Botany purists vs. practical gardeners - which side are you on?

I was at the Denver Botanic Gardens last spring, and this older guy stopped me while I was admiring a patch of lupines. He told me I was wasting my time with native plants and should just grow whatever looks good, because nature doesn't care about our labels. But then another visitor jumped in and said native plants are the only way to support local insects and birds. So which is it - are we overthinking this or is there a real divide between keeping things natural and just enjoying pretty flowers? Has anyone else run into this argument at a garden or nursery?

2 comments

2 Comments

logan_white5912d ago

Man, that's just like everything else nowadays... people get so stuck in their camps they can't see the middle ground. I'm over here thinking about how it's the same with music, you got your vinyl purists who swear analog is the only way and then everyone else just listens on their phones. Really, a mix of both makes sense... plant some natives for the bugs and throw in a couple of fancy roses if they make you happy. The world ain't black and white, both sides of that argument are missing the point that gardens are supposed to be about joy and not a purity test.

the_evan11d ago

Three years back I planted a whole bed of "easy care" native wildflowers and somehow managed to kill half of them, so clearly I'm not qualified to take either side here. But for what it's worth, I think the practical gardeners have it right in spirit if not in exact science. My neighbor grows nothing but invasive English ivy and it looks like a haunted mansion scene, but the bees ignore it completely while my scraggly zinnias are covered in them. I guess my point is, most of us botany nerds are just trying not to kill our petunias, so maybe we can all agree on that before arguing about insect politics. Does anyone else find that their "fails" end up teaching them more than the books ever did?