The Joyful Botanist: Home For the Holidays
The grand stately manor of plant homes are trees, like this future home created by pileated woodpeckers to then be used by all manner of other critters.
Adam Bigelow photo
The word home evokes images that go deeper than its definition “the place where one lives.”
Home means more than a house or domicile. It speaks of a place you live, and also a place that lives within you. It can mean where you come from, a place you aspire to go or return to, and it can mean emotional connection to a living space, or land that you are connected to emotionally.
Home is much more than a physical space. One can have a home even if they don’t have a house or apartment. Home is where the heart is.
Plants’ connections to home live in all of its multitude of meanings. From the wood used for building a house to the furniture we use within it, and even the cotton sheets on our beds, plants make up a home. We use living plants around our homes to provide shade, look beautiful and feed us from our gardens and the surrounding forest.
It could be said that a plant’s home could be the soil, a living, breathing and, I believe, sentient being that is more than a matrix or medium for holding plants up. A plant’s home could also be the ecological niche a plant species or community of plants live in. From dry, rocky outcroppings or a damp and frequently waterlogged bog to the deep shade of an evergreen forest or the full sun of a meadow, different plant species are at home in different locations and conditions.
Plants also can serve as homes themselves, giving shelter to all of the critters large and small that can live in and on them. One of the main reasons I recommend people leave the dead and dry stalks of last summer’s wildflowers standing all winter long is that these hollow stickweeds are often used by native bees and other insects as a winter home for themselves or the next generation.
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The leaf litter on the forest floor is also home for many animals, including overwintering cocoons of certain moths. Spiders, frogs, fireflies, salamanders, chipmunks, turtles and many other animals use the fallen leaves of plants as their homes during the dormant season. This is why we recommend leaving the leaves where they’ve fallen, instead of raking and blowing them off the land. Plus, leaf blowers are loud and can produce carbon emissions.
The grand stately manor of plant homes are definitely trees, both living and dead, fallen or standing. Trees provide homes while they are living for squirrels and bats, owls and songbirds nesting in their boughs or within their heartwood. Home is where the heartwood is.
Mosses and lichens make a home on the outside of a tree, while fungi can reside within, often bursting through the bark with a flush of mushrooms ripe for the picking. Lion’s mane (Hericium spp.), oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), chicken-of-the-woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) and hen-of-the-woods (Grifola frondosa) are all found growing out of living trees.
A dead tree is alive with tenants and squatters living on and inside it. Think of it as an apartment complex with diverse residents. As busy as the comings and goings of any big city tenement, a fallen and rotting log or standing dead snag serve as food and shelter for hundreds of forest beings over many years.
I hope your home, no matter how you define it, is safe and warm, filled with comfort, good food and good smells. On your walks in the woods this winter, I invite you to look for the homes of your non-human neighbors in the weeds, shrubs and trees all snuggled in for the winter.
(The Joyful Botanist leads weekly wildflower walks most Fridays and offers consultations and private group tours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
