Protect the soil by avoiding chemicals and adding the right plants
Florida privet is an excellent plant for those who want to grow a tall hedge. It’s also good for the environment.
February 15, 2025
Members of the Nature Conservancy spoke at the Four Arts last week abut the Enduring Earth Project, an exciting initiative that aims to protect and conserve 600 million hectares (1.5 billion acres) of land worldwide by 2030. This is an area larger than India.
Our current decade is our last and greatest opportunity to turn the tide on biodiversity loss and the recovery of our lands and oceans. We are at a tipping point from which there will soon be no possible recovery. This is a radical collaboration, working with governments, indigenous peoples and local communities to foster unprecedented innovation in sustainable development and conservation for our lands, oceans, fresh water, and air.
People in Palm Beach can do their part by refraining from using pesticides, and by adding plants to the landscape that are good for the environment.
The film "Fatal Watch," which aired at the Four Arts, showed in graphic detail the devastating effects of the mismanaged, irresponsible, and illegal overfishing of our oceans. This cannot continue if we are to maintain the sustainability of our fishing industry. But more important is maintaining the health of our oceans, which cover 74% of our planet. Saving them is tantamount to the survival of our species.
And then there’s our “conventional” agriculture: We spray 1.2 billion pounds of toxic pesticides on more than 460 million acres of farmland each year. In addition to their adverse environmental externalities, these chemicals have proven harmful health consequences for farmers, agricultural communities, and for all of us as consumers.
We live in a world where cancers and neuro-related disease (Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, autism, non-Hodgkins lymphoma) are becoming more the norm than the rarity. Many of the most damaging of these chemicals, such as atrazine, chlorpyriphos, glyphosate, and imidacloprid, have been banned in the European Union, China, and Canada for decades. We still use millions of pounds of them here.
Then we add millions of pounds of antibiotics to chicken and cattle feed because we raise these creatures in concentrated agricultural feeding operations — CAFOs for short — where they are subject to an infinite number of biological diseases because of their unhealthy living conditions. Bird flu has just resurfaced in New York and California and is just another example of the consequences of our negligence, irresponsibility and disregard for the environment through our continued misuse of toxic chemicals and antibiotics.
Here in Palm Beach, we have so many opportunities to “do the right thing,” but too many of us simply ignore the facts and look the other way. I have spoken to many friends and neighbors who still don’t understand the damage done by applying pesticides (neonicotinoids and organophosphates) and herbicides (glyphosate) to their hedges and lawns. They all love birds and wonder why we have so few here on the island. Well, our bird population directly correlates to the pesticides we apply to our properties. Without insects, birds have no food for their young and cannot support a nest.
Additionally, the manicured mindset of the average Palm Beacher requires there to be no undergrowth or “unsuitable” plant material in their landscapes. Removing undergrowth and creating monocultures with just a few species of plants destroys the habitat required by birds and pollinators. We need gardens with numerous diverse species of native plant material to support the native insects that have evolved with them over millennia.
Remember also that soil health is tantamount to the health of your landscape. Every square inch of healthy soil contains billions of microorganisms that contribute to the health of plants in ways we are just beginning to appreciate. Adding chemicals to your lawns depletes the microbiome in the soil, making it impossible for your lawn and plantings to be healthy. So your “landscaper” prescribes more fertilizer and nutrients, which further deplete the essential soil bacteria — and you create a catch-22 situation. Your lawns will be far healthier if you stop using chemicals and allow the soil to regenerate with applications of organic compost and by adding native plant material.
Residents who want to replace ficus hedges with a plant that is better for the environment can use Jamaica caper for shorter hedges in shady areas.
And for those of you who have decided to remove your ficus hedges, hurray! But please reconsider replacing them with clusia. The town’s motto of “ABC” — Anything But Clusia — is an important one. We are in the process of creating the same monoculture of clusia that we created with Ficus benjamina, which is now prohibited on the island because of its propensity for whitefly.
If you want a tall single-species hedge, try green or silver buttonwood, Simpson's stopper, cinnamon bark, Florida privet, Florida boxwood, bay rum, or cocoplum. For shorter hedges in shady areas, wild coffee is one of the best, as well as Jamaica caper, marlberry, myrsine and white indigo berry. For sunny spots along along a wall, Bahama senna is a winner with a constant display of bright yellow flowers. Mix this up with pink Panama rose, blue plumbago and white snowberry (Chiococca alba) and you’ll have wonderful color and a continual pageant of birds and butterflies.
Best of all is creating a mixed hedge using a variety of native plant material for wonderful and interesting variation in color, texture, height and fragrance. Pigeon plum, dahoon holly, thatch palm, sable palm, live oak, Simpson's stopper, satin leaf, fiddlewood, gumbo limbo, marlberry, myrsine, torchwood, seven-year apple, wild lime, Bahama strongbark, and wooly teabush (Melochia tomentosa) will provide you with endless hours of bird song and butterflies. None of these require pesticides of any kind, so equally exciting is that you won’t be endangering the health of your children, grandchildren and pets with toxic chemicals that deplete soil health, kill essential pollinators, and pollute our waterways and aquifers.
Closer to home is a critical initiative for our Everglades. The Everglades, once a continual River of Grass linking clean freshwater from Orlando to Florida Bay, has been severed by industrial sugar cane fields and development. Mismanagement of water in the Everglades Agricultural Area, benefiting a few ultra-wealthy sugar corporations, has caused immense economic and environmental damage. The lack of adequate water storage and treatment south of Lake Okeechobee, required by the sugar industry, has resulted in polluted water being discharged east and west, fueling toxic algae blooms in the northern estuaries. These discharges devastate local ecosystems, endanger public health and threaten local economies, while Everglades National Park and Florida Bay are deprived of adequate clean fresh water.
Toxins from blue-green algal blooms, including red tide, not only contaminate our drinking water but are linked to respiratory, neurological and gastrointestinal illnesses, as well as neurodegenerative disease in humans. Children and pets face life-threatening risks from drinking toxic water, while fish and aquatic life including dolphins, manatees, and sea turtles, are killed by toxic exposure and habitat loss. This pollution of our waterways reduces biodiversity, destroys habitat, and threatens the stability of the Everglades, diminishing the ecosystem’s ability to provide flood protection, wildlife habitat and clean water for millions of Floridians.
Everglades restoration will generate more than $130 billion in revenue to water-related industries, employing 120,000 people in southwest Florida. Sugar cane farming, by comparison, brings in only $800 million, which is largely subsidized by government funds and goes only to the sugar corporations.
Land acquisition is the key to solving this problem and we have the opportunity right now to secure at least 100,000 acres for water storage and treatment in the Everglades Agricultural Area. This would prevent harmful discharges, restore clean-water flow to the southern Everglades and Florida Bay, and protect South Florida’s drinking water.
The money is available via Amendment 1 funds. Without immediate action, we risk losing momentum and the Everglades itself. Please urge the state of Florida to prioritize land acquisition in the EAA and secure the necessary funding for water storage to protect Florida’s economy, environment, and public health. For more information, visit "Rescue the River of Grass" at friends@everglades.org to sign the state’s petition on this urgent matter.
Its’s important to remember that we should no longer just plant for the sake of aesthetics — we need to plant species that will give back to the environment, by providing food and habitat for pollinators, birds and wildlife. We are at a tipping point and each one of us can make a critical difference to the health and sustainability of our environment.
-Kim Frisbie
Original article on the Palm Beach Daily News is HERE.