Ecological Gardening 101

Season 2 - Episode 1 - Botanical Terminology with Ryan Godfrey

This is the Garden shift, and I'm your host, Tina Cesaroni.

Happy new year, remember going back to school after a break and doing weeks of review?

0:15

Well, this episode will be a bit like that.

I've had feedback and questions from listeners which prompted me to think about the language we use when we speak about ecological gardening.

Who better to help than my friend and expert in all things ecological, Brian Godfrey.

0:31

Brian has years of experience working in academia, botanical gardens, consulting with both the private sector and with NGO's engaging communities and neighborhoods in ecological restoration and stewardship.

Listen in as we define and explain common terms used in the world of native plants and their associations in the natural world.

0:58

Hey, Ryan, thanks for coming back to the garden.

Shift A Tina, thanks for having me back.

I'm so excited to be here.

You know, you've told me a couple of times that you would be game to do a question and answer format, so here we are.

Are you ready to go back to school?

OK, I've got I've got the questions and let's just try to break down the language that we use as native plant people.

1:20

OK.

And Full disclosure, I do have your terms and definitions document that you authored, I think with some of your peers.

And it's always been a super valuable reference to me.

So I will be looking at that and asking you some questions for descriptions there.

1:36

OK, so let's get let's get started.

You know, I was thinking about the word weed, how it's commonly used.

And are you like me?

Do you get photos from your friends of like, parts of a plant?

And they say to you, is this a weed?

And you're like, OK, hold on, let's start.

1:54

The back up with that terminology right away.

So totally that happens all the time.

The blurry photos is such a relatable experience.

But yeah, thanks for referencing first of all, that that little chart, my grand unifying theory of plant terminology.

2:11

And by the way, if people are interested, I've published that with my colleagues Aradya Ayer and and Ellen Jakubowski at WWF Canada.

There's, we have a blog and if you just look up WWF Canada weeding through botanical terminology, you will see this chart.

2:27

And I would love for people to comment on this too, cause I don't think it's a perfect thing yet and I'd love to work with others to refine it.

But yeah, weed is in there.

And what I love to tell people, first of all, the kind of blows people's minds is that weed is not a technical botanical term, right, right.

2:44

It is, it is a subjective term.

It's contextual.

So a plant can be a weed in one context and not a weed in a, in another context.

It has everything to do with our perception as gardeners, as people.

You know, what I say is it's just it's a weed is just a plant that you don't want to be there.

3:03

You have decided that you don't want that plant to be there.

So to get a photo of something and for someone to ask me, is this a weed?

Like we can't answer that question until we first figure out what is this plant and is this plant in the right context of what, what is it going to do next?

So we really do first have to identify this the plant.

3:21

And then what I like to do after identifying is ask what can this plant do?

What is this capable of in this space?

Is it capable of spreading?

Is it capable of seating?

Is it capable of providing food either to you or to wildlife?

What else can it do?

Can it fix nitrogen?

3:37

Possibly.

Could it coexist with other plants and animals?

You know, all of those questions can help inform.

The ultimate question is which is do you want it to still be there or not?

And if not, then it's a weed and you can pull it and, you know, compost it, responsibility or or otherwise if it's an invasive species.

3:55

But yeah, that's the long story what a weed is to me.

I think the the latest picture that I got was probably late summer was from a friend and I looked at it and I thought it was an aster.

And then I I did use one of my plant ID because the photo wasn't great and it came up as a flea bane.

4:15

So where would you put flea bane in your plant categories?

Yeah, yeah.

So another important thing to note about plant categories is 1 plant is not meant to fit in under just one category, right?

The one plant could fit under multiple different categories, different terminologies at the same time.

4:32

So a flea vein.

So that's going to be a genus Erigeron, if we're speaking Latin, many of the flea veins are are native to North America.

So some of them are annual species, some of them are perennial species.

None of them that I'm aware of spread aggressively.

4:48

And I think that's a really important point to make.

So I wouldn't classify any of the plebeians as an invasive species for that purposes.

So they they, they don't count because they're not exotic to the region.

They're native species and they're also not causing harm.

5:04

So those are the two keywords that have to fit with the definition of invasive species.

And then the next question would be, yeah, could they possibly be ruderal species, which is one of my categories?

It's like that's a good one.

Ruderal meaning, which is a plant that is specifically adapted to kind of harsh, disturbed habitats.

5:27

And definitely some of the flea veins are that, which means that they're thriving in a place that a lot of other plants wouldn't thrive.

And that's actually kind of wonderful and magical in a way.

Once you realized like this is a strong, this is a resilient, hearty plant and it tells you a lot about your environment.

5:44

If you're seeing a lot of ruderal plants, that means what's going on with your soil, what's going on with your moisture?

So that's one place that I would start.

And then like, yeah, think about the relationships, too.

I think is always an important part.

And that's in the document, too.

5:59

In the chart is, does this plant have pollinators?

Are you seeing bees on it?

Are you seeing butterflies?

Are you seeing Beatles or any other kind of or larvae that are munching on the leaves?

Those are all relationships that the plant has, that, you know, plants have this wonderful capacity to support relationships and ecosystems.

6:20

And I think it's important to notice those things before we make judgment calls like this is a weed.

Sure, for sure.

And you know the thing about the flea pain is I started to notice it coming up in my garden and I've been trying desperately to get my Meadow to look majestic and I've been failing my native plant Meadow.

6:38

But I do love it still.

Some species are doing so well, but I am changing things around and cultivating the look of it a little bit.

And I notice in those disturbed areas is where these resilient Rudal roles as you say, are coming in.

So would a rude role always be considered native, or could it be something invasive as well?

6:58

No, for sure.

You can have exotic router rules too.

Definitely you.

There are lots of plants that basically follow humans around wherever we go.

They find the waste places.

A classic one would be Keto Podium album, The Goose Foot or yeah, it's like a relative of spinach.

7:16

And you see all over the place grows up in sidewalk tax, an edible plant, a salt tolerant plant, which is amazing.

And you find that literally all over the world anywhere that there are people.

So it's maybe not even appropriate to call this plant native to anywhere as long as it's native native to humans at this point, like we are in relationship with this species.

7:41

And so there's that type of a situation with ruderal species as well.

And yeah, again, I think the the main thing to think about if you're seeing ruderal and she says, what is this telling you about your environment?

Because if you change the environment so that it's no longer extreme anymore, then the ruderal plants will just go away and they'll find another place to live.

8:00

OK, so let's back up again and let's just talk about native.

We want people to have native plants.

So I know that you say there's no single definition, but if you were to give a simple definition, what would you say?

So native plants are the are the plants that have been in a particular region and a particular ecosystem.

8:21

So that is a system of relationships right between organisms and their environment.

And the native place have been there for a very, very, very long time and they've developed very, very deep relationships over that time.

So they've adapted to the local environment and they've Co evolved with those other organisms that relate with it in the ecosystem.

8:44

So that's the key.

And because there's this time factor, we're talking about hundreds if not thousands of generations.

That's something that you can't replace easily, right?

Like that takes evolutionary time to develop.

That's valuable because we know those relationships matter and they are relevant and that they will take a very, very long if they're destroyed, they'll come back eventually, but long after we have come and gone and parents, you know, maybe many generations into the future, things will change.

9:17

But it's worth, I think, valuing and acknowledging the depth of those relationships.

And that's what a native species really means to.

Me, OK.

And now when we when we talk about native species, we also talk about their native range.

Yeah, because, I mean because plants and all species are moving around all the time because environments change over evolutionary time, you know, geologies change isn't ranges come up and down takes form, glaciers move, so species are moving around too.

9:46

And so there's, with all of these categories, tita, there's gradations, there's Gray zones in between because, yeah, there's a question, has the species been here for 1000 years, 5000 years, 10,000 years?

Nobody's been here in this particular area for much longer than 10,000 years because it was a glacier before that, right?

10:05

It was just a kilometer thick layer of ice.

So but if you go to other parts of the world, there's more layers of that there.

There could be species that are there for 10,000 years, 20,000 years, 50,000 years, 100,000 years.

So there's all those different layers of yeah, nativeness or the depth of relationships.

10:25

That makes sense.

Sure.

And let's, let's specific, let's speak specifically about a species that we all know like goldenrod and love talking about golden rods because there's so many species in that genus, right.

Let's talk about well, let's talk about binomial nomenclature first.

10:43

So we have the genus and then the species OK in in the Latin botanical phraseology that we would like to use as plant people because common names can get confusing, right?

So.

I agree with you on that.

Yep.

Yeah, I know that common names are sometimes easier, but I think to know golden rod and give it the justice it deserves, I think we need to understand that there are so many different species of it.

11:09

So I often talk about, let's say zigzag goldenrod, which I think is native, and I think it's native here.

So we have Solidago and we have flexicaulis.

Can you just talk about how that is so helpful and informative?

Yeah, for sure, because the binomial name tells us a bit about the evolutionary relationships too.

11:29

So just to break that down a little bit, when I talk about relationships, there's two different types, right?

There's ecological relationships, like we interact with each other in space and in our environment.

And then there's evolutionary relationships, which means we're literally genetically related to each other, like we have a common ancestor.

11:47

So and those two things can play with each other.

But in the binomial name, the first one, the genus name, in this case Solidago, I like to think of it as like their last name.

So your last name is Cesaroni.

There are many Cesaroni’s running around in the world, but there's only one Tina Cesaroni.

So the species name that's stuck in name, the specific epithet is, is like the the first name, the primary name, the name that we would call you.

12:12

But with, with binomial nomenclature, we always use both names together because if we just say goldenrod, we just say rather Solidago.

That is, we could be referring to any of them.

That's like talking about all of this, these ironies.

But if we want to talk about a specific one, we would say Solidago flexicaulis.

12:31

We say both names.

We wouldn't just say flexicaulis

That doesn't really mean anything by itself.

There are other species that might also have that specific epithet, but they'd be in a completely different genus, not related at all.

So we always use both.

Sometimes the first one, the genus name could be abbreviated just to a letter.

12:48

So you might see S dot Flexicon.

Plus that means the same thing as Solidago flexicaulis.

And flexicaulis is a bit of a descriptor too.

That's right.

It's the type, it's the thing that stood out by the botanists that we're describing it.

13:04

The specific epithet, that second name is like the special thing about that particular species.

And it usually you can break down the route.

You can you can make it mean something.

So flex the callus.

So call CAUL.

13:19

That route has to do with the stem.

So anything to do with the stem has that root in it.

And flexi, I mean, it sounds just like it.

It is.

It's going back and forth.

The stem that goes back and forth is a zigzag stem.

So that's what it looks like.

You know, when you look at the plant, you do see that.

13:34

So a lot of if you could, if you can break down the Latin or Greek or combination thereof, if that makes up the binomial name, you could actually learn a lot about what the botanists were seeing when they first described that.

Plan.

And then you can really geek out.

13:50

I just find that really interesting.

Yeah.

OK, Now let's talk about when you're at the garden centre and you see the S and you see the dot and then you see the species name, like Flexicon plus, for instance.

And then you see a word in quotes.

14:05

So that is a cultivar or a nativar- Can we talk a little bit about that?

Yes, yes, let's talk about that because now we're exiting the world of science and genetics and and ecology and we're entering into the world of horticulture.

14:21

So, so we've now and marketing and marketing a little bit different word.

So these are basically trade names now at this point.

So what has happened here?

If you're seeing that third thing in quotes and it also won't be italicized or underlined, and usually it's going to found marketing E in some kind of way.

14:40

It's going to sound like a colour or a shape or a pretty reference of some description.

So what we've got here is a breeder, a plant breeder of some type has spent time and effort and their skills shaping that particular species.

14:56

So they've selected particular traits, particular individuals that looked a kind of way that maybe was a unique mutation or it's something that they found in the greenhouse and they went, wow, I've never seen that before.

Let's see if I can stabilize message genetic term, that trait meaning cause it to to breed true.

15:15

So I can make multiple generations that all look like this.

And if they succeed at doing that, then they now have a marketable plant, something that's out there that nobody else has seen before.

And they can sell it.

They can sell it for a bunch of cash.

And some types of people will go out there and go crazy for these cultivars because they want the new exciting thing.

15:35

They want the thing that nobody, no one else has seen before.

Now, if I could just digress a little bit back to ecology, which is my specialty in the process of shaping this, this creature, this outlier.

What we've seen in the scientific literature is that often there's a trade off between what we did to create this new beautiful monster and the benefits that this plant provides to the ecosystem and all of those relationships that we were talking about before.

16:02

So a perfect example of this may be an extreme example is mutations that cause the reproductive parts of a flower to get all messed up.

And sometimes that can look really, really cool, like a rose that is a double rose or a triple rose, meaning it has so many petals and they look really full and lush and kind of beautiful, but they might not have any pollen or nectar at all In a bee that goes to visit that rose is going to be extremely confused and disappointed because the relationship that it has with that species has been completely disrupted by this breeding process that we've gone in and done.

16:40

So that's what I have to say about cultivars.

There's a lot going on.

There just so you know before you go to the nursery that you know if you really want to purchase plants are ecologically significant and offer services in the ecosystem that you probably want to avoid those ones and go for the straight species, meaning the ones that are grow in the wild.

17:03

Is that accurate way to state it?

I would say so, Tina.

And another way to talk about that is to call those wild type species.

And yeah, so you'll only ever see the two names for that.

What you might see afterwards sometimes is the authors name.

So you might see a letter L that means Carl Linnaeus was the person who named it.

17:22

Usually you don't see that in garden centres though.

Usually that's something you might see in museums.

You might might see it in a Botanical Garden collection.

But that's always going to look like someone's name or initials.

It's never going to be in quotes and it's never going to have that kind of marketing pizzazz to it.

17:37

But yeah, I would say if, if ecological restoration, resilience, pollinators, wildlife, if those are your interests, stick to wild type species.

Those are the ones that we know have the strongest benefits for all of that.

17:53

And you know, a lot of people go to, and I know you've worked with big box stores before with World Wildlife Fund, like I think blah, blah, right?

And they'll go in May and June and they look at the native plants and it's a small stand that hasn't been taken care of.

18:12

And everyone's over at the roses because they're so big and, and eye-catching.

You know, it's problematic.

And then you're, you're trying to get someone's attention.

It's such a busy time at the garden centre.

Oftentimes, you know, we as Master Gardeners try to go there to try to do some education, but it's going to be really hard for the consumer not to go over and pick up the pennies, right, If you don't, if you haven't done your research.

18:37

So for sure.

So I often like to tell people about native plant growers because that's where you're going to get the education, that's where you're going to learn, and that's where you're going to become addicted.

I promise you 100%.

I'm with you on that, Tina, And that's the journey that I usually recommend for folks is to 1st learn, learn why are we talking about native plants?

18:57

Why is this important in the 1st place?

And you know, you've been doing such a great job through your conversations on the guardianship to kind of outline the why of it.

And then then find your grower, find your local, find a, a nursery that you love and connect with and that you can go back to from time to time, which is supplied by where, where the growers are ecologists themselves are or have an interest in ecology.

19:21

And then they've done all the work for you.

And you can just go shop around and ask them questions.

They'll help you match with your stuff.

But you're basically in a ecological playground when you go to those specialist native plant nurseries.

You know, I've got nothing against going to the garden centre and picking up something that brings you joy, something colourful and and wonderful.

19:41

I don't want to take that joy away from anybody.

And there I always say there's room for everyone in the garden.

We don't have to exclude a pretty Peony so that we can make room for New England aster.

There's a balance that could be struck.

19:56

We can have many things, I believe.

Yeah, for sure.

And that's the the diversity too, right, Always having something in blue and a lot of times, you know at the end of the season you might need some annuals, right, because your native plants are all finished blooming, right.

20:12

And you still those, we still need the nectar, we still need to provide that.

So I'm all for a mix as well, as long as the mix tends.

More heavily towards the native.

I'm with that too.

And, and just be intentional about your choices.

The one thing that really does scare me, Tina, and I don't know how you feel about this, is that the novel exotics at the garden centre that we've never heard of before and we have no idea how they're going to behave out in the landscape that could be the next invasive species.

20:41

I really steer far away from that and I try to steer other people away from those because we're just, it's just too experimental for me.

I personally wouldn't go there, but there are some tried and tested annuals, as you say, and even exotic perennials that we know.

They behave well and they don't escape and they don't spread like crazy.

20:58

And I don't think there's any shame at all in including that in the garden if it brings you.

Joy, right?

But we, we do not have any tolerance for bringing invasives into your garden space.

So let's talk about an invasive and what that means.

Yeah.

So I alluded to this earlier and basically the keywords for invasive species are a, they're from somewhere else.

21:18

So they are introduced to plants, they're not native to the ecosystem and B is they cause harm.

So that can be economic harm as they spread, they may contaminate crops, overrun waterways, they may cause harm with their bodies.

They may have toxic chemicals or spines or other defence mechanisms that harm people or wildlife.

21:40

Yeah, they're, they're serious, serious business.

They cause a lot of problems as they spread, edge out other species too is an important thing.

So they they don't really like to share is take up so much space that nobody else can live with them.

21:56

So, you know, think of that patch in the forest that's just covered with glossy periwinkle leaves, you know, and nothing else is growing there.

That's not that's not a nice way to behave ecologically.

And yeah, I agree with you.

22:11

There's I have no tolerance for those species.

We we need to get on top of them and really like, yeah, it, it can become a never ending task to try to reverse, like to put the, the Pandora's box back together, as it were, once these things get out.

22:28

So I think it's critically important to prevent the next one from happening too.

And and you know that there are invasives that no one ever plants garlic mustard, but then there are invasives like you mentioned that people do plant because they're still available for sale at the garden centres like periwinkle.

22:47

And what's wrong with periwinkle?

While it displaces in habitats that should have our native species?

Nothing's gonna grow around periwinkle once it gets its foothold.

What else would there be?

English Ivy is another one still sold, you know, so use it in a container.

23:05

Used to be like toxic material.

It's like you really have to contain them.

And even when you're disposing of them, like you can't just put them in the compost, you can't just Chuck them out over the fence.

You you have to dispose of them as you would like a toxic material like incinerate, put them in black plastic, dry them out completely, make sure that they are dead, dead, dead and have no chance of resprouting.

23:28

Another interesting thing about invasive species that you might notice is they have hardly ever any interactions with other organisms, including pollinators and and wildlife.

Like you don't see any munch marks on the leaves, hardly ever.

And even pollination, I mean, you might see some pollinators on them, but very much less than you would on on native plants or naturalized plants or even a lot of those species that would be considered maybe wildflowers or pollinator plants that are from other places.

23:58

Yeah, the interactions are not there.

And that's part of the reason, by the way, that they're thriving because they're kind of just doing their own thing.

They're outside of their ecological context.

They're unchecked.

They have no diseases, no predators, no relationships at all.

And they they're just kind of spreading.

24:14

Like, I think of it as like a green wildfire, like they're just going unchecked.

And have you, have you seen the pictures of Barberry in the southern states South of us, but not too far South of us like Pennsylvania?

Yeah, yeah.

So, and that is, I mean that's a foundational plant that is still sold everywhere at all the garden centres.

24:36

So I don't know how we get the messaging across on that, on that kind of stuff, but there's so many amazing ecologically significant shrubs that you can plant that are a better choice than Barbary.

For sure.

And in the conversation around invasive species, you could go on a long tangent about where government should be involved with this.

24:56

And I know groups like this CIP are here in Canada, led by some fantastic Master Gardeners.

I hope you, if you haven't already had them on the guardianship, they will be soon.

I think that, yeah, regulation needs to play a part here because this is not just about individual choices.

25:12

Like, I don't think people are trying to release a plague when they go to the garden centre and are buying these things.

Like, certainly some choices just shouldn't be available to people in the same way as when you go to the grocery store.

Like nuclear weapons and other toxic materials are not available for you to purchase.

25:29

They're not wait for you, and I think that should be the case with some of these invasive plants too.

Yeah.

And before we go off invasives, I just, I'm, I'm looking at your list again and I'm seeing how things can pop around in different columns.

But so if we talked about Lily of the Valley, where would that live?

25:46

Oh, yeah.

So.

So if we're talking about like Convallaria majalis, the the like, yeah.

So that is an introduced species.

So by definition, it came from another place of fits in there.

Oh, are are those listed officially as invasive species out different?

26:03

Yes, they are.

OK.

So I would say yes, they are doing harm.

They are out there in the world.

So it's it's both of those categories.

Also, they smell so nice too, culturally, culturally too.

I remember as a kid having them behind my ear and having the smell and I still do that.

26:19

Actually, I feel like that's a little bit of a duty that I could do.

So like stop them from spreading a little bit.

I, I grab some of their flowers.

There's just so adorable, and so that cultural aspect, way that they resonate with our hearts is relevant.

Like that's in play there.

That's a big part of why people are planting them and keeping them around.

26:36

So we have to consider that too.

I think someone told me that it was in one of the Royals wedding bouquets as well.

I can't remember which one.

I'm not much of a royalist but someone told me that.

So that was like OK good luck getting that off a list.

Now I'm looking at the word naturalized.

26:51

Would that be something like scilla?

That little blue.

Is starting to naturalize.

Yeah.

So this is a plant.

Naturalized plants are in an in between zone and we don't know where they're gonna go next on their evolutionary arc.

So these are plants that are from a different plague.

27:07

They've come.

They've escaped from human cultivation in particular.

So they're living on their own, but something about their life ways seems to be implying that they're starting to form those relationships there.

It's still early and again, we don't know where that's going to go.

27:23

Will it reverse?

Will it become invasive later, or is this a plant that may be on its way to becoming a native species in thousands of years?

That will happen with some species, but we don't know how that happens.

The scientists are not yet confident about being able to decide that.

27:42

But naturalized species are not doing harm by definition.

Otherwise they'd be in the invasive category.

But they're just, they're just around.

So I like to think of a dandelion or a teasel or a Mullen or maybe a a wild carrot queen transplace.

27:58

Those are species that we see them all over the place and they're just kind of doing their thing.

They've been here for a few 100 years.

And you do see some pollinators on them.

You, you maybe even see some larval host plants of some, some caterpillars like larvae starting to use these plants to a plantain is another one Plantago.

28:20

So did you know Tina Caterpillars of the Baltimore Checkerspot, which is a beautiful butterfly that we have in this region and its host plant is, is turtle head, a beautiful native plant.

But plantains are an introduced relative, a European relative of turtle head.

28:39

And in recent generations, the larvae of the Baltimore checkerspot have started to learn how to eat plantain as a, as a food source.

It's not quite as effective as not quite as nutritious for them.

And the very, very baby babies can't do it yet.

28:55

It's only the later larval stages that can do it.

But there's something happening there.

There's a relationship that's starting to form, and the category naturalized recognizes that.

That's very cool.

That's a cool relationship.

I'd like to read about that one.

OK, so let's get back to definitions.

29:13

I think it's been on trend for a few years to plant a pollinator garden.

Well, I don't want people just to plant a pollinator garden.

I want habitat garden.

Habitat gardening to me is is more and more effective way to communicate ecological gardening to someone who's never on this shift.

29:31

Do you agree with that?

These two, but in order to use that term and for it to make sense to people, I think we should say what a habitat is.

So every, every creature has a habitat and it's comprised of all of the different things that that creature needs to complete its life cycle.

29:46

And all of those things may not be in the same place, right?

Like think of a migratory bird that has breeding grounds in one area and feeding grounds in a completely different part of the continent.

So the habitat can be very dispersed, but your garden can contain some of those features that are essential that the life cycle needs of a particular species.

30:08

So we are always with habitat thinking of like one species at a time, but we can also think of it in aggregate.

You can you can create a space that is likely to have lots of features that lots of different species are going to need at different parts of their life cycle.

Basically, I mean, it's a boil it all down.

30:24

If we wanted to say it real simply, it's a home.

It's a home.

Think of it as your home.

But in addition to your home, like your literal place where you live, your shelter, there are other parts of your life that like you go to the shopping centre, you go out to the movies, you have places to socialize, places to relax and decompress.

30:42

You have the library as part of your habitat.

The school is part of your habitat.

So home is one way to think about it.

But maybe, I don't know, maybe like your neighborhood, your community, it's like your life space in a way.

Yeah, yeah.

I love that.

That makes so much sense.

So you're getting food there, you're getting shelter, you're getting water.

31:00

So that's what habitat is about.

And it's not just about or flowers for pollinators.

It's about trees, it's about shrubs.

It's, you know, it's just so many levels like creating this natural environment.

So, yeah, so I think that I think I just like to use that more than just saying create a pollinator garden because I just think about butterflies.

31:20

It's all I think about when I think about a pollinator garden.

I think that's sort of just too simplistic.

So Habitat, to me, makes that fuller story.

Because a pollinator garden, you could say, is just any place where you found pollinators, right?

If they're there, then it's technically pollinator garden.

31:36

Where is the habitat garden?

Is is more intentional?

It's like I've learned about these pollinators.

I've learned what they need and what they're not getting and I'm providing those specific things.

So if that's host plant, I have learned that and I've put those hosts plants here.

If it's a source of water or a source of building materials for nests or whatever, it is an overwintering site.

31:58

It's, it's much more intentional And, and I think it necessarily allows us, you know, a space to learn, to learn about like what do these pollinators actually need?

What is their life cycle like?

Be curious about that.

It's fascinating to learn.

Every single species has its own thing going on and there's so many of them, hundreds.

32:20

I mean, it could be almost overwhelming to, to think about all of it, but you could just start with one.

Is there a pretty butterfly that you love?

Like the monarch?

Like learn the entire life cycle of a monarch butterfly and you will find there are specific things that those creatures need to complete their life cycle and you can provide.

32:37

Some of those, but let's get it.

Let's get back to plan.

You know, I, I found a few years ago the tier CA does a local ranking of species at risk, you know, and I, I really find that interesting.

And I'm, I'm just wondering, should we as ecological gardeners be trying to do some conservation in our backyard and kind of planting and, you know, starting from seed these plants or is it not our job as gardeners doing to do that?

33:08

Question, It is a big question, but I think an important one too.

You know, if you were talking to birds or even butterflies, the question would be really obvious.

Like no, like don't do that, leave that to the experts.

But we're talking about plants.

And there is actually an opportunity here to use your expertise and your tools and your time to, I think you can actually do conservation here.

33:29

So you have to know the rules though, first of all, issues that are listed either federally or provincially, although the provincial aspect of that has gone topsy turvy lately.

And I don't even know what to say.

Don't go there, don't there here.

33:44

But if there are legal protections for species that is, that is endangered in particular, like you have to be aware of those.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that those protections are actually leading to the recovery.

Actually, we know that they're not leading to the recovery of many of these species, but it's a hands off policy.

34:05

So like you're not allowed to collect seeds or touch a plant if it is listed.

Species listed endangered, that's just breaking the law unfortunately.

But species that are not in that category that are special concern or threatened or another way that things are categorized sometimes is by their rarities.

34:26

Did they might be listed as like an S?

Are we getting into the SS3S2?

These are, these are things that you know, you can introduce these into your garden.

Sometimes you might find them just at garden centres.

34:42

Somehow.

We don't know.

I it the native plant nurseries.

Yeah.

It's not always clear how they got into cultivation.

Like dense blazing stars.

One, for example, all over the place, everyone grows dense blazing star.

That's a species of at risk that is actually an endangered species.

34:59

And yeah, we can grow them.

Like if you find them at the garden centre, then go for it.

Absolutely.

We will draw the line at digging up plants.

Right.

No.

Never.

Never, never, never encourage that unless it's like an imminent threat, like a building being built or a bulldozer is on its way to murder this plant.

35:18

OK, now you have a moral decision to make.

But otherwise, we're not going on hikes, finding a cute orchid and digging it up for our garden, right?

Now just take a picture.

When it comes to seed harvest, I think we're also in a little bit of an ethical Gray zone here.

35:36

It's interesting.

And you know, where I what I think about with regards to this is Robin Walker's book, We Love Braiding Sweetgrass, where she writes about the ethical harvest and basically going through like a mental checklist of is it ethical?

35:51

Like what the plant want this.

If the plant could speak to me right now, if I could ask, is this OK?

How would you answer that?

It's honestly like I have sat there in the field and like, is it like can I do this?

Is this good?

Is it bad?

So things that I checked for is are there lots of the plant is, is it a healthy population, a population that has had a good year, like a bumper crop of seeds.

36:13

If you see that, that's a good, a good sign to seeds are healthy.

So there are ways of testing.

We won't get into the details, but if, if you can figure out that the seeds are actually viable and there's lots of them, no one has been there before to harvest.

If you see any evidence that someone was there before you got to walk away.

36:29

I'm sorry.

You can't do a double dip.

And if you get to a point where you decide, OK, this is a species, this is a situation where I can help, I can use my propagation skills that I can expand this population, then harvest fairly conservatively.

I would say like less than 10% of all of the seeds that you, that you take even less than that, like a couple of handfuls is all you need, A few different individuals.

36:52

Never deplete all of the seeds from a given individual.

Never ever, ever deplete all of the seeds from the whole population because some of them are going to be needed to regenerate that population or as food sources, You know, they're an essential part of the ecology.

But I think there are ethical moments where you can help as as a horticulturist, there's a a botanist or, or just an amateur gardener.

37:16

Yes, you definitely can get involved in conservation in that way.

Just think about it, really.

Mindfully it was talking to I know you know Dorte when Mueller as well and I was I was talking to her a few episodes ago and and then we were I was on her website and I was looking at the loss of population of the wood poppy.

37:36

Can you think of its genus name right now?

Stylo something do you know would forum And then so I decided I decided to do a little bit of reading on it and my and I was just shocked to find that there were so many, there's so few wild populations left in southern Ontario.

37:52

So it's in the trade, but unfortunately it's not in the walk anymore.

Well, isn't that problematic?

Yeah, it's, it's such a pickle.

Yeah, there is.

It is a complex 1.

Tina.

Yeah, there.

That's not the only example of this either.

I'm.

I'm aware of a few others.

38:08

Lakeside Daisy is another one that comes to mind.

Dwarf Lake Iris is another that you can find sometimes.

And I guess if you were to trace it back, it may be the case that originally someone grabbed seeds that they shouldn't have done.

That was technically illegal for them to do.

38:24

But we don't know when that was.

And I'm not pointing any fingers, but here they are.

The fact is the propagation has occurred, is made its way into horticulture.

You have a nursery and, and, and now the, the plants are there and if the populations are expanding and then these plants are available to do what they do best and grow and if they can thrive and be happy on the landscape, then I don't think that's a bad thing.

38:51

I I don't I.

Don't think that's.

What it is?

Especially if they're offering an ecological service.

Right?

So what butterfly was it that was seen in Hyde Park with a zebra swallowtail or something?

Yeah, yeah, just this year there was a Zebra swallowtail.

I mean, you know, and I think it's host plant is a paw paw, correct.

39:10

So it's like if we if we can bring those plants back into cultivation, does that mean that the insects are going to find them in like garden?

I'm so confused.

So, so this is where you're right to be confused, Tina.

39:25

And the reason that you're confused is because conservation has only ever really considered protecting species before.

It never really thought about restoring.

We never got there in science until relatively recently.

And the legal part of that hasn't not not caught up.

39:43

The laws are all about containing harm, trying to prevent things from getting worse.

But the fact is, we're in a situation that's pretty darn bad.

Like, it's really not good out there.

And just preventing more harm isn't good enough.

We actually have to use our resources to expand populations, to regrow, to literally regenerate the populations.

40:05

That's an imperative.

We have to do it.

Science is catching up.

I believe that the legal landscape will catch up to that eventually.

Do and in the meantime, we're in a bit of a Gray zone.

And that's where I think you have to use ethics.

You have to carefully and conscientiously decide how you're going to spend your energy and your time to benefit future generations.

40:26

Like, how do we get to a better future, Tina?

Like, somebody's got to be doing this stuff now.

Yeah.

So Ryan, we there's so many different avenues we could go down on this.

So, you know, you have to come back again.

This is the 101 now we got to move up to the 201, right.

40:45

I'm going to call you back to school in a couple months because the, you know, it's your fact sheet that I will put on the website and a link in the episode notes on plant categories is just, it's just so interesting.

41:02

And I'm making all these little notes as you're talking because you know, like we could dive deep into the ecological, like you said, in evolutionary relationships.

It's so cool.

So thank you so much, Ryan.

Happy New Year to you and thank you for being such a great resource to the garden shift.

41:20

I love having you on.

It's a pleasure as always.

I can't wait to get invited back on.

You know I'll be here any little time.