Editorial // Sept 2026

Ecological Field Notes • Transatlantic Perspectives

Georgia Parkinson-Hill

Nigel Dunnett's Steppe Meadow after prolongued drought, Barbican Centre, London, September 2026.

It's Wake Up Time Y'all

The native plant movement has spent decades asking what belongs here? Climate change is forcing us to ask a harder question: what will still be able to live here?

We don't need to look to California—or even to the UK—to see the warning signs. Look at Lake Lanier right now. As of September 9, 2026, the lake sits at approximately 1,065.2 feet, nearly six feet below its 1,071-foot full pool.

Despite lots of rainfall in June and July, Georgia remains under a statewide Level 1 Drought Response, first declared in April and maintained in August.

That is the part we need to pay attention to. A few weeks of rain do not necessarily fix a long-term water deficit. By spring, Georgia's drought indicators were already showing widespread stress: 29 of 34 monitored stream gauges were below their 20th percentile, while 15 of 16 monitored groundwater wells were below their 10th percentile. Lake Lanier was in drought-management Zone 3.

Those of you who are nature lovers and gardeners are already seeing the consequences of the altered weather, just like us. So many plants blooming really early, really late, or not at all. And we've seen huge reductions in visits from birds, butterflies, and bees this year. 

It's time to wake up.

This is where the UK becomes useful because like us, it's a tradionally wet region, being forced to rethink what a garden should be, when it may already be too late. British horticulture was already increasingly embracing drought-adapted planting, prairies and meadows, gravel gardening, water conservation and plants from hotter climates. Despite this, the majority of the country's green spaces turned brown this year, devastated by drought. And yes, it can absolutely happen here.

Nigel Dunnett's Steppe Meadow in bloom, Barbican Centre, London, September 2025.

Lesson 1: Right Plant, Right Place

Beth Chatto understood this decades ago. Her famous gravel garden in are area of the UK that has historically low rainfall. The garden was created on poor, extremely free-draining ground and has never been routinely irrigated. Rather than continually watering unsuitable plants, Chatto selected plants adapted to the conditions she actually had.

Right plant, right place needs to become the foundation of climate-ready gardening in the Southeast. Our job shouldn't be to keep unsuitable landscapes alive with drinking water. It should be to design landscapes capable of living with the water naturally available to them.

Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden, August 2026. A little drier than usual, but not browned to a crisp like everywhere else in the UK.

Lesson 2: We Need to Rethink "Local Native Only"

This is the conversation the native plant movement needs to start having. Native plants should remain the foundation of Southeastern landscapes, but climate change does not respect ecoregion boundaries. Restoration scientists are already investigating climate-adjusted provenancing and assisted migration—using plants and genetic material adapted to conditions expected in the future (Prober et al., 2015; McKone and Hernández, 2021).

For Atlanta, we should start looking south and west. Florida, southern Georgia and Texas contain North American natives already adapted to hotter and, in many cases, drier conditions. Instead of automatically rejecting them because they fall outside our immediate ecoregion, we should be trialing them now, before we desperately need them.

Lesson 3: A Dead Native Garden Isn't an Ecosystem

French plantsman Olivier Filippi has spent decades studying drought-adapted Mediterranean plants and has highlighted the changing relationships between plants, insects and birds as drought, heat and wildfires have devastated the areas close to his home in the pyrenees. Research more broadly confirms that climate change is already reshuffling plant-herbivore relationships (Hamann et al., 2021). And despite the changes, our fauna is more adaptable and resilient than we may anticipate, such as Monarch migration to Spain. (Zhan et al., 2014).

This isn't an argument for abandoning natives or planting invasive species. But ecological purity means nothing if it leaves us with dead vegetation after a drought. Wildlife needs living habitat. I believe our goal should be diverse, living, non-invasive plant communities capable of continuing to function as conditions change.

Olivier Fillipi talking about the native monocultures left behind after severe weather events in France, and their consequences. Beth Chatto Symposium, August, 2026.

Lesson 4: Native Doesn't Automatically Mean Resilient

If every ecological landscape contains the same handful of popular native species sold at local area native nurseries, we risk creating another monoculture—just with a native label attached. Diversity is our insurance policy. We need plants with different rooting depths, growth strategies, flowering periods and most of all, responses to heat and drought.

The question can no longer simply be "Is it native?" We also need to ask: "What does it support, will it outcompete everything else, and will it still be alive after six weeks without rain?"

Lesson 5: Right Plant Also Means Right Soil

We can't simply copy Beth Chatto's gravel garden in Georgia. We don't have the right kind of soil for it. Georgia's heavy clay soils can be saturated in winter and rock hard in August. The soils we find downtown are a sandy loam and not clay soil at all; all sites need their own special amendment. But I do know this; replacing our native soils with gravel or similar substrate would be a mistake, because although the clay is wildly unpopular, it is highly nutrient dense and a hotbed of activity for our fauna. 

But we can copy Beth's thinking. Relieve compaction, improve porosity where appropriate, or add water capacity where appropriate. And use raised or mounded planting areas to create conditions in which drought-adapted plants can thrive and studies show that undulated surfaces are really wildlife friendly too.

Lesson 6: Harvest Water Before You Need It

There is something absurd about designing properties to move rainwater away as quickly as possible and then using drinking water to irrigate those same landscapes weeks later - looking at you... dry creek beds!

Climate-ready Southeastern gardens should slow, capture, and store rainfall. Rain barrels and cisterns can collect roof runoff. Rain gardens and permeable surfaces can keep more water on site. Healthy, permeable soils and mulch reduce water loss, while buried ollas can slowly deliver stored water directly to plant roots.

Speaking of water harvesting, our local counties seasonally offer free rain barrel workshops. Google your local county and 'rain barrel' to find out more.

Lesson 7: We Need Preventative Gardens

We understand preventative medicine. We need to practice preventative gardening.

Plant some Florida and Texas natives now. Trial different provenances now. Improve damaged soil now. Install rain barrels now. Reduce unnecessary lawn now.

Lake Lanier sitting almost six feet below full pool in September 2026 isn't a hypothetical climate projection. It's happening and the gardening movement needs to wake up.

The native plant movement has taught us to look backward and understand what historically belonged in a place. Now we need to become equally good at looking forward.

References

Hamann, E. et al. (2021) ‘Climate change alters plant–herbivore interactions’, New Phytologist, 229, pp. 1894–1910.

Keellings, D. and Engström, J. (2019) ‘The future of drought in the Southeastern U.S.: Projections from downscaled CMIP5 models’, Water, 11(2), 259.

Zhan, S., et al. (2014). The genetics of monarch butterfly migration and warning coloration. Nature, 514(7522), 317–321. Read the full open-access manuscript at PubMed Central Repository

McKone, M.J. and Hernández, D.L. (2021) ‘Community-level assisted migration for climate-appropriate prairie restoration’, Restoration Ecology, 29, e13416.

Prober, S.M. et al. (2015) ‘Climate-adjusted provenancing: a strategy for climate-resilient ecological restoration’, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 3, 65.

Williams, A.P. et al. (2017) ‘The 2016 Southeastern US drought: an extreme departure from centennial wetting and cooling’, Scientific Reports, 7.

Drougtht Methodology 01

Beth Chatto's Gravel Principle

The late English plantswoman Beth Chatto transformed an arid Essex carpark into a thriving, non-irrigated landmark using deep gravel mulches and site-matched species. In the red clay of Georgia, deep mineral mulching combined with taprooted natives such as Baptisia alba and Asclepias tuberosa prevents soil baking, protects subterranean root zones, and eliminates supplemental irrigation once established.

DROUGHT Methodology 02

Dense Layering vs. Open Mulch Beds

The modern meadow movement avoids bare ground by stacking ecological niches: resilient sedges (Carex) form a living green mulch beneath tall architectural asters and grasses. This tightly knit canopy shades the soil surface, drastically cuts evaporative loss, and builds microscopic soil fungal networks that retain moisture through long dry spells.

We Found a Home. Now We’re Looking for Partners.

We have some exciting news: we have identified a commercial nursery location that could give our nonprofit, the Swallowtail Center, the space to grow into something much bigger.

Our vision is to create a native horticulture and education center where we can dramatically expand and diversify our plant nursery while providing hands-on horticultural education, training, workshops and demonstrations. We want to grow more of the harder-to-find native species that rarely make it into conventional garden centers while helping build the knowledge and skills needed to expand native horticulture throughout the Southeast.

Now we need partners to help make it happen. We are looking for business partners , investors, sponsors and strategic donors who believe in the future of native horticulture, biodiversity, environmental education and workforce training. We are open to creative partnerships that can help us develop the site and build a financially sustainable organization around our educational mission.

We are also looking for an independent coffee shop or café interested in leasing space at the new location. Our goal is to develop the property into a full-service garden center and community destination—a place where people can buy plants, have coffee, attend a workshop, explore demonstration gardens and simply spend time surrounded by plants.

We have the location, horticultural expertise and energy to make it happen. Now we're looking for the people who want to build it with us. If you're an investor, business owner, café operator, sponsor or potential partner interested in the project, we'd love to hear from you.

Get You Some Native Beauties......

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Opuntia mesacantha (prickly pear)

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Iris versicolor 'Purple Flame'

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Asarum canadense (wild ginger)

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Packera anonyma (Appalachian ragwort)

Butterflies love these showy yellow April blooms. Perfect for full sun to part shade areas.

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Ratibida pinnata (prairie coneflower)

A resilient native reaching 2-4 feet. Features vibrant yellow petals and attracts pollinators.

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Phlox stolonifera 'Sherwood Purple'

Fragrant star-shaped lavender flowers. A lush carpet-forming perennial for deep shade.

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