Cast Iron Garden: Plants for Scared People in Central Oklahoma

Plants for nervous gardeners.
Author

C.M. Curry and P.M. Cimprich

Published

June 24, 2024

Introduction: What’s the deal with native plants?

Why should I bother switching to native plants and/or putting more effort into my yard?

  • Saving the world
  • Saving you money
  • Saving you time
A single abstract firefly representing by a starburst of lines
(a) Before
Multiple abstract fireflies
(b) After
Figure 1: What native plants can do for the world

Saving the world

A sad butterfly, with drooping wings and antennae, and a frown face.

This butterfly has no home and will die soon.

Several big problems can be addressed with native plants

  1. The biodiversity crisis in general
    1. The insect apocalypse in particular
    2. Invasive species harming local ecosystems
  2. Water shortages
  3. Carbon footprints

Are you really serious, I don’t think my garden can save the world.

A happy butterfly, holding a steaming cup of delicious nectar.

Yay! This butterfly can thrive and support a family!
Vogt, Benjamin. 2023. “Rewilding Suburbia in the American Plains.” Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment 14 (1): 174–79. https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2023.14.1.5063.
“Tiny Places for Tiny Animals: Building the Microhabitats That Bugs Need to Thrive.” n.d. https://xerces.org/blog/tiny-places-for-tiny-animals-building-microhabitats-that-bugs-need-to-thrive. Accessed June 24, 2024.

Actually, it can! Every plant can make a difference in ever-expanding human colonization of the landscape (Vogt 2023). Many insects are tiny, and thus even tiny changes can help them (“Tiny Places for Tiny Animals: Building the Microhabitats That Bugs Need to Thrive” n.d.).

Water usage by lawns.

Carbon footprint of shipping non-native plants or cut flowers, foods.

I live in an apartment, I don’t think so.

Container gardening info.

Saving you money

A stack of paper money with wings, flying away from you.

Before: no native plants in your garden
  • Water shortages
  • Endless annuals from big box stores
  • Fewer plants that fail dramatically
  • Tax dollars spent keeping invasive species out of special places like public lands
  • Tax subsidies spent keeping invasive species out of food/agricultural lands

The sack of money you'll save with a native plant garden

After: with native plants in your garden

Saving you time

This overlaps a lot with saving you money. But also, once things are established in appropriate habitats, goodbye endless watering!

This does not count if you become an obsessive gardener.

Book info

This document was created are using the quarto package (Allaire and Dervieux 2024) to format this book. Some ideas from (Odell 2019).

Allaire, JJ, and Christophe Dervieux. 2024. Quarto: R Interface to Quarto Markdown Publishing System. https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-r.
Odell, Jenny. 2019. How to Do Nothing.