Don't Pull That Dandelion

Gardening with Intent means leaving in plants that you might regard as weeds if they provide food for other species. It also means nurturing plants that may not be traditionally beautiful but are important providers of native habitat and food.

How many dandelions have you pulled out in disgust?

Dandelions are native to North America and they are nutritious for animals and people.

Our yard has limited sun; few dandelions can make a go of it. When one sprouted up at the base of the block wall in the front, I was happy. The desert tortoise has just really started to eat after its winter torpor. Dandelion greens are filled with vitamins and they help stimulate the digestive system.

Nikki regards dandelion as a spring tonic.


Native heuchera or coral bells send up stalks of small flowers in spring.

The flowers are stunning on a minute level, but their tiny size makes them less desirable to many people. Hummingbirds, however, favor these tasty native blooms. This month I’ve added to my patch of heuchera and I plan to add more in the fall. I’d like to plant them in the backyard as well, but the tortoises love them too much.

The Catalina cherry and holly cherry are in bloom. They can’t compare to azaleas or camellias for beauty, but little white flowers attract small insect pollinators: flower flies and hover flies. These small insects, as well as gnats, are import items on the menu for western fence lizards and nesting female hummingbirds.

People always ask me why there are so many hummingbirds nesting in my yard. I honestly think the reason is that the hungry mothers need ready access to protein–small flying insects. The holly cherry trees attract native insects and provide the perfect location for building a nest. Two of the three successful hummingbird nests this spring have been in holly cherry shrubs.

In late summer the holly cherry will produce a small acidic fruit eaten by a variety of birds.

Look at the plants in your living space with a new eye. Which plants attract the most native insects? Which plants have the most spider webs? These are the plants that are participating in the local food web. Rethink pulling up all those dandelions. Try letting an area of your space be a “weed” patch. Dandelion and thistle seed are important food for small birds like goldfinches.

The word “paradise” comes from the idea of an enclosed garden. But a true paradise isn’t brightly colored flowers and grass in a sterile environment, living plants and animals interacting with each other, a reflection of the natural world, that is a true paradise.

Backyard Biodiversity Project - Steps and Spiders

Zone 1 is a narrow strip of cement steps and a raised planter dominated by Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata ‘veitchi’). Amazingly, the piles of debris that collect in the corner of the steps are alive with creatures, while the Boston ivy is a wasteland.

This exotic plant does not seem to provide food or shelter for native creatures. Most of the spiders live above the ivy or along the walkway.

I’ve noticed this before and that is why I have planted hybrids of native Heuchera or coral bells in this planter. The plants are taking hold but have yet to attract a community of native creatures.

Zone 1 is a transition zone–too close to the house to be truly inhabited by wild creatures. Anything bigger than a dime, just travels through.

Cobweb spiders (Pholcus phalangiodes) are the only exception, they thrive beneath the rafters. These are not daddy longlegs, they are long legged spiders–the spiders you see up in the corner of your living room. They are not a native species, they are a European import. They probably arrived with the first English colonists at Jamestown. Cobweb spiders are just as tied to human structures as we are. They like the environment people create and need the protection of human habitation to survive here.

Seven cobweb spiders in this small area. Hard to believe? No.

Just wait until I compile the list of all the creatures I recorded in this Zone. It was truly the Realm of Spiders.