Gardening Guides
Why Ornamental Plants Matter
Despite the name, ornamental plants aren’t frills. They’re vital to healthy gardens — and healthy humans
Ornamentals, the plants that lend color, texture and blooms to our landscapes, often don’t get the respect in the plant world that edibles, crop plants, trees grown for forestry and turf grasses do. These flowering and foliage plants are usually considered decorative, meaning pretty extras rather than useful or necessary. This long-held bias simply isn’t true.
Those same ornamentals provide homes and food for the pollinators needed to fertilize the crop plants — whether they’re chilies or cherries, almonds or apples — that provide one in three mouthfuls of the food we eat. Ornamentals also nurture the relationships with insects, birds and animals that keep pests in check, helping to weave healthy ecosystems. Read on for more benefits these decorative and essential plants offer to us and our landscapes.
Those same ornamentals provide homes and food for the pollinators needed to fertilize the crop plants — whether they’re chilies or cherries, almonds or apples — that provide one in three mouthfuls of the food we eat. Ornamentals also nurture the relationships with insects, birds and animals that keep pests in check, helping to weave healthy ecosystems. Read on for more benefits these decorative and essential plants offer to us and our landscapes.
Tomatoes and bumblebees. Pollinators fertilize a thousand or so of the world’s crop varieties and just in the United States are responsible for about $40 billion in agricultural products. They’re necessary to food and fiber that may surprise you, including dairy and meat products (the alfalfa that dairy animals and grain-fed cows and pigs eat requires pollinators); most fruits, including avocados, squashes and melons; cotton production (the fiber the fabric is made from surrounds the seeds); and even tequila (agave plants are pollinated by bats).
One of those crop varieties dependent on native bees for pollination is greenhouse-grown tomatoes. Tomatoes are self-fertile, but these native American fruits grow larger and produce more flowers and fruit if pollinated by native bumblebees. Bumblebees, like the one shown here, are the large, fuzzy bees that fly in a slow, “bumbling” fashion around flowers, sipping nectar and gathering pollen from blossoms large enough to accommodate their ample bodies.
Planting other nectar-producing flowering plants, such as Rocky Mountain beeplant (Cleome serrulata), near tomato plants attracts bumblebees, which then also pollinate the tomato flowers.
15 Native Flowers That Feed Native Bees
One of those crop varieties dependent on native bees for pollination is greenhouse-grown tomatoes. Tomatoes are self-fertile, but these native American fruits grow larger and produce more flowers and fruit if pollinated by native bumblebees. Bumblebees, like the one shown here, are the large, fuzzy bees that fly in a slow, “bumbling” fashion around flowers, sipping nectar and gathering pollen from blossoms large enough to accommodate their ample bodies.
Planting other nectar-producing flowering plants, such as Rocky Mountain beeplant (Cleome serrulata), near tomato plants attracts bumblebees, which then also pollinate the tomato flowers.
15 Native Flowers That Feed Native Bees
Lettuce and syrphid flies. Planting ornamentals to provide food for pollinators can even benefit crop plants that don’t require pollination, like lettuce. We harvest the leaves from this cultivated member of the sunflower family, so it doesn’t require pollinators, except to produce seeds for the next crop.
Syrphid flies, also called hoverflies, are pollinator flies that are especially important to growers of organic lettuce: The larvae of these flies are aphid-eating machines. Researchers discovered that interplanting rows of nectar-producing flowers attractive to adult syrphid flies between rows of lettuce helped control aphid outbreaks. The adult flies fed on the flower nectar, and then females laid eggs on nearby lettuce leaves. The larvae gorged on aphids, controlling the infestation.
Syrphid flies are also effective predators of other sap-feeding insects, including scale insects and thrips.
Attract Pollinators for a Productive Edible Garden
Syrphid flies, also called hoverflies, are pollinator flies that are especially important to growers of organic lettuce: The larvae of these flies are aphid-eating machines. Researchers discovered that interplanting rows of nectar-producing flowers attractive to adult syrphid flies between rows of lettuce helped control aphid outbreaks. The adult flies fed on the flower nectar, and then females laid eggs on nearby lettuce leaves. The larvae gorged on aphids, controlling the infestation.
Syrphid flies are also effective predators of other sap-feeding insects, including scale insects and thrips.
Attract Pollinators for a Productive Edible Garden
Milkweed and monarchs. The pollinator-flower relationship is so specific that in some cases the pollinator can’t exist without the plant. The most famous example is the relationship between monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) and North America’s many native milkweeds (Asclepias spp.).
Where milkweeds are eradicated, monarch butterfly populations crash. Monarch populations have declined 90 percent in the past 20 years, endangering the iconic multigeneration migration of monarch butterflies between spring and summer habitat in North America and wintering grounds in the mountains of Mexico.
In this case, though, the relationship between the plant and the insect isn’t so much about the flowers. Butterfly caterpillars are the original picky eaters, specializing in feeding on the foliage of certain plants. And monarch caterpillars are among the pickiest. They will eat only milkweed foliage. No milkweed plants, no monarch butterflies. It’s that simple. Gardeners can help restore these once-common North American butterflies by planting milkweed species native to your area.
The adult monarchs also drink nectar from the flowers, as do other pollinators including beetles, European honeybees, sphinx moths and hummingbirds.
See how to grow native milkweeds from around the U.S.
Where milkweeds are eradicated, monarch butterfly populations crash. Monarch populations have declined 90 percent in the past 20 years, endangering the iconic multigeneration migration of monarch butterflies between spring and summer habitat in North America and wintering grounds in the mountains of Mexico.
In this case, though, the relationship between the plant and the insect isn’t so much about the flowers. Butterfly caterpillars are the original picky eaters, specializing in feeding on the foliage of certain plants. And monarch caterpillars are among the pickiest. They will eat only milkweed foliage. No milkweed plants, no monarch butterflies. It’s that simple. Gardeners can help restore these once-common North American butterflies by planting milkweed species native to your area.
The adult monarchs also drink nectar from the flowers, as do other pollinators including beetles, European honeybees, sphinx moths and hummingbirds.
See how to grow native milkweeds from around the U.S.
More Benefits of Ornamentals
Their layers create structure and habitat. Ornamentals give us so much more than food and shelter for pollinators. Ornamentals — those plants that don’t provide edibles but do provide flowers and foliage and structure — are the architecture of the garden. From trees to ground covers, ornamentals provide the layers that give a garden interest, and they provide diverse niches for insects, songbirds and other garden dwellers.
Layers make habitat by providing different conditions for different tastes. Think of layers in the garden as functioning the way a building’s floors do: Some animals like living on the ground floor, some like dwelling in the midranges, and some prefer the top floors. The more diversity in your landscape, the healthier it is, with more kinds of inhabitants to balance out one another.
The formal garden in this photo includes tall conifers for those upper stories, shorter flowering plum trees for under the canopy, and layers of understory, from tall and medium shrubs to ground covers. Vines to provide travel pathways between the layers are also useful.
Their layers create structure and habitat. Ornamentals give us so much more than food and shelter for pollinators. Ornamentals — those plants that don’t provide edibles but do provide flowers and foliage and structure — are the architecture of the garden. From trees to ground covers, ornamentals provide the layers that give a garden interest, and they provide diverse niches for insects, songbirds and other garden dwellers.
Layers make habitat by providing different conditions for different tastes. Think of layers in the garden as functioning the way a building’s floors do: Some animals like living on the ground floor, some like dwelling in the midranges, and some prefer the top floors. The more diversity in your landscape, the healthier it is, with more kinds of inhabitants to balance out one another.
The formal garden in this photo includes tall conifers for those upper stories, shorter flowering plum trees for under the canopy, and layers of understory, from tall and medium shrubs to ground covers. Vines to provide travel pathways between the layers are also useful.
Foliage provides shelter and beauty. Foliage ornamentals provide shelter and nesting places for small and large insects, birds and animals, and they provide beauty in different seasons.
When you’re planting foliage plants, here’s something you may want to consider: All foliage plants are not created equal from a garden-health standpoint. For example, look at songbirds, gardeners’ best friends, because in summer they feed their young insects — lots of insects. Entomologist and author Douglas Tallamy reports that a single pair of chickadees captures 6,000 to 9,000 inchworm-size caterpillars per brood.
If you want songbirds in your landscape, Tallamy says, add foliage plants native to your region. Why? Because they nurture higher insect populations and thus make better natural bird feeders for your local nesting songbirds, whether they’re chickadees or yellow warblers, bluebirds or American robins. Native plants have long relationships with native insects, while plants imported from other continents may not have any relationships with our native insects. So add native foliage plants to your beloved garden standbys, and give songbirds a place and food supply to raise their young.
See more plants grown for their beautiful foliage
When you’re planting foliage plants, here’s something you may want to consider: All foliage plants are not created equal from a garden-health standpoint. For example, look at songbirds, gardeners’ best friends, because in summer they feed their young insects — lots of insects. Entomologist and author Douglas Tallamy reports that a single pair of chickadees captures 6,000 to 9,000 inchworm-size caterpillars per brood.
If you want songbirds in your landscape, Tallamy says, add foliage plants native to your region. Why? Because they nurture higher insect populations and thus make better natural bird feeders for your local nesting songbirds, whether they’re chickadees or yellow warblers, bluebirds or American robins. Native plants have long relationships with native insects, while plants imported from other continents may not have any relationships with our native insects. So add native foliage plants to your beloved garden standbys, and give songbirds a place and food supply to raise their young.
See more plants grown for their beautiful foliage
They contribute to our well-being. Without ornamentals, we would miss so much: the joy of hummingbirds zipping around our gardens, the delight of the first crocus in spring, the fall color, the antics of goldfinches clambering over blanketflower seed heads like miniature parrots.
Ornamentals are a big part of the physiological, emotional and cognitive benefits of gardening. Just being outdoors in our gardens makes us healthier: Time outside in nature lowers levels of stress hormones and respiration, and improves blood pressure and heart rate.
That exposure to what some researchers call “vitamin N” also reduces the incidence of diseases, including depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, asthma and migraines, and lowers overall mortality rates.
Outdoor activities like gardening also benefit our brain functions, decreasing activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with fear and anxiety, and lighting up parts of the brain associated with empathy and altruism, qualities the world sorely needs more of. They improve the brain’s cognitive skills and executive functioning, including short-term memory — and who couldn’t use improvements there? The joy of watching hummingbirds or smelling fragrant roses is, it turns out, beneficial to our overall health.
Ornamentals are a big part of the physiological, emotional and cognitive benefits of gardening. Just being outdoors in our gardens makes us healthier: Time outside in nature lowers levels of stress hormones and respiration, and improves blood pressure and heart rate.
That exposure to what some researchers call “vitamin N” also reduces the incidence of diseases, including depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, asthma and migraines, and lowers overall mortality rates.
Outdoor activities like gardening also benefit our brain functions, decreasing activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with fear and anxiety, and lighting up parts of the brain associated with empathy and altruism, qualities the world sorely needs more of. They improve the brain’s cognitive skills and executive functioning, including short-term memory — and who couldn’t use improvements there? The joy of watching hummingbirds or smelling fragrant roses is, it turns out, beneficial to our overall health.
Whatever kind of garden you grow, do yourself and this planet a favor, and plant ornamentals, especially native species, as habitat to nurture your local pollinators. Don’t forget to add foliage ornamentals of different sorts for color and form at different times of year, plus layers for different habitat niches. You’ll help restore healthy landscapes and return value and beauty to the world we share while giving yourself and those who visit your garden a beneficial dose of joy.
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Feeding Pollinators
Visible showy flowers are plants’ advertisement for pollinators, their partners in reproduction. (Grasses and other plants with tiny, plain flowers are wind-pollinated.) Pollinators carry pollen (the male sex cells) from flower to flower to ensure cross-fertilization. It’s a win-win relationship: Pollinators help the plant score; the plant feeds its partner. Flowers offer fat-rich pollen and sugary nectar, along with protein-laden insects. However, garden plants bred for double flowers with extra petals are essentially sterile and offer no food for pollinators.
North America boasts an amazing diversity of native pollinators. More than 4,000 native bee species, almost all pollinators, make their homes on the continent (honeybees, however, are European natives, imported to this continent with the first European settlers). The native bees are joined by a host of pollinating butterflies, moths, beetles, birds and even bats.
Populations of many pollinators are seriously threatened by pesticides and habitat loss, according to the Pollinator Partnership, which advocates for North America’s pollinators. Flowering ornamentals with blossoms that produce pollen and nectar provide critical food to nurture these critters.