For a great blog post on just how important native plants are for supporting biodiversity, read the post here at Wildlife Garden.
One of the many ways to learn about native plants is to 'look up'. This week I spent several hours walking in the moat of the old Spanish Fort in St. Augustine. In my opinion the National Park Service has it backwards - they charge for going inside the fort but allow you to walk for free in the moat and around the grounds. The moat is where you can see many, many native and other plants species growing in the coquina walls!
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| Castillo de San Marco, St. Augustine |
As you can see in the above photo, most plants grow underneath the downspouts on the walls. Though the downspouts provide water primarily when it rains, they also collect dew and fog from surrounding areas and funnel the water to the plants.
Interestingly, learning about green roof and living walls plants from the fort offers insight into those plants that not only do well under the hot Florida sun and with no additional irrigation, but also the plants shed light on soil media composition.
Coquina shell and the limestome mortar have a quite high pH level. High pH is usually one of the toughest issues to work with on green roofs and living walls.
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| Samolus valerandi |
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| Pteris vittata & 2 Cuban anoles |
In otherwords, planting native plants on green roofs and living walls encourages and supports native populations of insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and other wildlife.
Many popular landscape plants used on green roofs may not offer the same level of resource benefit.
Learning about your local native plants broadens design capabilities for both green roofs and living walls.
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| Limestone & Coquina Walls are Harsh Ecosystems |
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