“When you have such a huge list of native plants, [as we do in New England] you don’t need exotics,” Ruth Parnall said as she handed me pages of native grasses, wetland wildflowers, ornamental shrubs, vines and trees. Then she handed me a list of books that would give me even more names of natives. Her comment reminded me of the enormous traffic of our native plants to England in the 1700s. John Bartram, often considered the first…