I’ve discussed the importance of native plants for the survival of our pollinators and birds, but I haven’t really explained why invasives are so damaging to our environment.

We lost David Crosby recently, and in a fitting radio tribute, I heard his iconic tenor in ‘'Woodstock'’ while I was driving.

Listening to Joni Mitchell’s lyrics, the wonderful refrain — “We are stardust, we are golden / We are billion-year-old carbon / And we’ve got to get ourselves / Back to the garden” — struck me as perhaps more pertinent today than it was in the 1960s. We had it right back then. We do need to get ourselves back to the garden, and there’s no better opportunity than here in South Florida.

With so much construction going on throughout South Florida and Palm Beach, new hedges are inevitably being planted everywhere. Ficus (Ficus benjamina) has been banned due to the whitefly infestation and landscapers are now recommending clusia as a replacement. This is absolutely the wrong choice.

When I count my blessings at the close of the year, family and health always top the list, along with coffee, but I am also grateful to have a garden.

The new pollinator/butterfly garden at the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens opened last Sunday to great fanfare, and the butterflies, as if on cue, were all in attendance.

A few years ago, several homeowners on the North End put together a Healthy Yard Pledge, promising to reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides on their properties while urging their neighbors to do the same. It was an idea whose time was ripe, and many of us were encouraged by the popularity with which the pledge was received.

Adding native plants to our gardens has never been of more vital importance.

Butterflies, birds and wildlife are disappearing because the native plants on which they depend are rarely planted. Native plants have evolved over eons alongside their native wildlife counterparts, and as such are critical to the survival of our natural ecosytsems.

Palm Beach dodged a bullet with Hurricane Ian last week, but still saw some damage.

After perusing several gardens around the island, numerous plants stood out for surviving Ian’s winds and torrential rains here with flying colors. Here are some exceptionally hardy species that will help hurricane-proof your gardens, assuming we don’t get a 10-foot storm surge.

While I’ll always miss the daffodils, tulips and peonies that are harbingers of spring in the Northeast, I am constantly delighted by the explosion of color in my native Florida garden.

I would like to respond to the letter submitted by the landscapers in last Sunday’s paper ['Town's new native-plant rules are too onerous, need revision,' May 8 Palm Beach Daily News]. First of all, if we look at the big picture, I think we all want the same things: clean air, clean water and clean soil in which to grow healthy food.

The town of Palm Beach along with the Preservation Foundation, Palm Beach Day Academy and Palm Beach Public school students, the Palm Beach Civic Association, the Mounts Botanical Garden, and the Garden Club did an amazing job recently celebrating Earth Day.

In E.O. Wilson’s book “Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life,” this Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist — who died in December — reminds us that we are running critically low on clean water, fresh air, ocean bounty, rain forests, and the species of flora and fauna essential to maintaining life on earth.

Spring blossoms and their accompanying pollinators are out and about, and to my mind, there is nothing more delightful than a vibrant garden alive with birdsong and butterflies.

When choosing a hedge — perhaps to replace your ficus — it’s important to first consider its location.

I question the complaint in last Sunday’s paper that native plants don’t offer enough variety for new landscapes, are hard to locate or don’t allow people the freedom to express themselves through their gardens.

The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act regulates the registration and use of pesticides in the United States.

Last November, legislation was introduced to reform the core of this act. This bill, The Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act of 2021 bans the most damaging and toxic pesticides scientifically known to cause significant harm to people and the environment.

When we moved into our home in the fall of 2020, there was a 50-foot-by-60-foot lot next to our loggia that had been the staging area for all the construction work at Via Flagler. Formerly home to massive cranes, trucks, Dumpsters and 16 Port-O-Potties, this scorched earth plot that didn’t look too hopeful for a garden site. But we started planting it last November and a year later, it has grown into a wonderful oasis full of pollinators, birds, butterflies and, recently, a few ruby-throated hummingbirds.

I was delighted the other day to pass a bright sign outside a garden along the ocean proclaiming, “Native Plants bring Life to this Landscape.” The sign was outlined with pictures of cardinals, butterflies, coral honeysuckle, dune sunflower, gaillardia, and other native flowers, with the logo FANN, the Florida Association of Native Nurseries at the bottom. Peeking over the gate, I saw a mass of colorful natives thriving happily along the dunes. People are paying attention.

Last weekend, I took my daughter and her two boys to Mounts Botanical Garden to see their wonderful butterfly garden. We were not disappointed.

There were deep blue atalas, reddish orange gulf fritillaries, marvelous black-and-white striped zebra heliconians, lovely white cassius blues, white dotted orange queens, yellow cloudless sulphurs, a variety of hairstreaks and skippers, and of course, lots of beautiful monarchs. Not only were there tons of butterflies, so many flowers were in bloom that the butterflies were continually landing right in front of us to sip nectar, giving us lots of photo ops and eliciting endless squeals of excitement from the boys.

While fall symbolizes the end of the growing season in most of the country, it is just the opposite here in South Florida.

My garden is a mass of colorful bloom right now: red salvia, yellow coreopsis and cassia, purple beautyberry, white plumbago, pink lantana, blue ageratum, orange/red firebush and coral honeysuckle are just a few of the natives showing off their finery.