Many native plants are victimized by the “weeds” mindset, at the expense of the animals who depend on them.

Much gardening advice—even from animal-friendly corners—revolves around strategies for tricking mammals out of a meal in some way: planting “deer-resistant” plants, coating leaves of coveted species with unpalatable powders, or adding impenetrable fencing around the whole garden. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with trying these methods, they’re often implemented in a vacuum, without accounting for the barren spaces that exist just outside the typical vegetable or flower patch in American suburbia. How refreshing would it be if we gardeners spent as much time focused on what species to plant for animals as we do on how to subvert these hungry creatures in our midst?

Resistance to deer, rabbits, and other wild visitors is often futile anyway, as mammals diversify their menus based on availability. It’s easier and more rewarding to reject the dominant paradigm of herbicide-laden turfgrass in favor of creating or preserving natural areas for wildlife grazing. This strategy of sharing the land has certainly been effective on my property: Throughout the seasons, my husband and I watch rabbits and deer foraging much less often on the species we planted than on the grasses, perennials, and groves of tree saplings seeded by wind and birds all over the former lawn and at the woods’ edge.

The reason for our success comes down to simple arithmetic: When there’s enough to go around, we can all enjoy nature’s gifts. When we vastly deplete our natural resources, converting more than 40 million acres of the national landscape to turfgrass and paving over much of the rest, we leave little left for wild animals to eat, hide, nest and rest in.

For the ecologically minded gardener with an interest in taking a pass on grass, it can still be difficult to find relevant and appropriate information about some of our most common plants. Many state agencies, universities, mainstream gardening organizations, and pesticide companies are  narrowly focused on maintaining monocultures of agricultural crops, golf courses, and the bland suburban lawn. Any species that get in the way are treated like pimples on the face of a 15-year-old, zapped with chemicals or popped out of the smooth green mirage.

Humane Gardener’s ongoing #WeedsNotWeeds series highlights some of the species victimized by this mind-set, at the expense of the animals who depend on them. Some of the plants featured are easily found at native plant nurseries; others are more likely to sprout on our properties and inspire the inevitable question: “Is this a weed?” Here’s a more life-affirming inquiry when puzzling over plant IDs: “Is this a native plant that can help other species?” More often than we’d think, the answer is yes. In the second installment of #WeedsNotWeeds, I’m highlighting a tree, a vine, a grass, and two flowering herbaceous species that satiate and shelter our wild friends.

Nimblewill/Nimbleweed (Muhlenbergia schreberi)

For years I pulled this plant, assuming it was Japanese stiltgrass or some other invasive species. My attitude was not helped by the general opinion among gardeners and farmers that this grass native to much of the U.S. and Ontario is “pesky,” “troublesome,” “a pest in lawns,” and “very aggressive in areas where it’s not wanted.”

That last description, found on the site of a Wisconsin lawn care company, begs the question: Is nimblewill “tame” in areas where it is wanted? The answer seems counterintuitive, even ridiculous: Yes, where nimblewill is seen as desirable, as in my yard now, it’s not aggressive at all. It’s simply part of a larger community of native plants, some more reserved and others with equally vigorous tendencies. And far from damaging wildlife habitat in the manner of Japanese stiltgrass, nimblewill actually creates it, providing food for grazing deer, insects, and birds.

Horticulturally, there is also much to recommend this plant. Because it’s content in moist, shady or partly sunny sites, it can even be used to stave off stilt grass. Ironically, one site that suggests numerous methods of killing nimblewill also features a photo illustrating its major botanical asset: It stays green during summer droughts when everything around it shrivels to brown.

Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina)

“You’ll probably want to chop those down,” our kind neighbor said of the tall sumacs spreading near a row of pine trees he’d planted along our shared property line. “They’re poisonous. I’ll come over with my chainsaw and help.” Not knowing any better when we first bought our house, and wanting to be good neighbors in return, we obliged.

Something didn’t sit right with me, though, and a few years later I learned that those tall trees hadn’t been poisonous at all. They just had the misfortune of sharing a common name (and family relations) with a plant in a different genus: poison sumac, or Toxicodendron vernix. It would have been far more neighborly of us, at least for the wildlife species in our community, to leave that stand alone and let it colonize the empty corner of our backyard. The fruits of staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) feed about 300 songbird species and serve as an emergency food source in the winter. Animals also take cover in the beautiful canopies, squirrels and rabbits like the bark, and deer graze on the fruits and stems.

For people, this tree provides sustenance and beauty, its berries flavoring drinks and its graceful, palm-like leaves dramatically setting off the large red fruit clusters. It doesn’t need any coddling; the bareroot plants I ordered online grew tall and fast, spreading into an overlapping canopy visited by seemingly all the birds in the neighborhood. Planted at the woods’ edge, two of the trees leaned too far toward the sun and fell last summer, but the downed wood was quickly visited by nest-builders and woodpeckers foraging for snacks. With the help of our bird friends spreading the berries, we now have two more staghorn sumac groves sprouting behind our patio and in our front yard, their fuzzy thin trunks a welcome sight this spring.

Fleabanes (Erigeron philadelphicus and Erigeron annuus)

A biennial native to most of the U.S. and Canada, the flowers of Philadelphia fleabane resemble those of an English daisy variety I grew from seed when I first began gardening on this property 16 years ago. Not surprisingly, English daisies are considered invasive not just in parts of the U.S. but also in the lawns of their homeland (sound familiar?).

Fleabane, of course, has long been similarly outcast  in its native territory, including in my own yard at one time. Only after I grasped the irony of removing a native that wanted desperately to grow for the sake of planting a nonnative of questionable value, I stopped propagating English daisies and started letting the fleabanes show their pretty little heads to the world. The bees and other tiny pollinators now join the party, finding nourishment in the early-blooming flowers when little else has awakened yet.

Daisy fleabane, or Erigeron annuus, is a similar species that’s also widespread in the U.S. and Canada; Erigeron pulchellus, or robin’s plantain, is another in our yard. All three feed grazing deer, rabbits, and other mammals. In my friend Steven Yenzer’s yard, fleabane is even tastier than the nearby corn to this little fellow:

Virginia Copperleaf/Three-Seeded Mercury and Rhomboid Mercury (Acalypha virginica and Acalypha rhomboidea)

When a colleague asked me to identify this plant growing in his garden several years ago, it took me longer than it should have to find the answer. Three-seeded mercury is one of many native species that seems to straddle a kind of no-man’s land on the Internet, with information about animal dependencies available only on wildflower and naturalist sites. Though mourning doves, sparrows, greater prairie chickens, and other birds are said to eat the seeds of these Acalypha species, that relationship appears to mean little to lawn service companies, one of which warns homeowners that “proper lawn mowing and watering habits” are not enough to eradicate Virginia copperleaf—and that those methods are merely ” a supplement to professionally applied herbicides.”

That advice is unnecessary, to say the least, as this annual is easily pulled. And why yank it? Turning a rusty orange late in the season, the plants add fall color in the ground layers. They also feed deer, so when they showed up beneath my winterberry hollies where birds feast in cold weather, I let them spread.

Native to the Eastern U.S. and Canada, Acalypha rhomboidea and Acalypha virginica can be hard to tell apart, but the latter has hairier stems, narrower leaves, and more lobes on the bracts that surround the inflorescence at the base of the petioles.

Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

If I could choose only a few plants for my property, Virginia creeper would make the cut. That’s partly because the vine tops another animal-friendly list—the top five highly recommended plants for birds migrating along the Eastern corridor.

Producing blue berries rich in nutrients and antioxidants needed for long avian journeys, Virginia creeper provides habitat for many permanent residents, too. Its leaves and stems feed deer, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, and sphinx moth caterpillars, while its thick growth welcomes small animals to take cover and nest.

Often confused with poison ivy, the deciduous vine is easy to distinguish by its five leaves. (See these great tips for identification help.) It adds lush beauty to fences, walls and tree snags; as a groundcover, it controls erosion on shady slopes and fills in barren spaces—even, as I saw on a road trip this summer, in median strips of highways cutting through our nation’s largest cities. If there were a botanical version of Survivor, this plant would surely make the final round.

What are your favorite #WeedsNotWeeds? While many of the plants featured in this series are native to a broad swath of the continent, others are exclusive to the Eastern region. I’d love to hear from folks outside this area about their experiences with maligned native plants that sustain our wild friends!

Photos by Nancy Lawson; video by Steven Yenzer