I know it's a little late in the season. In fact, it snowed here in Portland last weekend. But before this, Sheds its sleeves and hibernates for the winter. Just like my Japanese maple out front. We have a lot of really great recordings, interviews, planting content that we took along the way, so we're not quite hibernating yet. There's a lot more to come, so stay tuned So today's episode, Was actually really hard to edit. I like to keep things pretty quick in terms of episode length.
I want it to be something that you can do the dishes while you're listening to, or just pop it in for a nice little taste of being outdoors. But the interview that I did today, Blew my mind pretty much every topic we covered. It fundamentally changed how I think about gardening, how I think about the plants that I live with, and how I experience just walking around my city. And I think it will do the same for you, so it's a little longer, but I promise you it's worth it. Let's get into it.
Um, you and I, I first sort of wanted to get in touch based on an Instagram post that you made that I want to dive. Um, in detail it a little bit later, but first, just tell us about your Instagram project, Bundy Creek Natives. Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background,
So my name is Jonathan. I live in San Diego. I do not have any formal education on, ecological restoration or habitat gardening. And it's all just through my own passion. And so, I've done a lot of self education and just connecting with other people. And, uh, I initially, had my interest in habitat gardening through, just being connected to nature through hiking and camping.
And, um, one thing led to another and, uh, before I knew it, I was really, really interested in habitat gardening and using native plants as a means to, connect myself to nature, and to just help the environment.
And like, so habitat gardening just means like you are gardening to create habitats for wildlife.
Yeah, so it's gardening with, species in mind. Um, typically I think people usually are most connected to birds. Um, some people have fear of insects, so, um, for many people, uh, insects aren't even a part of the picture. But birds tend to get that golden highlight of the reach that people are trying to kind of attract to the yard. Um, butterflies as well. Sometimes bees, but then you get other insects that are kind of overshadowed by the popular species.
Interesting. What are some of your favorite, insects that you feel like get overlooked?
Um, I think there's a lot of really small insects that might not be as beautiful or as like, large as like a giant swallow tail butterfly or as a brightly colored bird. So sometimes I'm noticing, just like very small little beetles running on the ground, that love decaying wood. And so there are so many aspects to nature, uh, and elements that people don't want in their yard that are just really important to have for these species.
It's interesting that you mentioned that specifically on decaying wood cause. I think one of the things that people don't tend to associate as natural is things like decay and, um, that process of kind of being broken, things being broken down, we tend to think of things as like it's rotten or it's dirty, or it's, um, kind of cluttered and we think of that. We exclude that from the natural system and we exclude that from our gardens.
But once you mentioned it, that idea of just sort of, you know, bugs liking to hang out around a kingwood like that is as important as the things that we think of as alive. Like that's just as alive as, you know, a happy flower, you know?
Yeah. And it's an important element to nature. Um, I think that the, the death and decaying process is something that's really underrepresented, in gardens, and, and really underappreciated in culture.
That's so cool. That's really interesting. I never thought of it that way.
Yeah, so, growing up with my parents, they were always really not so fond of like decaying wood. Uh, they associated it with termites and all sorts of other insects that they didn't find to be very pleasant. And, it's just an incredibly important, food source for all sorts of insects to feed on and all sorts of birds like woodpeckers that rely on decaying wood, and for the species that they eat that live inside of it.
And other bird species that kind of forage for insects that revolve around decaying would, um, and, and decaying leaf matter.
So how do you incorporate those act? Like, what do you do? Do you just like go find a log and bring it into your space?
So great question. Um, I think in some cases people might have, enough plant material around their homes to have that. But I think the better thing we can do instead of trying to incorporate every single element into our yard is, um, when we don't have an area that we can incorporate one element, how can we look and incorporate another? Because I don't think, uh, every single one of us is capable of doing that. And I currently live in this very small apartment complex.
so having Deadwood is not really easy for me to have laying around on a concrete area. So I'd say for people that have yards, uh, it's a really wonderful thing to just allow to happen this natural process of decaying wood. But then for so many of us that, that don't have that option, we have to find different ways in which we can kinda help the environment out and create habitat.
Yeah. So from what I understand, you kind of have two different spaces that you're able to bring your interests around habitat gardening into. One is the property, that you grew up on, that you still maintain. And then the other is your more urban apartment style. Um, how do you think about those two things differently?
So these are two completely different worlds I grew up. A little over an acre of property. And so this is still my parents', property and I still do a lot of planting on it. Um, so I went from, uh, a good amount of property and doing all sorts of gardening straight into the ground and having trees and, and, and vast habitat to, now living in a very small space. And so it's really challenging and very contrasting from what I used to.
But I'm trying to do my best to have potted plants around my area. And I'm starting to realize that this is actually a very important. Because I, I didn't initially, I, I had reservations about it and I was really unsure if I would have a positive impact by having these plants present. I just kind of looked at this concrete jungle as a very sterile area where, habitat wouldn't be able to be a thing.
but now I'm realizing that, even though we've built these very urban areas, so many species are still traveling through them, whether they be insects or birds. And so I'm trying to do my best to kind of create an environment within a very urban environment.
Yeah. the way that I've heard that described is as corridor habitats, you know, habitats that link other larger areas. Um, and it's interesting, I talked with, a friend of mine, Joelle, who. Grew up in the Bronx and now lives in Brooklyn.
and we talked a lot about what nature means and how people who don't necessarily grow up in urban environments tend to think of cities as kind of other, like, they, they aren't natural because we put up an apartment building, so therefore it's no longer a natural space. And I think it's really interesting to talk with people about changing that idea. And so I'm curious, what are some of the like little natural moments that you've had that surprised you since moving into your more urban space?
Well, I just firstly wanna say you to your point, like it's, it's so true in that we are all a part of nature. And I, and I think for many of us, I mean, like I I, I've talked to people in the past who feel very kind of disconnected because of the concrete jungle they live in and believe in like the wild, as a separate place and, and, and human civilization as another.
Um, but I, I think we should view it as, as being more connected and especially realizing that every breath we take, we're breathing in fungi fors and, and all sorts of microbiology. But the, uh, one thing I've noticed is, uh, I tend to have a lot of, um, insects that eat plants in my yard. And so, by planting these potted plants, uh, noticing quite a bit of munching going on, like on the plants that I have in
Yeah. Yeah.
And at first I was concerned about this cuz I'm having like grasshoppers and Katie DIDs, coming in and they're even like breeding. They're even like, I'm showing like little ones are showing up in the yard. my first initial concern was that they would eat these plants to the ground But what I've
what we all would be like, my reaction is not like, Oh, it's great that these bugs are eating my plants.
right? Yes. Especially when you're limited on the amount of plants you have, which I was, um, but I eventually realized that a lot of these insects were just trying to eat. This particular leaves on the plants. So these like fresh new leaves that were growing, um, and they weren't actually killing these plants. And I had, uh, most of the plants on my patio are, are native plants.
And, I started realizing their importance in their presence, because their presence means that there's a place for birds. And, um, the vast majority of bird species either eat insects as a part of their daily diet or, or they rely on them for feeding their young.
Hmm.
So creating an environment where insects can thrive in general, wherever you live, um, is really important. And creating a, a diverse, environment with diverse insects is also very important as.
That's fascinating cuz that actually takes us to where you and I got connected, which was a post that you made on Instagram. It just came up in my discover feed while I was searching hashtags and it was basically about growing your own bird seed. And I would love for you to just describe the message of that post and tell us a little bit about how you got there.
Ooh. Yeah. So, I realized that,, bird seed is a multi-billion dollar industry, and, there are so many people in the US and globally that, view this as a really nice hobby or even a duty to help birds, by purchasing bird seed. and so the more I learned about how big this interest rate, some $4 billion a year is spent in America on grid seed, um, it really got me thinking about these numbers.
And, there's an environmental cost of bird seed production and everything from land use, uh, with mono like monocultural crops, pollution in the process, land degradation by all sorts of herbicides, pesticides, um, you think about like plastic production, all of these seeds are shipped in plastic bags. There's shipping associated with it. And so there's so many tolls that birds seed actually. Takes on the environment.
but they, the weird part of it is, and the unfortunate part of it is so many Americans are, are viewing purchasing this bird seed as a, a really beneficial solution to helping birds out. And so people feel very connected, by feeding birds. but is there a better way that we can do that aside from buying bagged bird seed, from the grocery store or wherever we get it? And I think there is. And so that's kind of what the post is about.
Yeah, I mean it's fascinating cuz I had never thought of it and I absolutely am part of those groups of people that you're talking about who are like, Well, one of the things I wanna do in my natural space that I'm cultivating is that I want birds to have resources and so let me buy bird seed. And what I didn't think about until you posted about this was that the bird seed thing that's happening is we moved into this space that birds were happy with and they were doing great.
And then we plowed over their natural habitats. We put asphalt and then we had. Uh, garden beds and we like put up different plants that they don't eat. And then we were like, Oh, but these birds still need to eat. So then what we decided to do is to plow over a different section of natural habitat somewhere hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles away in like Iowa or whatever.
And then on that area we planted only one crop and we sprayed it with pesticides and herbicides that like keep all the other, uh, you know, plants out of the picture and keep bugs out of the picture. And so that area is also not a happy place for birds. Then we harvest this seed that we grew in those places.
We put it in plastic, we ship it all the way back to me and instead what it you're saying in this post and I'd like to learn more of is just like, Why don't we not do all of that, and why don't we just grow the things in such a way that fed the birds who were here before? Let's just do that more. And it's, instead of cutting this like, you know, massive multi-systemic, you know, journey all over the US just to give birds food that we like took from them in the first place.
Is that, am I phrasing that right? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's not that these, even these seed companies that really actually are doing anything at all for the environment, they're profiting off of it. And you put it really, really well in that we have altered this land so much. And so what is that exchange? The exchange is, also just less insects because if we're having less habitat, and we're having monocultural crops and, and we're creating environments where we're just putting seed out, but not the plants that they rely on.
insects are a huge part of this as well. Uh, another aspect of that is,, people don't clean their bird feeders as often as they should. and so. There tends to be a risk of, disease spread. There's a few different diseases, that are harming birds. And we can tie that to, birds congregating in areas. Um, so since 1970, North America has lost 29% of its bird population.
Mm-hmm.
but another issue with stationary feeding is, not only with disease spread, but predation. So we're seeing that cats are a huge. With, with bird species. And so when you're having a bird feeder, it's kinda set up in one area. It's kind of the prime hunting grounds for these feral or outdoor cats, to just have a space to prey on birds. And so, stationary feeders, can be pretty problematic in a number of ways.
Uh, but when we're growing native plants in our yard, it kind of helps this natural process of, a constant evolution of these plants, doing their process of, of growing flowers and growing seed and going dormant or dying if they're in the annual. And so, um, it's, it's renewing itself. It's a fresh supply. and it also is constantly moving. It's constantly evolving. It's not just sitting in one place.
So what are the, for a person who hears this and. and that person is me. Like, Wow, I never thought of this. What's the first step for changing how you approach, how you feed birds, how you give nutrition to birds that are in your, in your environment.
So, um, for me it's just looking at the plants that have co-evolved with the land that I live on. And so, I'm trying my best to have a, as much of a sustainable approach and native plants seem to be one of the most beneficial things we can do. so I think the first step is be aware of, of what plants. Naturally grow in your area that are locally native to your area. And that create a food source for birds and insects alike.
and also understand that if it, if you can, um, it's really helpful to plant a variety of different plants as well, uh, and an abundance if possible. Cuz where there's a variety of different plants, you get a varying, types of insects as well. And so the world of birds revolves around more than just seed. And that's what I want people to realize is seeds are a great start to being connected to birds. But there are so many other things.
That we can do to make birds attracted to our yard, um, and to offer them a place of refuge and a place of food and habitat.
That's cool. And that kind of takes me back a little bit further even the name of your Instagram is Bundy Creek native and that name refers to the environment that you grew up in. Um, and so I'm curious if you could tell us a little bit more about that, your relationship with it and like what that environment was like both when you started and then maybe how it's changed as you've been able to kind of work with it, um, and invest in it as habitat gardening.
Yeah, so my, my parents' property is very close to this watershed called Bundy Creek and this watershed, has some of the last habitat in the town that I grew up in. Um, it's just kind of an area that's really not so altered by humans. And so, um, my parents used to spray, herbicide over what seems like every inch of the land in the past. and I convinced them to stop doing that cuz I was curious to see what would happen and what would show up.
And what started happening is, um, plants from all over, especially from this watershed, had blown their way into the yard and started going, and this was everything from annual sunflower species. Buck weed species and other really beneficial species for insects and, and birds. and so the, the exchange was having, not a lot of habitat and a lot of annual weeds to us just trying to have a different approach to the land, and trying to get back to the roots of locally native species.
And so there's, there's many ways in which I've been able to see the importance of this through, different bird species and different insect species kind of coexisting. One of my favorite, things about their property is there's some annual plant habitat, and there's an insane amount of, small butterflies and bees and,, there are. Birds that rely exclusively on insects that feed and forage in this one area.
And so, um, Black Phoebes and SAS Phoebes, for example, will hang out in these areas because of the presence of insects. And so, seeds are one part of it. An insects or another,
mm-hmm.
Sorry, I.
No, no. I'm just like, Yep. Preach. So what does it feel like, Did your parents love, like, it sounds like at first they were like, Well, we don't love having weeds around, which is a certainly prevailing and also understandable point of view. And so do they like the changes that have happened and how, was there a click for them where they were like, Oh, this is actually really cool.
Yeah, they've, they've, they've come around and, initially there was some concern because a lot of these species of plants that were showing up were just, I mean, they were so wild looking and so scraggly. But, the, the, the thing I love the most about the experience, of discontinuing herbicide and then just seeing native plants show up and fostering habitat is we were able to be much more connected to the land.
And so we were able to see just how it functions and how, in our experience, the seasons of Southern California, how, how those play out throughout the year. And, we felt way more connected because we made this exchange, of, I. Trying to work against the land, working with it. And so, the, the presence of all these species showing up because of the way that we were able to manage the land differently, has and does continue to have an impact on my parents. And, they still have the property.
They went there and, they're able to see more biodiversity, and just a functioning habitat with all these different species that can in varying ways, contribute to and be present in the landscape.
does it look better?
I think so. But I think
Like, what is it like even sort of subjectively, like, is it like, oh, and it like, now we have more flowers, Or like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know what's the, how do I picture this change even?
Yeah, so well, there's a seasonal, I mean, at least here in Southern California, we get a pretty long dry dormant season of plants. And so, that takes some getting used to for people that kind of associate green as good. Um, some plants just have their dormancy periods and so it's still a process. Brown plants just don't look as healthy. And so it took a while for my parents to recognize that they were doing exactly what they were meant to do.
Um, but the challenging part is when people live in a homeowner's association and they can't have brown plants or they can't have big plants or plants that look like they're out of control. And so for many of us, we have to really, if we want to kind of, uh, rewild our yards, some of us are very limited and have to be very careful about our approaches. especially with HOAs.
Yeah. It's interesting because, you know, we're talking about. Things that are natural, like brown plants are very natural. That's a normal part of a plant's life cycle. And, things that are dying or decaying, or are discarded from parts of plants, those are all very natural. But we, on the other hand, it's like no, green is the only thing that's natural and, in control is the only thing that's, you know, like nature must be, neat and green in order for us to appreciate it.
And it's interesting how those two things are kind of juxtaposed within the work that you're doing around native species and rewilding spaces.
Yeah. Well, and I, I too, you're reminding me of kind of an experience I had recently where I challenged myself to look at the landscape, at my parents' property, in the time where the plants were most dormant, and stretch myself to find out how I could see life happening and how I can see habitat happening. And while there might not be as much activity in maybe the autumn months in southern California with insects, there's still a lot going on.
And so flowers are spent and some of these flower clusters of buck wheat, for example, are providing habitat for insect. To live in, um, to live on. And so, spiders also have their prime time, uh, during the autumn months in Southern California. Um, because they're able to build webs on all this dormant decay that's not constantly moving. And so, that's a really important season for spiders to be producing webs.
And then spiders are really important as soft-bodied insects for birds cuz they feed them to their young and they eat them themselves. So I try to stretch myself to think, how can I look at these, not so lively seasons, and see the life in them.
That's cool. Yeah, it's interesting. It makes me think differently about the things that I clean from my yard and the things that I, you know, oh, this spider web needs to go away, it's interesting to reframe it, um, and to be able to kind of think about it in a different way.
Yeah.
So how does, um, somebody who's interested in rewilding or native species, like what is a good first step?
Yeah, plants are great stuff. as a natural bird seed, uh, an insect detractors. And so, I would say for anyone wanting to get into it, try to figure out what plants might be locally native to your area. And one good, uh, word of advice is, if you can plant three of one plant. This actually really helps, uh, species be able to forage, bees and butterflies like to have multiple plants in an area so that they can visit different plants that are flowering.
And even if these plants have a lot of flower production, um, having a larger amount of them than just one individual plant can be very beneficial. And maybe just start with one species. Another thing is social media is a great way, to get connected. so if anyone has. Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. there is a huge, huge, huge, social media presence within these platforms for people who are interested in habitat gardening and do it.
And so try to get connected, you know, look at hashtags, uh, for maybe like native plants to your area. Um, there are plenty of native plant societies throughout the United States as well, and, that's always a good first step to kind of be inspired and have some, some insight on how you can make your space better, uh, and, and have more habitat for species.
I loved your point about using three, um, because I think sometimes it's a mistake from like a more, um, rewilding, a native perspective, but it's also a mistake from like a garden design perspective to have just like a lot of just one thing of each thing. It like visually it's actually worse too. Like aesthetically it's very. Hard to have one of everything because then you're not, there's no consistency. You don't know what you're looking at. And I can sometimes get excited about variety.
I had this conversation with my husband this past weekend where I was like, Oh, I wanna put some irises over there. And he was like, So, uh, like, where else would Iris's be? And I'm like, Oh, well I don't think anywhere else because, you know, there's not like that much more space. And he was like, Well, what about if you used something that we have in other places already? And it's such a good reminder that just like, also variety's important, but one of everything will be not, as effective.
And it's nice when sort of like the aesthetic rules dovetail with the natural rules because that kind of like, It reminds you that you may have actually like an innate sense of some of the signals of natural environments being strong, and that would mean multiple of, of one thing rather than just sort of like this hodgepodge of stuff.
Yeah. Well, and it, it makes me think about, you know, how can, how can we fundamentally change the way we view gardening? And for many of us, we have this idea of gardening that's kind of already been built in this way, um, that is very tied to being a consumer and, and, and making the design look a certain way. But I think one of the most important things, and one thing that's brought me a whole lot of joy is being able to ask myself, not what can I do to make the yard?
Me exactly what I want and what I want to see and, and where I want things to go, but how can I let the yard, be a place of sanctuary and of regeneration and, let ecological health be the focus in how I plant and what I.
Mm-hmm. We talked a little bit about how gardens, in common sort of cultural perspective, are orderly. They are, Always alive. They are, trimmed the moment that they become brown. And how does thinking about gardens from the perspective of, native species and habitat gardening, how does that shift how you personally or how I might think about what a garden is and its purpose?
I'll, I'll share a story.
Yeah.
parents had a letter dropped in their mailbox from an anonymous neighbor, um, a little passive aggressive kind of a letter that said, Hi, your neighbor here. Uh, please, like, cut down the weeds. Your yard would look so much better. Uh, and
Wow.
my response was, I bought a sign that said bird habitat, and installed it on the street corner. And so, um, I think for many people they still will view these gardens even if they have such well intentions and they're beautifully put. Um, will still view them as an eyesore and will view them as.
Hmm.
Um, not the best looking yard because of their, their, their, their dormancy periods or the growth patterns that aren't, uh, trimmed all the time. Um, and, and so it's, it's a, it's a, it's a stretch for a lot of people and I think even for people in the habitat gardening community,, being able to let go of some of these ways that were conditioned in gardening culture can be really tough.
Like maybe we don't have to deadhead everything and maybe we can leave leaves in certain places or allow wood to decay like we were talking about earlier. So even in that, even in the habitat gardening realm, there are still plenty of ways in which we can. Let go of, the ways that we have been so influenced by the iconic gardening, which is the us managing a land approach, and us taming a land approach. And so it's a process of letting go, I think in a lot of ways.
How can we sit back and evaluate what's going on and see the ways in which nature works, uh, and, and work with it instead of working against it.
That's cool. It's almost like reframing, uh, what do we have to teach the plants to, like what are the plants and birds and stuff have to teach us?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm really very grateful that you're out there and kind of sharing this perspective and helping like me just reframe how we're approaching even just small choices and one of the ways. You're, I think, shows that you're accomplishing what you're talking about and wanting to help do, is that, you know, after reading your post about bird seed, I totally kind of changed my approach to, plantings that I was gonna do. I'm still kind of working my way into this house.
We're relatively new here and my husband asked me to plant some stuff on both sides of the, uh, house. And based on what you posted, I changed the types of plants that I was looking for and how I was thinking I was gonna use the space. And so I went straight to the native section.
Um, at my nursery, it's sort of like a local nursery that has a lot of connections with local growers and looked for a range of different plants that were gonna hit at different seasons that worked well in those environments that were gonna need less water., and I had so much fun putting them in and imagining in two years as they get established and as they sort of start to work their way in, what those are gonna be like and what that's gonna mean for life in my neighborhood.
And it was so fun to be able to think about that. And so I haven't changed everything that I'm doing, but being able to just think about that new point of view in one specific project has kind of opened up and helped me start to develop muscles towards other things that I can do as I start to move forward too.
It's, it's great that you're learning things continually and I hope everyone listening, uh, would just stretch themselves to be able to, to learn, continually and to be able to find different ways in which they can kind of work with the land to, to help nature.
Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you. We, it's been a fascinating conversation and uh, it just makes me wanna go out into my backyard and just look at bugs, which I don't, I don't immediately think of usually, but now I'm just like, I wanna see who's out there and see what's going on.
Slow it down and enjoy the bugs
Yeah, absolutely. If you wanna learn more from Jonathan and trust me, you do his Instagram handle. Bundy Creek Natives. And if you wanna follow us on Instagram, we're fresh clippings. Message us there and tell us what you liked most about today's show. In the meantime, thank you so much for joining us on Plant Time. We'll see you in the garden soon.