The Native Garden Question

Have We Oversimplified Native Gardening?

Lately, everywhere I turn, I seem to hear the same message.

"Plant natives."

It's often followed by a series of statements that have become accepted as fact. Native plants don't need care. They thrive in poor soil. They survive drought. You can simply plant them and walk away. They're the only plants that support birds and wildlife, and if your garden isn't 100% native, then somehow you're part of the environmental problem.

The intention behind these messages is good. We should absolutely be encouraging people to think about biodiversity, habitat and sustainability. But somewhere along the way, we've reduced an incredibly complex subject into a simple slogan.

As a horticulturist, that's something I struggle with.

The first problem is that "native" is not a gardening style. It is simply a description of where a plant originates. Australia is an enormous continent with extraordinary diversity. We have alpine regions that experience snow, tropical rainforests that receive incredible rainfall, coastal heathlands battered by salt winds, dry inland deserts, mangroves, floodplains and open woodlands. Every one of those ecosystems has produced plants adapted to very different conditions.

Yet we often speak about Australian natives as though they all have the same requirements.

A rainforest understory shrub from South East Queensland has very little in common with a shrub growing naturally on the granite outcrops of Western Australia, other than the fact they both evolved in Australia. One may thrive in filtered light and rich organic soil, while the other demands perfect drainage and full sun.

Calling both simply "native" tells us very little about how they should be grown.

That brings me to another misconception, that native plants somehow look after themselves.

Every plant has requirements. Some prefer moisture, others demand excellent drainage. Some appreciate pruning, while others resent it. Some are frost hardy, others are damaged by a light chill. Some tolerate drought only once established after years of developing a root system. The idea that you can simply plant a native and forget about it isn't good gardening advice. It's good marketing.

Good gardening has always been based on one simple principle: right plant, right place.

Unfortunately, I feel we've replaced that principle with another: Plant a native.

The two statements are not the same.

Perhaps the greatest irony, however, is that we rarely stop to ask which natives we're planting.

Here in South East Queensland we have an extraordinary range of native plants, yet many are almost impossible to buy commercially. Some naturally grow beneath rainforest canopies and need shade. Some have tiny, insignificant flowers that would never attract attention on a retail bench. Some grow slowly. Some are difficult to propagate. Some simply don't fit our modern idea of a colourful landscape plant.

They're fascinating ecologically, but they're not always commercially attractive.

Instead, the nursery industry, like every industry, grows what people will buy and what can be produced economically. So we see endless cultivars of grevilleas, callistemons, syzygiums and ornamental grasses. Every season, there is another compact form or another dwarf form, another new flower colour or leaf shape.

Many of these are excellent plants, and I grow and recommend plenty of them myself.

But they represent only a tiny fraction of Australia's native flora.

Sometimes I wonder whether people who proudly declare they have a "native garden" are actually celebrating Australia's botanical diversity, or simply planting different versions of the same handful of commercially successful genera.

Even more interesting is that many of these popular plants aren't local to the area in which they're being planted. A Western Australian species growing in coastal Queensland is still Australian, but is it necessarily the best ecological choice for that landscape? Meanwhile, countless genuine local species remain largely unavailable because they are difficult to produce or don't fit consumer expectations.

That conversation rarely happens.

Another statement I hear regularly is that only native plants support wildlife.

The reality is far more complicated.

Local native plants play an incredibly important role in supporting specialised insects, birds and ecological relationships that have evolved together over thousands of years. There is absolutely no argument from me on that point.

But wildlife doesn't read plant labels.

Bees visit flowering herbs. Butterflies feed from nectar-rich ornamentals. Birds shelter wherever they find dense cover. Fruit trees provide food. Vegetable gardens support insects that in turn become food for other wildlife. Long-flowering salvias can feed pollinators for months when little else is available.

The healthiest gardens I've visited are rarely monocultures. They are layered landscapes with trees, shrubs, perennials, herbs, grasses and groundcovers all performing different roles throughout the seasons.

That, to me, is biodiversity.

I also worry that the conversation has become unnecessarily divisive. Gardeners who love roses are somehow seen as opposing those who love grevilleas. Cottage gardens are portrayed as the enemy of native gardens. Edible gardens are treated as though they contribute little to biodiversity.

Surely the goal is to create gardens that are resilient, interesting and alive.

A lemon tree doesn't diminish the value of a banksia. A flowering perennial doesn't cancel out a native grassland. A vegetable patch isn't incompatible with habitat creation.

Nature itself is layered and diverse. Why shouldn't our gardens be?

None of this is an argument against native plants. In fact, it's the opposite.

I think Australia's native flora deserves more respect than being reduced to a slogan that says, "Plant a native, it requires no care, and you'll save the environment."

Our native plants deserve to be understood. They deserve to be appreciated for the remarkable ecosystems they come from, for their individual requirements and for the incredible diversity they represent.

So perhaps instead of asking whether a plant is native or exotic, we should ask better questions.

Where does it naturally occur?

What conditions does it prefer?

What role does it play?

Is it the right plant for this place?

Because that's what good horticulture has always been about.

Perhaps if we spent less time drawing lines between native and exotic, and more time creating thoughtful, layered and diverse gardens, we'd achieve the very thing we're all trying to protect, healthy ecosystems filled with life.