1. “Right plant, right place” means healthier design. Surely beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what is beauty? Is it the shape and color of a flower? The texture of foliage? The form of a plant? Is it the artful presentation and juxtaposition of plants and hardscapes? Certainly it’s all of the above — but that’s just the top layer.

2. Gardens host essential insects, worms, spiders and bees. I encourage you to get on your hands and knees for 10 minutes, or 10 hours — you know, whatever works for you and your back. Get up close to see what’s going on among and underneath the flower tops and stems. Trust me, you’ll be amazed at what you’ll find — spiders on the hunt or perfectly camouflaged among petals and leaves, an assassin bug feasting on a fly, aphids pulsing, carpenter bees excavating into a hollow-stemmed Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium spp), their buzz echoing up inside the stem, or dung beetles rolling their ball across the soil.

Beauty is far more than a swallowtail landing on golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea, zones 3 to 8) or a wash of bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium, zones 2a to 9b) folding in a warm breeze like ocean waves. We need the smallest creatures and organisms in our gardens if we want healthy gardens and landscapes.

Shown: A female mining bee on American plum (Prunus americana, zones 3 to 8)

3. Plants effectively filter water and store carbon. Thickly and diversely planted gardens can be great at cleaning water, preventing runoff that overwhelms storm drains as well as sequestering carbon. I’m a prairie-style gardener — I do live in Nebraska — and it’s surprising for many to hear that a prairie grassland is nearly as efficient at storing carbon belowground as a forest of the same size. I’m not saying our own smaller home gardens will be as good at this job as larger and wilder areas, but fully planted gardens are most certainly better at carbon sequestration than lawn, or garden beds composed mostly of mulch.

The roots of many grasses and perennials can go 3, 6, even 10 feet underground, all the while moving carbon deeper into the soil from the air. Add to this the fact that prairie and meadow plants (many of which are native in wide swaths across most of the country) lose up to one-third of their roots each year, which opens up clay soils and enriches sandy or poor soils as the roots decay. Suddenly rich, healthy soil full of plants storing carbon becomes a beautiful thing to ponder, right?

Learn more about your soil, the simple secret to gardening success

4. Gardens can create awareness of habitat loss and climate change. It’s estimated that we lose dozens of animal and insect species a day to extinction, and anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 species a year. The numbers are so varied because we simply don’t know all of the species on the planet, let alone what intricate role they play. It’s also estimated that by 2050, nearly one-third of global plant species may be gone due to land conversion and climate change. We know about monarch butterflies and bees, which are in the news every day, but those are just the most well known.

Everything is linked in a rich web. When we learn about what plants support what organisms, we begin to garden on a deeper level that’s truly empowering and richly satisfying.

Shown: A swallowtail butterfly on prairie blazingstar (Liatris pycnostachya, zones 3 to 8)