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Ornamental Dead Zones

As one drives around Branford, one can see how foreign (ornamental or exotic) plants dominate our landscapes. We have replaced native plants that insects and other wildlife depend on with non-natives to which they are not adapted. Most of us go to the nursery and pick out what’s pretty, but it could be useless to a bee, butterfly, and bird. Additionally, our landscapes are often huge expanses of lawn that are essentially ecological dead zones and also do not have the public health benefits of greenscape with herbaceous or woody plants and trees: decreased stress, increased longevity in elders, improved test scores and wellbeing in students who visualize plants and trees out their school windows, etc. (We hope that the new Walsh school and Community Center have beneficial landscapes.)

It is time to recognize that we humans have not only decreased habitable space for wildlife via over-development but also have created yards that are functionally ornamental dead zones, rather than a vital part of our ecosystem. There is currently an opportunity in the draft 2018 Plan of Conservation and Development to do the right thing by asking new developments to plant abundantly with natives and to preserve existing mature, native trees. Also, when your readers visit a nursery, we encourage them to ask what natives the nursery carries.

Shirley McCarthy

Nancy Mancini

Shirley McCarthy serves on and Nancy Mancini co-chairs the Branford Community Forest Commission.