Marshall Brown, Co-Founder of the Long Island Conservation Alliance, will be speaking on native plants, invasive plants, and ecosystem services i.e. the importance of biodiversity, food webs, and soil health. March 18th, 2026 6:30pm – 8:45pm HHHC Library – Lecture Hall Visit the Dix Hills Garden Club website for more info on how to join.
Long Island needs its native plants. Without them, we lose our local wildlife. Most of what is available for sale, however, are non-native. Non-native plants provide little sustenance for our local creatures. They weren’t adapted to feed from them, that’s our bees, or birds, or butterflies. Worse, we have to contend with invasive plants, some of which are still for sale here locally. Invasive plants actively destroy native habitat and hasten the departure of our local wildlife.
When you plant native plants, you support local wildlife. We need a lot of native plants in our yards and our public spaces if we are to continue to experience the presence of local wildlife, in particular birds, butterflies, and bees. So find out what’s native and what’s non-native, and by all means, what’s invasive.