shit it’s easy lmfao.
Dunno what "natives" you're planting, but if you have a true native landscape, there's very little maintenance. You just have to work with the right people (i.e. - not landscapers) to help select a true low-maintenance, lawn. If you plant the right mix, you can have a really nice looking lawn that has different native flowering plants throughout the growing season and will look really nice.
If you're spending hours a day, or even hours a week, you probably want a very specific, manicured look. Or you didn't do the right planting mix.
Native plants still need to be deadheaded, still need to be pruned and trimmed.
Native plants still require maintenance, they just have better synthesis with the other plants.
The time is for the amount of plants. Yeah having 4 plants in a small yard is easy work, but 4 plants in a large yard would look barren and empty… so more plants, more work. If 4 plants are 5 minutes of work a week, 40 plants is 50 minutes. For a similar yard of turf it would be 30 minutes of mowing. Now you have to maintain your grass, can’t mow since it’s not all turf, and still need to deal with the additional plants. It’s x+y, not x or y….
People who buy into this “native is easier” is being sold a bridge that requires more work down the road if they don’t want it to look like shit. For a few years it’s fine, and why every rants about it, because it hasn’t reached the issue point yet. Native plants thrive more, or should, meaning they require more work since they you know, grow and spread easier….
You're uneducated on the topic and talking like you have all the facts. I have a large property that looks like the top image, and it's extremely low maintenance compared to a manicured lawn. I don't have to dead-head flowers, because they're incorporated into a larger planting, so it looks perfectly natural to have a few flowers in multiple stages of their lifecycle along side the rest of the property. NORMAL nature looks beautiful and not messy.
Sure, if you have a row of "native" flowers in a bed of mulch, they take maintenance. In that case, don't have a native lawn, you have a few native plants in an unnatural ecosystem.
Natives are easier, much lower maintenance, better for the environment, and look much better unless you're used to flat, green, golf courses.
What’s so magical about native plants that you think they don’t require the same regular maintenance of any other plants?
If you don’t dead head, those seeds will blow all over your yard, meaning you need to weed them, or your yard is a mess since it’s all over the place. Or the plants get so dense are competing with each other chocking each other out. I’m sorry this was never properly explained to you.
People sell “native” yards to people who think they can neglect their yards. Theres a reason why they don’t show established yards in their marketing lmfao.
You are talking about a native patch in a non-native yard. That's not how this works. You make a native YARD. The fact that they spread seeds is a GOOD THING. It's not a weed, because it belongs there.
It's self-seeding, it's self-maintaining. It's not magic, it's evolution. The plants are supposed to be there, they want to be there, the ground wants them to be there, nature wants it to be there. You're building a house in nature, not putting a tiny spot of non-natural nature in your lawn.
The maintenance is less, but you still have some. You just need to make sure that invasives stay out, but past that, it's mostly self-maintaining.
Heres a great resource so you can educate yourself instead of repeating marketing verbatim.
Great point right here for you
Because native plants are uniquely suited to their geography, they are able to grow with little need for human inputs. Natives require less water, fertilizer or pesticides. They simply need to get established and then you barely need to do anything. Apparently non-natives are the exact opposite. They constantly need watered and fertilized. They are always plagued by insects and need sprayed all of the time. If you see a sick or diseased plant in your neighborhood, rest assured, it's definitely a non-native. 🙄
I very much live in a cold climate with a deep frost, it's totally not a problem. Because the native plants are used to it! For many ifs part of their lifecycle: the seeds require the cold cycle before they will germinate. Very cool stuff.
You don't need to deadhead your flowers: only if you're looking to extend the flowering time. Otherwise just let them do their thing. They'll flowers, then make seeds, and those seeds will contribute to the ecosystem.
If you like, you can give me a rough region you're in (like a state and part of the state) and the conditions of the yard you're struggling with (dry/wet, sun conditions) and I'll try and dig up some resources!
Lol, plants don't need to be kept with weekly. Maintaining a xeriscape or native landscape is less time and effort than a lawn. I've been slowly converting my lawn to larger and more native beds. I don't have to water, even during exceptional drought. I have to top the mulch up once a year. I weed (usually just grass) just whenever I spot a weed. Depending on the plant, I trim or cut it back to the ground once or twice a year.
Flowers need to be deadheaded, trees and bushes need to be shaped so they don’t look like a mess or grow causing issues.
Yeah neglecting the yard and letting it do its thing is simple, maintaining it properly so it doesn’t look like a mess and doesn’t turn to shit requires a decent of time and effort.
Beauty is subjective and most people who claim the top is easier have yards that don’t looks remotely that good.
Meh, depends on the plants. I don't really have any plants the bloom profusely for long seasons (perhaps only Echinacea, but those don't really need to be deadheaded either). Nothing I have self-seeds aggressively in my mulch beds. I can't even grow most traditional types of flowers because deer will just eat them, lol. I very much dislike the look of meticulously shaped shrubs, and many plants have attractive natural growth habits, IMO.
You're forgetting that Americans have been brainwashed to think that large tracts of unproductive land with zero biological diversity is a flex. And no one wants to be seen as some poor with bugs in their yard.
large tracts of unproductive land with zero biological diversity is a flex.
You're right. It was absolutely a flex hundreds of years ago, for places like freaking Versailles. And we're all living like little kings out here, complete with turning a blind eye to disastrous effect.
Meanwhile my Chinese neighbors are hard at work cultivating every last scrap of land they own. It's kind of amazing.
b) They conveniently left out spiders, all those other bugs will attract a shit ton of spiders and I hate spiders. I like ladybugs, dragonflies, butterflies and such, but not so much that I'm willing to deal with spiders and wasps.
If someone has a way to solve both those problems I'm all for it lmao
I'm well aware, that's why I don't advocate for their total extermination like I do mosquitoes lmao
But they can do it away from me, those assholes don't need to hang out above my door or inside my car or under my outdoor seating to be part of the ecosystem...
I have lots of trees and shrubs in my yard with lots of spiders, but no spiders in the spots you describe. When they have better natural homes they're less likely to try to live in your spaces.
