To help us understand all the benefits we gain when we plant our gardens with native plant species, we can start by taking a broader view of ourselves and all the other creatures that live with us on our planet. We share a finite amount of space in a living system that is self-perpetuating as long as the different species in that system exist within certain parameters. This is the "food web" we all learned about in elementary school. At the center of those webs we always have the plants, and, if we take them away, the system collapses. Continue reading →