Why plant natives? Environmentalists weigh in
A pollinator garden blooms near Beale Street Landing. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)
Doug Tallamy is an entomologist at the University of Delaware who cofounded Homegrown National Park, an organization whose goal is to inspire people to plant native species in their yards.
His message is that everyone is responsible for conservation on their little piece of Earth.
If everyone in the U.S. cut the area of their lawns in half, Tallamy said, it would mean 20 million acres that could be restored with native plants, an area bigger than all the country’s major national parks combined.
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Nick Lingerfelt
Nick Lingerfelt has written for Focus Mid-South Magazine, StyleBlueprint, Salon and At Home Memphis & Mid South. When he was a student at the University of Memphis, he was editor-in-chief of The Daily Helmsman, the school’s student newspaper.
Also while a student at the U of M, he received the Otis Sanford Outstanding Journalism Student award and the 2nd Place Marc Perrusquia Investigative Journalism Award for a story about the demographic makeup of the school’s sports teams.
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