THE COCCOLOBA CHAPTER OF THE FLORIDA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY
  • Home
  • Why Natives?
    • Why Natives?
    • EXAMPLES
  • Projects
    • Estero River Oaks Preserve
  • What We Do
    • What We Do
    • Meetings
  • Volunteer Info
    • Projects
    • FGCU Service Learning Hours
    • Calendar
  • Education and Resources
    • Native Plant Resources
    • Native Plants for your area
    • FLEPPC Invasive Exotic List
    • Native Host Plants for Butterflies
    • Native Palms
    • Native Wildflowers for Birds
    • Native Plants for Birds
    • Plant Communities of South Florida's Gulf Coast Barrier Islands
    • Documents
  • Newsletter
  • Our Founder
Dr. Doug Tallamy is a professor at the University of Delaware, and is the author of the popular book, "Bringing Nature Home." Please watch the video below to learn why we must add native plants to our landscapes for the good of the insects vital to our own health.

Why are Native Plants Important?

PictureZebra longwing butterfly enjoying a diverse selection of native plants
  • Perhaps the most important reason to use native plants in your landscape is to provide food for wildlife. Each of us has the power to make a difference by planting native plants.  Native plants are able to harvest the sun's energy to create plant material.  This plant material is delicious and nutritious to insects who then convert the plant material into delicious and nutritious food (themselves) for other wildlife who depend on that insect meat (biomass) to feed themselves and their babies.  Dr. Doug Tallamy's studies showed native plants produced four times more herbivore biomass than alien or non-native plants and supported 3.2 times as many species.  For lepidoptera production and support, native plants supported 35 times more caterpillar biomass than alien plants.
  • Native plants provide a sense of place.  Most of us choose to live here and love it here.  So, let's enjoy the way it is supposed to look!  Forget what you knew up north, this is southwest Florida.  Your yard should look like it belongs here.
  • Invasive exotic plants and pests have a long history of creating costly problems after they are imported by escaping captivity.  Because these exotic plants are generally "pest-free" they are sometimes able to grow wildly and become a nuisance in areas where they don't belong.  Once "loose," these plants are able to smother and outcompete our native plants.  Other times, hitchhiking insects make their way here on the exotic plants.  Some examples of these are:  melaleuca, Brazilian pepper, Senna pendula or Christmas cassia, Mexican petunia, most garden center lantana, Sri Lanka weevil, rugose spiraling whitefly, and many, many more.  They cost millions, even billions of dollars in damage and control.
  • Generally speaking, non-native plants are not well-adapted to our lousy, sandy soil.  Therefore, they require fertilizer, supplemental irrigation and herbicides to survive.  Excess fertilizer runoff and leaching into waterways is believed to cause red tide and other costly issues.  However, once established, native plants in the right place will survive very well without any need for these additions.  Plus, a well-planned native landscape will not need pollution-belching and loud lawn mowers!
  • By increasing awareness and demand for native plants, we can all help rescue native plants from potential extinction.  

EXAMPLES OF NATIVE PLANTINGS
Below: This is an amazing video of the Cutting Horse Eco Center garden. These are gulf fritillary and zebra longwing caterpillars devouring native maypop (Passiflora incarnata). The second video is of a zebra longwing enjoying a native firebush (Hamelia patens)
Below: This monarch butterfly flew in and landed on an endangered Curtiss' milkweed while we were monitoring the plant in accordance with our permit. 
Below: A zebra longwing and Gulf Fritillary enjoying a native firebush (Hamelia patens)
DID YOU KNOW ... 
Often, we will use native plants during our outreach events and classes. These plants are offered for sale at the end of the event. Why? Because native plants are not always easy to find and purchase. Therefore, we can help you get started right away providing vital food and habitat to our local wildlife. 
Above: A juvenile gopher tortoise trucks around Koreshan State Park as the oak leaves rain down.
The Florida Native Plant Society promotes the preservation, conservation and restoration of native plants and native plant communities of Florida.
A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL-FREE (800-435-7352) WITHIN THE STATE. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE.

Copyright 2015, 2016. 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 The Coccoloba Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society
  • Home
  • Why Natives?
    • Why Natives?
    • EXAMPLES
  • Projects
    • Estero River Oaks Preserve
  • What We Do
    • What We Do
    • Meetings
  • Volunteer Info
    • Projects
    • FGCU Service Learning Hours
    • Calendar
  • Education and Resources
    • Native Plant Resources
    • Native Plants for your area
    • FLEPPC Invasive Exotic List
    • Native Host Plants for Butterflies
    • Native Palms
    • Native Wildflowers for Birds
    • Native Plants for Birds
    • Plant Communities of South Florida's Gulf Coast Barrier Islands
    • Documents
  • Newsletter
  • Our Founder