I’ve been thinking a long while now about how we all have places where we can influence change and my favorite Anne Frank quote. I’ve seen this firsthand with friends and have been inspired to think beyond my lawn. Even though I still have a lot to do in my own yard. It is still the best place to start because you have the most control there – unless you rent of course. I’ve been a member of the South Bend Wild Ones for a couple of years now and one of our members there had an opportunity to make impact with the South Bend Zoo on a new exhibit and installed a native pollinator bed. You can read about what Benjamin Vogt wrote about it in the link. Another inspiration is Jacob Make of Chapman Lake Nursery installing butterfly beds as part of our local park system. I don’t have any recent photos of those but you can see them here on Jacob’s website and check out the awesome plant species he has for sale! Jacob also pitched the idea to his workplace which resulted in the company converting 15 acres of lawn to native wildflowers. Saving them tons of money, the environment on carbon, and providing habit to so many species. Hoping to get images of this soon as it’s really starting to take off this year!
Photo credit to Asa Wood? or someone at WildOnes SB.
One of the things that happens when you have a paradigm shift on landscaping and conservation is seeing just how much open space there is – typically in the form of lawn or covered in stone – that could be habitat. I’ve talked about my journey to native plants and habitat restoration way more in depth on my social media accounts because for a decade I thought I was doing everything right and how at first things are depressing but then turn to hopeful. Never putting more thought to what I was doing and just trying to create a landscape that could be a spread in Better Homes Garden magazine – don’t get me wrong that is still a weird goal of mine but with a different shift and focus now. All that to say is when you’re driving around and especially in the parent drop off/pickup line at school you start to look at areas of grass and think, “there is zero reason they should be using money and time to mow that”.
My daughter’s first year of Kindergarten we drove daily by the fenced in mowed grass under their solar panels. An area I’d never had to look at or think about before. The kids and I talked about how much fun it would be if it was filled with pretty flowers and had bees and butterflies flying around and how the kids could go out to study the caterpillars on the milkweed and learn about the lifecycle. (My kids have been on this learning journey with me too ever since we all witnessed 50 monarch caterpillars being killed by wasps) So in the spring when Kate was learning about butterflies at the end of Kindergarten I wrote an e-mail to the principal (on National Learn About Butterflies Day no less, ha!) set up a meeting and pitched my idea to him with all of these different print outs of other places that had done it. To my surprise some people at the school loved the idea and the school got to work with our local Watershed Foundation to do it, not only to our school but all of the schools in our system, which made me SO happy! We’ve hit a few snags in that project (we’re all learning so giving everyone grace) but I’m hoping to have photos of this project soon and can’t wait for my kids to get out there and learn as Beckett starts Kindergarten this fall.
I still really want to do a butterfly trail with the Kosciusko visitors center throughout our county with different native plantings similar to what Hocking Hills has. There are a lot of ideas that I want to see in our community and now that my babies are finally both going to be in school I feel like I can finally dip my toes back into things and help make the changes that I want to see. If you’re into that kinda thing you should go to Logan, Ohio and see the trail. It’s amazing!
All of that to say, each of us have influence over certain places and can make an impact. Your church, school system, parks, and the businesses that you frequent or own. My family is blessed to have a small manufacturing company near downtown. By now my in-laws, and most everyone, know how much I enjoy native plants and everything that comes after. So I finally asked if I could dig up the stone along the side of the building and put in a butterfly garden. Don’t get me wrong- I want to convert the whole property and have much bigger plans, but everyone says start small).
When it comes to landscaping and gardening there are a couple of different schools of thought. And most are familiar with things needing to be neat, tidy, pretty, covered in mulch or stone and that’s about it. I came from that school of thought and acknowledge that most do so keeping that in mind with plantings. And I will admit seeing some straight wild prairies that are taller than me is an acquired taste. I now approach those landscapes but still like a more designed approach. And when you listen to lectures or read Doug Tallamy’s books you’ll learn we really need to be installing and restoring habitat as fast as possible. And we need lots of people to do it, imperfectly. But I think a big emphasis has to be on “Cues to Care” showing you still mow, maintain. It’s so much more than just letting something go and be “wild”.
I got permission last year but life is busy with littles and my own property. Native plants can also be costly for larger projects so I ventured down the path of growing my own. The other week I started digging up the stone and was surprised at how easy it was. I’m happy to say that the space is planted and that everything is doing really well. I haven’t gotten my after photos yet but hoping to do that soon!
I did not have to call 811 for this project because our gas lines were already marked but if you’re doing an install please call ahead of time.
The soil is crappy I will admit. It’s filled with years of stones. Lots of stones. In a way this is an experiment. Some native plants thrive naturally in rocky soils. I’m still learning all of the things about all of the plants, ha. But we’re gonna give it a try anyway. Most natives don’t need soil amendments and thrive on neglect. Some are drought tolerant (once established – please don’t plant a plug and not water it).
I wish I had photos too but we actually saw a mama turtle come up and lay eggs in this bed so tearing up the rocks has made things softer and a space space for other critters to have babies.
I decided that next to the side shop door and the front door to change up the design with Butterfly Weed, Prairie Dropseeed, Lance Leaf Coreopsis and at the other door some Mist Flower, Petunias, and others.
Each side of the door is roughly 4′ wide by 50′ in length. I’m really wanting to start learning design and decided to take a stab at it with this. Also wanting to have it be an example and keeping it a little more aesthetically pleasing. I created a pattern of plants and then repeated it. Something I’ve learned from Ben Vogt and Ben’s lawn conversion course at Botany in South Bend. Here we’ve got Monarda (bee balm), New England Aster, Swamp Milkweed, Little Bluestem, and zinnia seeds. I love zinnias as much as I love natives and wanted there to be a quick pop of color.
Another note to mention is the outside light in this image. It has a yellow/amber light bulb in it because the bugs aren’t drawn to it. It’s a cheap and easy way to save moths and to keep spiders and things away from your lights/doors. We’re working on getting the front security light removed or replaced or put on a motion sensor.
Our business is located on a side road off of Lake Street in Warsaw (across from Open Air Garden Center) and actually gets quite a bit of traffic back to the houses that live on the back part of Center Lake. Many slowed down (to tell me I was crazy to dig stone in 90+ degree temps ha!) but that it looked like a fun project, asked what I was doing, why I was doing it, and that they were excited to see it. We also get a lot of walkers and I’m a big advocate that any native planting needs signage. So I designed these signs in canva and had them printed. I put one in the middle on the right side of the shop door and the other next to our front door entrance. They are also to stop our mowing crew to no longer spray this area. They had a separate talking to as well. There’s over 100 native plants in this install so it’s an investment with most plugs pricing out around $5/plug.
I’ll have to get out and get more images but another thing was that during this planting it was amazing how many butterflies, dragon flies, wasps, were immediately coming and seeing what we were putting in. (I like to think of this as if something new were coming to town -Target, Olive Garden, etc. and everyone driving by slow like, “Wonder what’s going in there” haha. You know we’ve all done it.) The one butterfly I had never seen or heard of before. It’s an American Snout and it feeds on hackberry trees. So I’m guessing there’s some in the swamp/marsh behind our building.
