By Mary Mungai
Long before it grows its classic black and orange wings, the Monarch butterfly begins its life among the hooded flowers of milkweed. As caterpillars, they can’t eat anything else. Alongside millions of human beings, these butterflies call North Carolina home too, feeding on the 16 species of milkweed that are native to the state, according to the North Carolina Wildlife Federation.
Native species are those that have formed interdependent, complex relationships with the flora and fauna of an area after co-evolving with these species for thousands of years, according to North Carolina State Extension.
But sometimes, they face competition from non-native or invasive plants, which are popular for their landscaping appeal.
As developments continue, it’s more important than ever that the plants we do have nourish the environment, says Amy Mackintosh, co-chair of the Margaret Reid chapter of the North Carolina Native Plant Society.
“We’re having so much impact between agriculture and residential and whatever else use, land use, that we can’t say, ‘Oh, well, [nature] will move to the next place in the country’,” she says. “There is no next place in the country. It’s us.”
The N.C. Native Plant Society and other organizations are encouraging the use of native plants in landscaping by focusing on one side of the business equation: demand. They’re educating the public on how native plants can be incorporated into landscape aesthetics, in the hopes that this will encourage people to buy them.
Here’s one thing that helps: across the state, there’s already a growing interest in native plants, they say.
Native plants around the Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photo by Mary Mungai
Demand: Why are people interested in native plants?
In a 2021 survey sponsored by the Coastal Landscapes Initiative, most of the 20 commercial plant growers that were surveyed reported seeing the demand for native plants grow over the past five years, says Jane Harrison, coastal economics specialist for North Carolina Sea Grant, which manages the Coastal Landscapes Initiative. Native plants like Southern wax myrtle, native hollies, and milkweed were especially popular.
The N.C. Native Plant Society has also seen interest in their organization grow beyond membership. While it has around 900 official members, about 2,300 opted in to receive its newsletters, says Margaret Partridge, the other co-chair for the Margaret Reid chapter of the N.C. Native Plant Society.
Concern about native plants has even risen to the state level. In July 2019, the North Carolina General Assembly passed Senate Bill 606, which requires the Department of Transportation to prioritize planting native plants along roadways.
But where is all this interest coming from? Recent research linking native plants to preserving biodiversity formed a lot of the impetus behind this, Mackintosh says.
Thousands of years of co-evolution means that entire ecosystems depend on native plants. For example, many native wildflowers provide nectar for pollinating insects and seeds for animals, says Christopher Moorman, associate head of the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University.
Not only do native plants serve as foundations of the food web, but they also affect soil composition, plant community structures, and disturbance processes, such as fires, he says.
Non-native plants, even if they spread beyond their native range, can never fully replicate the complex interactions that naturally occur, according to N.C. State Extension.
For example, privets, non-native plants from the Ligustrum genus, are integrated into the North Carolina food web because birds eat them, Moorman says.
But if privets outcompete native plants that support invertebrates, such as milkweeds, then the baby birds that need protein from the invertebrates will not survive. So while privets certainly contribute to the food base for native birds, their growth may have other consequences to native bird species as a whole, he says.
When non-native plants outcompete various native plants in a certain area, it can reduce the diversity of plants in an area, as well. This homogenization of food resources is why it’s harder to find native bird species in urban or suburban areas, for example, Moorman says.
“They’re just not able to persist in these landscapes,” he says.
Many non-native plants are popular because they are resilient and grow well in most conditions. But these same characteristics can also crowd out native plants, which arguably makes them invasive.
For Moorman, nonnative plants that establish and reproduce on their own are invasive, primarily because they take up space that native plants could use.
“That also accounts for the fact that in many cases, it takes decades or centuries for a plant species population to become well enough established so that it’s recognizably outcompeting native plants,” he says. “And so if we see it reproducing and surviving on its own now, I think it’s a good indication that in decades in the future, that it would be more widely spread.”
Take Ficaria verna, also known as fig buttercup, for example. The plant was introduced to the United States from Europe, according to N.C. State Extension. In late April and May, the plant grows dormant, forming bulbs under the ground and tiny bulbs on its stems, says Peter Schubert, the citizen representative on the Board of Directors for the North Carolina Invasive Plants Council.
When the stem withers away, its tiny bulbs can spread far, especially through floodwater. Each becomes a new source. And where they settle, they can grow to outcompete native plants, thus harming the ecology of an area, Schubert says.
The N.C. Invasive Plants Council, a volunteer organization that spreads awareness about the dangers of invasive plants, has published a list of invasive plants in the state. It gets input from a variety of experts, including scientists, governmental and conservation organizations, and the landscape and nursery industries.
But there’s no consensus on what makes a plant invasive, Moorman says. Many in the scientific community would not define non-native plants as invasive until they’ve observed their harmful effects on an ecosystem – however long that may take.
“And I’ll also say there’s a component of the ecological community that says, ‘Quit whining, stop worrying about it,’” he says. “‘These plants are here. It’s part of the cycle now with humans, and so we just need to accept it and sort of adapt to it.’ There’s some truth in that.”
Non-native plants have become very integrated into multiple cycles that affect humans. One of the most important ones is the economic cycles, where they form a solid base of the landscaping plant supply.
Supply: Why aren’t there more native plants in the plant nursery supply?
Yousif Nazo, business manager for Nazo Landscaping in Durham, says he has noticed that while there’s a substantial subset of consumers who ask for native plants, most people still prefer to plant non-natives.
Nazo Landscaping is both a full-service nursery and landscaping company, which means it grows the plants it installs for its customers. It sells some native plants, especially ones that are in high demand and don’t grow so wild that they require more work on the company’s part.
However, the lion’s share of their sales comes from non-native plants.
“To be honest, we’re a business at the end of the day, so we try to grow what works really well here but also what’s in high demand,” Nazo says. “You know, I have to maximize all my space, being that we’re right here in Durham, I mean, we’re using almost every foot of space we have.”
Most people asking for native plants are homeowners, who spend around a couple hundred dollars when they shop, he says. But contractors, landscapers, and developers, who primarily buy non-native plants, put in orders worth thousands of dollars.
“It’s a big difference, you know. So the people who are buying the most are the people I have to cater to in order to stay in business,” he says.
Nazo is not the only one. While a mix of small and medium nurseries from the 2021 Coastal Landscapes Initiative survey focused exclusively on native plants, the largest ones did not, Harrison says. This is a trend Mackintosh sees too; while there are smaller nurseries which cater to native plants, they’re still not selling at a scale that would attract landscape contractors, she says.
Various organizations, from nonprofits to the state, are having to balance economic and environmental benefits in landscaping.
“We really have to build a demand so that the horticulture industry can shift to native plants and still be viable economically,” Moorman says. “And we certainly want them to be viable economically.”
Design: Are new aesthetics the solution?
Some of these organizations insist there’s a way to achieve both: emphasizing the aesthetic appeal of native plants.
Both the N.C. Native Plant Society and N.C. Sea Grant work to educate the public on intentional design, particularly when it comes to designing with native plants. There are many ways native plants can be placed in a garden or yard to make it look neat or organized, Harrison says. Or, they could be placed in such a way to have a more free, natural look.
“I often think of a garden, a really, you know, kind of attractive, organized garden should be like a living room, you know, just like in someone’s home,” she says. “Do you put a chair in the middle of the room, kind of randomly, or do you put it in a corner, you know, kind of situated so that it can talk to or see the couch across the way?”
There’s even an aesthetic appeal inherent to native plants that attracts North Carolina residents – especially new ones, Harrison says.
“I think people have an interest in what is uniquely North Carolina, you know, what kind of makes this place special,” she says.
It’s not just individual homeowners or gardeners who see the aesthetic appeal of native plants. When the landscape around the Old Well, one of the most famous sites on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus, needed refreshing, native plants proved to be the right ones for the job.
“You know, we’re the University of North Carolina,” says Daniel Widis, UNC University Facilities Landscape Architect. “Pulling in plants from across the state that are representative of the region, representative of this place, right, felt appropriate for that moment, right?”
Almost fifty different types of plants were added around the Old Well during the fall 2024 semester. Previously, the Old Well featured tall hedges, as well as the colorful azaleas that brightened graduation photos during the first two weeks of May, Widis says. Now, the hedges and large trees around the area have been removed. And the native plants around the well will bloom at various points throughout the year.
But this landscape will evolve and change over time. Each year, University Facilities will make small tweaks to it. Non-native plants may still be planted in the space in the future, and the design would still be successful, Widis says.
“I don’t think you need to be a strict nativist when it comes to planting, though it obviously comes with a number of ecological and environmental benefits,” Widis says. “In this moment, it just felt like the right thing to do.”
Rather than choosing between yard aesthetics and environmental benefits, organizations across the state seek to increase the demand for native plants by educating the public on how they can achieve both.
And one of the biggest reasons why is that there’s beauty that inherently comes from seeing the diversity of life that flourishes around native plants, Mackintosh says.
Many native plants shift throughout the year. From deciduous trees in January to the first hints of trout lily blooming in February, these plants also attract various creatures like butterflies, squirrels, and birds, she says. That’s the beauty of planting native plants.
“I don’t feel like I’m doing it just for the good of the world,” she says. “I mean, I think we get great pleasure out of it, but the greatest pleasure is seeing the life that comes around.”
Stories from the UNC Media Hub are written by senior students from various concentrations in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media working together to find, produce and market unique stories — all designed to capture multiple angles and perspectives from across North Carolina.
