We all need to feel that we belong where we live and most of us have empathy for those uprooted from their communities, but rarely do we give plants the same consideration. Perhaps we only see these needs as human emotional ones and not as actual physical demands.
Right plant right place has been a gardening mantra for years, but it’s often been fulfilled by little more than lists of plants suitable for the conditions we might have like dry shade, hot and sunny or damp. We don’t seem to really consider the intimate needs of the living beings we’re working with and barely give a second thought to their relationships with their surroundings and fellow creatures.
The pyramidal orchids in my meadow lawn are a case in point. The numbers of their flowering spikes increased during the first few years of our tenure here and my efforts at meadow management. Then the dog came along and since his arrival their numbers have reduced yearly and now I fear that this summer will be their last. His unique brand of high nitrogen liquid fertilizer has destroyed their habitat and their exacting requirements of low fertility and specific fungal mycelium. Thick tussocky grasses now feel right at home here whereas the orchids sadly do not. I feel the loss of my lovely orchids but biodiversity is the real loser here, the scrappy old lawn which blossomed into a flower filled meadow is in decline and no doubt with it the insects and invertebrates dependant on its flowers too.
A reflection of the wider state of nature sadly, but not all is doom and gloom, the rest of my garden seems to be just fine and changing positively in the ways it wants to with seedlings appearing where they feel at home and surprises whenever I delve into the undergrowth, peer into the pond or listen to the birds.
Some are permanent residents, some just passing through and others are returning home from migration. Each year about this time I hold my breath as I scan the sky on warm evenings when the winds have been from the south, and yesterday the swifts came back. I grinned and sighed in huge relief as they whirled overhead, screaming like banshees, as overjoyed to see their home as I was to see them.
Today as I walked through town, I see Erigeron and Scabious have found their place in the cracks and crevices of paving by a disused shop doorway. They will feed little insects which in their turn will make a meal for the swooping, swirling swifts and in the woods where the dog takes his walks, perfectly at home, the wild garlic covers the soil in a smelly carpet of starry flowers and leaves to be foraged for lunch.
