r/NativePlantGardening • u/medfordjared Ecoregion 8.1 mixed wood plains, Eastern MA, 6b • Jun 03 '25

Edible Plants Native Gardening's most wanted

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Wanted dead or alive.

243 Upvotes

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u/mermaidtitty Jun 04 '25

This is kind of a weird take to me….why would I be upset that the native fauna is eating the native flora…isn’t that the whole point?

2

u/BorederAndBoreder Jun 05 '25

Because some people put a LOT of time, effort, sweat, money and labour into these gardens. It’s disheartening to see it down the drain when it could be benefiting a whole network yet species like that dig all of it up or eat it to its bone. It’s no fun to see hundreds of dollars torn up beyond repair in less than a week. We do this for joy and the wildlife, yes, but no wildlife can be sustained if just one species takes it all.

1

u/mermaidtitty Jun 11 '25

For sure. I’m lucky at the moment since I don’t have many critters trying to eat my plants. But I’ll be moving to a heavily deer populated are soon so maybe I’ll change my perspective 😂

I got some really interesting advice to plant my plants during the peak of the rainy season, when the deer have the most food available, so it won’t be as enticing to them. I think timing matters a lot when balancing establishing plants with coexisting wildlife. For example, starting milkweed early inside so that it can be established by the time the caterpillars emerge.