Nature of cities

I recently visited Incheon where I was struck by the Korean government’s efforts to create a very dense and green city (featured image).

Trees in cities hold great potential for their cooling properties and carbon sequestration, for ground stabilization and water absorption, biodiversity and biophilia, food and fuel, etc. This article on urban tree-planting is part of a collection of opinion pieces on “empowering cities to plan for a positive natural future” recently published The Nature of Cities.

In this article I wrote, Plant indigenous trees! Everywhere, always, more! – Retrospectively, I would like to add “…but without thereby altering existing healthy ecosystems.” Planting trees in existing savanna or wetlands for example, does not benefit nature.

The beautiful Common Striped Hawk moth (Hippotion eson) eats our local arum lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica), but refused a range of common, exotic garden plants of the same family (Araceae – below).

So what?

Well, this was a little experiment in my own garden, that illustrates (1) what fussy eaters plant-eating insects are, (2) why exotic (non-native) garden plants always look so perfect (they don’t get eaten), (3) therefore, why they hardly contribute to the food chain, and (4) why, if you truly love nature, you should plant indigenous plants.