You have space in your garden and are pondering what to plant. Something attractive, for sure—greenery and flowers, some edibles, perhaps? Maybe a forb or bush that serves wildlife and attracts butterflies and other pollinators. Space is at a premium—what should you plant?
Plants with Purpose.
These days, plants, like the rest of us, must earn their keep. For centuries, Western cultures have prioritized beauty in the garden. Any nursery manager will tell you that shoppers seek “color, color, color.” The unfortunate reality is that plant choices are largely determined by looks.
But beauty alone is no longer reason enough to choose a plant that will occupy valuable real estate in your garden or yard. The ecosystem deserves more, and the plants we choose matter. And we owe functional plants—plants that do more than look good—to the ecosystem.
As Doug Tallamy writes in his best-selling book Nature’s Best Hope, gardening is a lot like cooking. Imagine if you cooked only for taste—what if your menu choices were driven only by tasty foods loaded with fat, sugar, and salt, with no regard for health? Such a single-minded focus would prove deadly in the long run. The same is true for your garden. It’s tempting to garden for beauty alone, with no regard for ecological consequences. But such a limited focus can result in a landscape so low in ecological function that it literally drains life from the ecosystem.
Instead, and to carry the cooking metaphor further, consider choosing plants for your landscape as if you were assembling a guest list for a dinner party. Would you choose to spend hours planning, shopping for, and preparing a meal, and cleaning up for a group of guests just because they are beautiful? Or would you prefer to assemble and spend time with a diverse group of individuals who are attractive and interesting folks—people who offer some type of service to the community at large, a special skill set or expertise, or interesting stories?
When you invite a plant to take up residence in your garden, which is what you do when you make a selection from the local nursery, transplant a volunteer from the wild, or start seeds at home, keep in mind you’ll be feeding, maintaining, and engaging with this plant for months, possibly years. You’ll be investing time tending and harvesting, and using resources like time, water, and perhaps slow-release fertilizer. You’ll be living with these plants. Given your commitment—not an unsubstantial investment even with low-maintenance plants like the ones described in my book—shouldn’t the plant provide something in return besides beauty?
Such is the thinking behind Plants with Purpose. Beauty is a given. Each species introduced and profiled flaunts its own brand of attractiveness, some more than others. But these plants also serve us and our overextended ecosystem in multiple ways. Each supplies food, utility for those of us who tend it, fuel for wildlife pollinators that make one of every three bites of our food possible, food and shelter for wildlife, or a special landscaping virtue, such as protection (think thorns or ground cover). Recommended plants are also easy to care for, and low maintenance.
Equally important, every plant has a story—some more interesting than others. If you know that the white waxy substance on a prickly pear cactus is the source of a magenta dye used to paint the colonial missions of San Antonio, that Jimson weed played a role in the American Revolution, or that flowering red yucca is actually a type of asparagus, you know fun facts worth sharing. Such awareness makes you and your garden more interesting.
Plant with Purpose: Jimson weed has a great history, is a pollinator plant, host to sphinx moth, blooms at night.
Learning the names and backgrounds of the garden guests with whom we share our landscapes also underscores our tendency to appreciate and protect what we know and understand. Knowing the plant’s name is the first step toward that.
So, when choosing plants to invite to your dinner party, ask
Can you eat it? Make tea from it? Does it serve wildlife? Does it taste good or provide a health benefit? Is it low maintenance? Does it have a fun story to tell? Does it provide a unique landscape service? Oh, and is it attractive?
These are the questions posed of each plant upon assembling Plants with Purpose: Twenty-five Ecosystem Multitaskers. To qualify, the plant had to answer YES to at least three qualities besides attractiveness.
I invite you to the garden dinner party, and encourage you to buy the book! Loaded with 145 color photos, 24 illustrations by San Antonio artist Hilary Rochow, and one map, it’s available for preorder wherever books are sold. Or, check out my author page for links and more info. You’ll come away with foraging tips, amazing histories, recipes, gardening advice, and the realization that every plant has a story, you just have to dig.
Join us for my book launch at Nowhere Bookshop in San Antonio
Tuesday, May 20, 2025, 6 PM.
Hope to see you there! Details here.
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