“The Garden is an area that we have to share with nature, let’s not do everything based only on our species”

Conservation of our flora and fauna

Costa Rica is fortunate to have an amazing diversity of flora and fauna, a variety of climates for all tastes, and landscapes such as mountains, volcanoes, beaches, and mangroves. Unfortunately our gardens reflect a lack of native flora. The majority of plants used in gardens here are exotic and some are dangerously invasive which can seriously damage the habitat of our plants and animals. Every garden full of exotic plants is habitat lost for the native fauna of Costa Rica. This is the main reason why we are making an effort to promote native ornamental plants: to conserve our flora and fauna.

The government in Costa Rica has made efforts in conservation, protecting national parks and flagship species, but each one of us should do our part, and the most effective way is to start your own garden. The size of your garden doesn’t matter, from two planters to 1000 square meters, each plant, each tree matters. A lot of small land areas make a difference for many species that little by little are losing their home. Your garden can be a a sterile green suburban lawn or a wildlife refuge"Now more than ever gardeners are the key agents in managing the wildlife of our country,” says D. Tallamy, who makes reference to disappearing wilderness in the United States, where 90% of the land has been altered by humans. Below we give more reasons for gradually substituting native plant species for exotic species.

 

 

Wildlife atracction

Birds, butterflies, bees, bats, caterpillars, armadillos, monkeys. Who wouldn’t like to have these interesting visitors in their garden? Native plants attract all types of fauna.

Evolution does not happen over night; it takes millions of years for insect, plant, bird, and mammal species to develop survival strategies in a given ecosystem. The majority of insects are specialists, that is to say that they only eat certain plants. The insects of Costa Rica are adapted to the plants from here. Therefore, by eliminating native species and planting only exotics, we are eliminating the habitat of these important herbivorous insects among others. “Who cares… maybe I don’t want to have insects in my garden?” Many people will say that, but herbivorous insects are the base of the food chain; without them birds wouldn’t have the important source of protein that they need during reproduction. Many butterflies, for example, are highly specialized during their larval phase, feeding only on certain plants. Also, insects and birds are native plant pollinators. These are only a couple of plant-animal relationships of thousands of symbiotic interactions that are under constant study. Nature is not as simple as we thought… putting a tray of fruit out for birds in a garden filled with exotic crotons and gingers doesn’t fix the problem. It has been proven that the more native plants there are in a garden, the more animals there will be in the same garden.

 

Savings in Irrigation and Maintenance
  1. Watering. Once established, native plants and trees require little to no watering. This means immense savings for all of the gardens on the Pacific slope of Costa Rica. How much does watering your garden cost you in time and money? On the Atlantic slope, native plants of the region can withstand heavy rains and floods; for this reason they are generally better adapted than exotic plants, which depending on the species, might die in these conditions or become invasive.
  2. Fertilizers. Native plants require little to no fertilization since they are already adapted to the soil in the region. Obviously, if the soil has been too disturbed (like in many cases of urbanization), we should add natural organic matter from the region. In native gardens, it’s appropriate to let the leaves that fall decompose into soil since it is part of the natural process of fertilization in the forest and gardens.
  3. Insecticides. The concept of a native plant garden includes welcoming insects and all the animals that they attract. Using any type of insecticide goes against the concept of an ecological garden. For example, if there is a plant without leaves in your garden because it has been eaten by caterpillars, it’s a good sign; later you will have a lot of butterflies in your garden!
  4. Weeding and pruning. Native plant gardens require pruning, trimming, and weeding since we don’t want our garden to end up looking like a forest (although forests are beautiful, also!). But the amount of pruning and weeding will always be less than the cost of maintaining a grass lawn: grass is the landscaping plant that requires the most hours of maintainance and gasoline. A lawn is the least ecological landscape that we could have and also the most expensive.

 

Cultural and Natural identity

From lowland tropical rainforests in Limón and the Zona Sur, to the paramo of Chirripó, the Monteverde cloud forest, and seasonal dry forest of Guanacaste, the habitats of Costa Rica are numerous and each has its characteristic plant, bird, butterfly, and mammal species. In Costa Rica, we have two seasons –very noticeable in some regions of the country– during which our landscape changes. If our gardens are planted with exotic plant species, we will not experience and appreciate these seasonal changes. Using native ornamental plants gives authenticity to a Costa Rican garden; it provides us with an active and dynamic garden (with seasonal changes and more plant-animal interactions) that will distinguish it from the typical tropical garden seen from Hawaii to Florida.