Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG‘s Gardener for Public Education.

Doug Tallamy (Photo courtesy of the University of Delaware)

Doug Tallamy’s lecture started from a basic and logical premise: if you take away the places for wildlife to live and feed, you will lose your wildlife. We are all aware that habitat destruction leads to a loss of species, but very few of us believe that we can make a difference or that we are directly linked to the process. I mean this in a non-judgmental way and from a place of empowerment.

Some of you may think that this is an early case of ‘election fever,’ but alas it is not. Last month I sat in an auditorium and listened to a very convincing and lucid proponent for environmental restoration and species diversity. Regardless of his own political views, with respect to the biome Tallamy is definitely not a democrat. “All plants,” he asserts, “are not created equal in their ability to support wildlife.”
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Joyce H. Newman is the editor of Consumer Reports GreenerChoices.org, and has been a Docent with The New York Botanical Garden for the past six years.

Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. — January 19, February 16, March 15

The New York Botanical Garden invites you to come in from the cold and warm up at the 2012 Winter Lecture Series, featuring three distinguished experts at the forefront of ecology and sustainable practices. Each will be sharing insights and practical advice on crucial challenges confronting today’s gardeners.

January 19 – BREAKING THE RULES: Ecological Design for the Real World

Larry Weaner has been creating native landscapes throughout the eastern U.S. since 1977. His firm, Larry Weaner Landscape Associates, has received several top design awards and has a national reputation for combining ecological and traditional garden design.

In this lecture Weaner shows us new and alternative gardening techniques that can yield richer, more easily maintained landscapes.
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. Join her each weekend for home gardening demonstrations on a variety of topics in the Home Gardening Center.

The lovely title of Douglas Tallamy’s acclaimed book Bringing Nature Home implies that as gardeners and environmentally minded citizens, one of our directives is to invite nature—birds, bees, butterflies, and other critters—into our landscapes.

As I wrote about in the past few weeks, invasive plants change face of our natural landscape, and so do pollution and urban sprawl. In his book, an outstanding homage to biodiversity, Tallamy looks at two other destructive forces: habitat destruction and the loss of species.

Biodiversity is synonymous with a balanced ecological community. Plants, insects, and other animals have all co-evolved in communities with complex, interconnected lives that are dependent on one another.

Many insects are specialists, meaning that they feed on specific plants. This is nature’s way of ensuring that species are not decimated by predators. How do plants do this? read more »