Fire and Rain, Part II

There was no shortage of native vegetation around there, including a Lantana variety that was a true bush; not the small plant that I see gracing the yards around Dallas and a bewildering variety of heliconias and bromeliads and orchids. After awhile, the mind refused to catalog the wealth any further, simply noting "red" and "orange" and "violet" and "butterfly".

I found myself rethinking the issues of "planting native", issues that my mentor drilled into my head. Biodiversity is good -- but look how many plants had spread and naturalized throughout the world. I looked around at the beautiful scenery.

The lodge was aesthetically pleasing and furthermore, the local animals and birds didn't seem to suffer from the non-native plant life -- if anything, there seemed to be plenty of food. We saw more varied animal and insect life at Arenal than we did in other places in the country. The strategy was not bad for the animals, and in some ways it wasn't bad for the plants, either. By deliberately enforcing biodiversity and introducing other species, this reduced the ability of some plant pests to live high on the hog on the native vegetation.

As I walked back to our room, I found I wasn't totally convinced of the wisdom of "plant native and adaptable species" in wildscaping. I fished my stack of "to be read" printouts from my briefcase on the bed and curled up for a good read. Tomorrow we would be going on a Rainforest tour. I wondered if my experiences there would swing my opinions back to the "Pure Native Plants" ideal.

My husband's trip report on our adventures in Costa Rica!

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