I can hardly stand to pass a plant I don’t recognize without stopping to identify it. It wasn’t always like this.
I used to have a running argument with a friend who claimed you couldn’t really appreciate the out-of-doors if you didn’t know what was there.
I protested that I did so appreciate nature, even if I couldn’t name what was there. It was all an undifferentiated wall of green to me. But I liked it.
Over the decades, I learned more about animals and insects and even a little about birds.
But plants? Meh. I could barely name more than four species of trees. And anything shorter than a tree was just a nameless shrub or weed.
Then, a few years ago, I bought a house that backed up to almost a square mile of woods with about one acre of woods on my property. I had plenty of time during the pandemic to notice a particular plant that was spreading into the woods and crowding out the few things I could name, like trillium and yellow trout lily.
I got an app and identified the plant as mugwort. Not native! Invasive! And so began my journey to knowing plants and planting natives while slowly eradicating the ones that belong in Florida or Europe or Asia — not bad plants, just ones that don’t play well with others here in Michigan.
Now I can identify lots of plants, including almost 50 species of natives that I’ve planted.
So I’ve come to agree with my old friend. Mostly. I think you can enjoy the out-of-doors without knowing or understanding what’s there. But you can’t protect it unless you understand what’s behind that green wall.
That’s a deeper stage of love and appreciation.
