#34 Natives and Aliens

I have finally learned the history of the public flower beds I’ve been tending these last few years at the trolley portal in West Philadelpia. They commemorate our country’s preeminent early botanist, John Bartram, and the plants he recorded finding here. They are all native Americans.

I hadn’t felt free to bring new flowers to these beds, but now I am empowered to fill in the empty spaces. Considering the plants that have multiplied at our community garden and could easily be transplanted, I pick up a little wildflower book to check which are native. No day lilies or chrysanthemums here. No daffodils or tulips. No roses or clematis or peonies. No lilies of the valley. Intrigued, I find a larger book that conscientiously notes each non-native as an alien. Bachelors buttons and cosmos both turn out to be alien. I go for something more obviously all-American and try daisies. Yet they too are listed as aliens. Seriously disconcerted, I check out the most ordinary plants I can think of, ones that no gardener would ever consider. Clover: alien. Dandelions: alien.

Somehow I have to stop and wrestle with this concept of “alien”. It is a hard word, vibrating with unwelcome, with not belonging. Yet these are plants that are deeply familiar. Many were brought here as beloved companions, carefully tended in hopes that they might flourish in foreign soil, along with those who loved them. They are really immigrants, and became un-hyphenated Americans long ago.

Then there are the ones that really are not welcome—like the kudzu vine—the alien invasives. Now there’s an even harsher label. Yet we have native invasives as well. The gardener is always choosing which spreading plants to encourage, which to contain, which to try to eradicate completely. And different gardeners make different choices—a weed, after all, is simply a plant this is not wanted in that particular place and time. Most gardeners have no idea of the country of origin of the plants they love and those they could happily do without.

So, if the concept of alien is bogus, what about the idea of native? Does long lineage in this country make a plant better? As I explore the plant/human metaphor, the big difference that stands out is that we were never in such competition with our native flowers that we felt compelled to push them out entirely. Most flower beds might be filled with immigrants from other lands, but the natives are still around.

Perhaps that’s the reason for these public beds I’ve been working in—to remind us of the vitality of the native Americans who were here so long before us. The beds are beautiful—with violets and black-eyed susans, asters and goldenrod, and many others whose names I have not yet learned. I have loved flowers indiscriminately—not knowing their country of origin—and I would wish that for everyone. But it has been a pleasure to learn about the natives and give them a place to shine.

Pamela Haines
6/05