The benefits of urban greening initiatives are increasingly well documented: they can help mitigate the effects of urban heating, and improve physical health and mental wellbeing. And even small greening actions in cities can significantly improve local biodiversity, new research suggests.
Increasing the diversity of native plants in a single urban green space resulted in a sevenfold increase in the number of insect species after three years, Australian researchers have found.
I wonder if planting 73 different kinds of ferns would have this benefit, or if they have to be very different kinds of plants.
All of the native plant literature show that there are a few species that can support many insect species. These few species can greatly increase the number. For most butterflies and moths only a single genus can support their caterpillars but these caterpillars bring many others who eat them. Only a few species can bring lots of diversity if you choose wisely. But ferns aren’t generally big diversity drivers
More variety would probably be better.