Some Food for Thought from Benjamin Vogt:
1) Leaf damage is a good thing. We want to see leaf damage — this shows the plants are being used as nature intended. Caterpillars gotta eat, and caterpillars = butterflies and moths = flowers being pollinated = seed set = more plants to help fill in and create more habitat = more bird food and bird cover = more butterflies and moths and bees….
2) Ants are a good thing. When you see an ant hill please party the same as you would for leaf damage. Ants are pollinators. Ants aerate and amend the soil FOR FREE (plants do the same thing with their roots so you never have to spend money on bags of soil or other junk — match plants to the site and stop working so hard, use money for new plants not crap at the store). Ants ants ants! We’ve got like 100 ant hills on our 1/4 acre lot. Honored.
3) Sometimes plants die. That’s ok. Drought, disease, it was just its time even if it was too short. Stop helicopter parenting your plants. Let them go. Get more plants. Get plants that procreate and give you free babies so you have more cool things like what’s happening in 1 and 2 above. Plants are not marble statues to dust and polish. Celebrate the dynamics, study and learn, and take joy in nature being nature. Rethink pretty. Prairie up. Amen.