Brown Eyed Susans, Goldenrod, Sunflowers and My Garden Goals
A home landscape illustrates what could be done everywhere, to fix climate change, reverse the wildlife extinction crisis, clean the water and create beauty, at scale.
I have a dilemma, whether to rescue my sun loving brown-eyed Susans from the shade of Maximilian sunflowers and Canada goldenrod. The sunflowers are on the top left of this photo. The goldenrod is on the top right. The brown-eyed Susans are hidden from view. To solve this problem, I could cut back on the sunflowers and the goldenrod, or I could transplant the brown-eyed Susans.
I worry about the brown-eyed Susans. But I’ve decided not to intervene.
Here’s why.
If you’re not a plant nerd, please bear with me. This relates to everyone who wants their home landscape to be ecologically smart and climate friendly.
I like growing as many plants as possible as closely together as possible.
I could cut back the goldenrod and sunflower, so the brown-eyed Susans can grow. But that might be ugly and could diminish the pollinator food.
MY GOALS
My goals for my home landscape are to provide the most pollinator food, to capture the most rainfall and to create the best possible soil.
In other words, my goals are ecological. I want it to look nice, but I want to support the ecosystem, and that takes precedence over appearance. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and to me, what’s beautiful is what’s ecological, and vice versa.
CROWDING AND BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
From an ecological standpoint, I like my plants to exhibit “crowding.”
When a variety of plants are close together, their roots intermingle. This creates diversity in the root zone. That is great for soil health. Low diversity is actually not great for soil health. You can have a beautiful mass of plants. That’s not a bad thing, but diversity is better for the soil.
Crowding is also good for retention of rainwater. A crowded mass of diverse plants is going to capture more rainwater and cast more shade, thus creating cool, moist air. This makes city air cooler, mitigating the urban heat dome.
A dense community of plants absorbs the maximum amount of rainfall.
I WANT TO KEEP ALL OF THE RAIN
Ask me how much rain I got. I want to say, “All of it.” I want to capture 100% of the rain that falls. I want none of the rainfall to run off my property. If it rains two inches, but 1 ½ inches runs off the property, then I only got ½ inch of rain.
That’s dumb. But that’s what happens in most places.
Rainwater loses all of its value once it runs off your property. Rain that stays on your property is an asset. Rain that runs off is a liability … to somebody. One person’s drainage is another person’s flood. We need to design our landscapes to minimize drainage and maximize hydration. We need to make our rainfall soak into the ground.
Flooding is thought to be a major effect of “climate change.”
No it isn’t.
Flooding is a result of not causing the rainwater to soak into the ground where it falls. We could do this. But we don’t.
We could design our landscapes, farms and forests to soak rainwater into the ground.
But we don’t.
Most farmers and gardeners bellyache about the lack of rain. Others get as much rain as they need, because their plants and soil absorb the rain that does fall. I can show you farmers, like Gabe Brown and Will Harris, who keep most or all of the rain that falls. So if there is a dry spell, it is no big deal.
The only rain that counts is that which soaks--or infiltrates--into the soil. Then it stays there. It lingers long enough to water your plants. Then your plants improve the soil by injecting carbon into the soil.
PLANTS BENEFIT THE SOIL BY INJECTING CARBON INTO IT
That’s what plants do. They take carbon out of the air and inject it into the soil. They do this on a large scale--if we let them. First, you have to have plants. Then you have to treat the soil right, so that your plants can nurture the soil and enrich it with carbon.
Carbon-rich soil soaks up water like a sponge. According the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), every 1% increase in soil organic matter in the top six inches of soil will hold 27,000 gallons per acre.
Did you get that … 27,000 gallons per acre. That’s more than an average community swimming pool of water on every acre. And most soils could increase their soil organic matter by 5% if we tried. If true, then that’s over 100,000 gallons of water holding capacity per acre.
What couldn’t we do with 100,000 gallons of water per acre?
ECOSYSTEMS ABSORB WATER. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS.
Good soiI is the single biggest reservoir of freshwater in the world. It’s also the second biggest reservoir of carbon in the world. This is rarely mentioned in the mainstream climate coverage, which is geared towards selling us technological devices. We thereby miss the biggest opportunity to store carbon while nurturing ecosystems and creating habitat for wildlife.
We also miss the biggest opportunity to cool the climate. It may be that evaporating water will cool the climate much faster than lowering atmospheric carbon. My sources tell me this is so.
This requires nurturing our ecosystems, which mainly means letting plants grow.
This is something we can do now, on our landscapes, our farms and our forests. We can treat our landscapes, our farms and our forests in such a way that all three gain in plant matter and grow into rich, biologically diverse ecosystems that regulate our climate, moderate our weather, and avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change: floods, droughts and wildfires.
WATER REGULATES TEMPERATURE AND PREVENTS WEATHER EXTREMES
The way this works is that water is very slow to heat up and very slow to cool down. So if we want temperatures to go up and down more slowly, we will somehow get more water into the system.
Water resides within ecosystems. So any place (like a landscape, a farm or a forest) that has thriving ecosystems is going to contain more water, and is therefore going to experience less extremes of hot and cold.
It will be cooler in the heat of day and warmer in the cool of night. It will be cooler in the heat of summer and warmer in the dead of winter. Spring will spring sooner. Winter will come later. And critters that need water--all of them--will have more on which to live and thrive.
Landscapes, farms and forests that have a diverse community of plants growing in healthy soil, will feed bees, butterflies and birds and feed a vibrant community of soil-based organisms, such as worms, ants, and beetles, as well as microscopic soil organisms like bacteria and fungi that are all vital to soil health.
MORE CREATURES, MORE WATER.
Every single creature is a small body of water. More creatures, more water. Humans are a sack of water. The same is true for all animals, plants, and fungi, and microbes.
And every living thing is a reservoir of carbon. So, if we really want to address our climate woes, we will create spaces where living things might thrive.
It’s called an ecosystem.
CREATING ECOSYSTEMS FOR THE CLIMATE
We can create ecosystems wherever we live, work and play if we make it a priority.
Our farms can be ecosystems that are profitable and productive. But we have to follow the lead of farmers who are doing it right, like Vandana Shiva, Gabe Brown, Alejandro Carrillo, Ray Archuleta, John Kempf, Daniel Griffith, Nicolette Hahn Niman, Joel Salatin, Will Harris and Mark Shephard. Look them up.
Our forests could be thriving ecosystems that absorb carbon and water, but we have to stop subsidizing the worst elements of the timber industry.
And our landscapes could become growing, thriving ecosystems, but we have to stop taking our cues from TV or from the displays at big box stores.
THE MEASURE OF A THRIVING ECOSYSTEM
According to ecologist John D. Liu, the measure of a growing, thriving ecosystem is three things:
1) Biomass, the total volume of living things.
2) Biodiversity, the diversity of living things, and
3) Soil organic matter, the carbon content of the soil.
If we get enough biomass, biodiversity and soil organic matter flowing into our ecosystems, then we would not have a climate crisis.
So why don’t we do that?
The photo shown here represents my attempt to increase the biomass, biodiversity and soil organic matter on my little ⅛ acre in Louisville, Kentucky.
In addition to the plants named above, I also have (in this picture) wrinkle leaf goldenrod, white wingstem, mountainmint, blue mistflower and anise hyssop. Also Bermuda grass, common violets, Canada lettuce and panicled aster.
This is diversity.
The Jena experiments in Germany have shown that the quickest way to build soil carbon is to have a diversity of plants whose roots are intermingling underground.
A landscape designer would rightly critique the bunching and crowding. But I feel good about what this “design” does ecologically.
I want to train myself to respect “wildness” and only intervene when doing so will be good for soil health, for pollinator food, for plant diversity or my ability to capture rainfall.
That is such a nice comment!
And you as well my friend.
Thanks so much for your annual subscription, by the way!
I nominate you for Director of the Ministry for Ecological Common Sense. Well said.