The Power of Native Plants

Text and photos by Bhavana Padiyath, GEAS Guest Blogger

A few modest-looking structures at Comba Park on the Boise Bench house thousands of native plants. These tiny plants are destined for grandeur as part of community plans to radically improve bird and wildlife habitat in the Treasure Valley. An amazing cadre of volunteers is providing all the labor.

Sixteen volunteers gathered at Comba Park in April to prepare 200 native elderberry and dogwood saplings for planting along the Boise River. Plant Production Team Lead Nell Frazer Lindquist sourced the saplings from the University of Idaho’s Franklin Pitkin forest nursery at Moscow and supervised the operations. (If interested, retail buyers can source native plants from the Pitkin nursery in multiples of five online at very reasonable prices.)

Everyone present that day was very enthusiastic to use the opportunity to shape the community they call home.

Ariana Wilson, who has been active with the ReWild project explained, “I like volunteering, I like being outside, I really enjoy plants even though I don’t know much about them.”

For Brent Kidder, this is a way to give back to the community. “I love hiking and being by the river and these plants enhance the environment.”

Jon Mathews, who is a Master Naturalist, plants trees along the Boise River to fight against global warming. “I get to interact with some cool people in the process,” he said.

Local Initiative to Grow Native Plants

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

- Aldo Leopold

The Native Plant Network (NPN) is a partnership led by Golden Eagle Audubon in collaboration with many community partners, schools and universities with the aim to restore quality habitat for birds and other wildlife. The NPN creates banks of locally-adapted seedlings for planting in restoration sites around the Treasure Valley including at the GEAS Boise River Rewild Project. The Boise River Rewild Project is an initiative to restore and enhance the ecological health of the Boise River and its surrounding area. The project is a collaborative effort between GEAS, the City of Boise, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other local and regional partners.

Deep Roots of Native Plants

Native plants have historical and cultural significance and can help reconnect local communities with the natural environment.

Re-introducing native plants into the riparian ecosystem has ecological benefits too. They have deep root systems that help stabilize the soil along the riverbank, preventing erosion and loss of soil nutrients. Native plants restore biodiversity by providing habitat for many species of native birds, wildlife and insects, which in turn supports the health of the entire Boise River ecosystem. They improve water quality by filtering pollutants and sediment from runoff, preventing these contaminants from entering the Boise River. They sequester carbon from the atmosphere, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.

“All plants are not created equal, particularly in their ability to support wildlife. Most of our native plant-eaters are not able to eat alien plants, and we are replacing native plants with alien species at an alarming rate, especially in the suburban gardens on which our wildlife increasingly depends. My central message is that unless we restore native plants to our suburban ecosystems, the future of biodiversity in the United States is dim.”

—Doug Tallamy, “Bringing Nature Home”