Today’s Green Dialogue will focus on Landscaping with Native Plants in an Urban Space with Carolyn Miller.
Well why don’t we get started um welcome everybody we’ll probably have some more people floating in in a minute um today we have a special speaker as usual um special in her own way uh Carolyn Miller is um plant recorder for MSU and also operates to green thumbs gardening
Um I hope to hear more about that she has a rich history of um botney and maybe she’ll uh she’ll uh talk a little bit about that I did discover one interesting thing which maybe she’ll talk um about as well but she planted 60,000 trees in Hawaii working for uh Charles Schultz’s
Ex-wife the creator of peanuts so want to hear more about that but without further Ado welcome Carolyn well thank you very much I’m I am happy to be here on a cold day but at least the sun looks like it’s turning to shine and what better way to get us kind
Of through this cold weather but uh native plants and Native you know the flowers and everything so you know quick background about me I I did my degree my undergrad degree at MSU in botany implant pathology I’m currently one more class to go for my M’s in biology from
Miami University I’m also the president of the Wildflower Association of Michigan I’m heavily involved in the Michigan Botanical Society um plants have always been my thing since I was probably three years old so my heart is my heart and passion is with h Michigan native plants and getting
Those getting that plant material into the landscape especially Urban spaces since we’re all going to you know the majority of the population in the next 20 30 years will be living in cities so we need to we need to help our pollinators and that’s sort of been my
Drive in the last 13 plus years so to speak so we’re going to talk about Michigan native plants and what works really well in our Urban spaces all right let’s see if it wants to move oh come on you might have given it a minute it’s uh it’s thinking okay so why native
Plants lwi input Landscapes we don’t need to add fertilizer or herbicides or any of that to these they conserve water once they are established I leave them alone um this last year of course we had the drought and I put some new ones in so those I
Did give a little bit of water here and there but for the rest of the plants that I had in my yard didn’t do a thing to them they reduce Global Climate Change by sequestering carbon by their extensive root systems preserve biodiversity support pollinators and song
Birds and you know a big one for me was to connect to Nature um that’s what I love and all I would come home after work I literally would put a chair in my front yard and watch all the pollinators coming on in and it was just
Amazing to see that increase year after year and the best part I didn’t have any grass toot I have a very small yard Urban yard I didn’t want to buy a lawnmower uh so this is what this was my passion and you don’t have to do as
Extensive as I did but for me it made sense to not have a lawnmower pushing out all that you know all those exhaust fumes and the noise um so I’m good to go so when you’re thinking about your yard there are considerations with Urban yards and three of those big things are
Plant height seasonal dieback and maintenance um plant height very important because you don’t want to impede uh um you know carve the um you know cars and you want to be able to see around things so you know if you’re close to the sidewalk put things shorter in the
Sidewalk but if you’re going to put it further back in your yard then probably the sky is a seasonal dieback you you know we want to have a lot you know we want to have a succession of plant material blooming for those pollinators and butterflies and everything that
Comes to visit from Spring until that first Frost maintenance there’s kind of this misnomer that everybody says well you put native plants in you don’t have to do anything else that’s not the case there is maintenance involved it’s just for me it’s not that much I do a lot of
You know things seed maybe I don’t want them all there so I have to do a little thinning out here and there I also some of the plants that I have tend to seed quite a bit so once they’re done flowering I just I nip their heads off
So that they’re not spreading all over the place and lastly what habitat are you trying to mimic that is actually pretty important to what what you what plants are going to work well in your yard so I always tell people do some research um these are some really great sources Michigan natural features
Inventory um they’ve also produced a guide a Field Guide to the Natural communities of Michigan you can look up your county and get an idea of what plant material should hopefully be there wild type Nursery in Mason the website has a great planting guide that um you
Know separates plants out by Sun you know the light levels and also soil type Prairie Moon nursery and also Prairie Nursery they’re kind of they’re also in the midwest so we also need to look at your light levels and what the soil type is so what to
Consider root structure so the three the three typical root structures are tap roots fibrous roots and ramous roots and we’ll we’ll talk a little bit more about all these a little bit later soil is it Clay is it sand is it lone for the most of us here in Lancing and the Ingam
County area probably a lot of clay um I know Clay is very prevalent I’m originally from Grand Rapids there’s a lot of clay over there so you might need a little bit you know so that’s where you kind of have to look at what clay
Tends to hold water but it also tends to dry out and become solid as a rock so you may need to augment the soil a little bit just to help those plants but again those those root systems of those native plants will they’ll go down they
Will break down that soil and allow for water percolation and as the roots die adds more organic matter as well the sun is it full sun part sun part shade full shade soil moisture dry medium moist that really that kind of spins off on what the soil type can be as
Well and size very important so here’s just an idea these are native plants so this is how far down some of those native roots go in the far left you can see our lovely Kentucky blue grass with maybe about an inch to 2 in of root material that’s it
Look at all the other plant material those are all native plants of Michigan and look how far down those tap those all of those roots go be it fibrous or Tap Root they are incredible this is what percolates water on in your in your yard keeps that water on site it is not
Running down streets into the sewer and dumping into a river such as the Red seedar River this is why we want plant this is why we really need the native plants in our yards and all those roots sequester carbon which is so important nowadays so let’s talk about the root
Systems tap Roots so primarily single root that goes down slightly branches off butterfly weed is one of those um Compass plant I love the suum species they um these two have great uh Tap Root systems Compass plant can get pretty big um and we’ll talk a little bit more
About placement later but these for a small Urban are for a small yard or an urban yard Tap Root system plants are some of the better ones to use also the fibrous root systems so these root systems just they go down and they spread all over they just spread
Out and again increasing all those little fractures in the soil to allow water to percolate down um so if you’re thinking fibrous and tap roots are probably some those two are my go-to plants when I am planting um for clients the Romus root systems those are the runners so they horizontally run
Canada Anatomy you know I really I like this plant but it can get a little Troublesome in small areas so unless you have a huge area that you plan to put it in then so be it it will be fine but small areas you need to be very careful
Of it common milkweed I enjoy it so much however it runs so in urban when I do Urban Landscapes common milked is one that I will not put in because it tends to run Canada Golden Rod perfect for a field all by itself but probably rarely sold in uh native plant nurseries
Because it is extremely aggressive but there are ramous plants that do play well with others so toes anaria neglecta it only gets about two inches tall and it slowly creeps Prairie smoke absolutely love this plant in the ear in the early spring um that slowly creeps as well Maiden hair fern
Is a great um kind of a ground cover so again slowly spreads but great ground cover for shady areas so these guys do play well with others soil moisture so it’s the right plant for the right place and this is where I say that research is key Lupin
For example it prefers it dry and sandier you’re not going to put loopin in a damp area it will it will rot out every time I have tried this poor Plant which I absolutely love in my Urban yard but I think my soil is a little too rich
And it just it doesn’t do well at all Cardinal flow don’t put it in a dry area it prefers it damp if you want to create a rain Garden Cardinal flower is one of those fantastic plants to put in plant height is very important to consider um learn where to place them
And we’ll talk a we’ll talk a lot more about this the plant on the right is um Rosen weed I loved it the bees absolutely felt you know they are they were always all over it lots of seed for um especially goldfinches were just constantly visit visiting this however
It seeds like crazy so this one has been removed from my yard because of that otherwise it would literally take over so let’s look at uh light requirements so shady areas what gives a shade is it tree is it another house I always tell people to
Take a day and watch the area you know do you get Morning Sun do you get afternoon sun afternoon sun tends to be a lot hotter so take that into consideration Morning Sun not as warm but you know it will be shaded typically later in the day so that’s why taking
That time to actually watch an area where the sun is is it’s it really is important so shaded area so the tree here is giving shade to the small area and there’s one fantastic thing about some shaded areas you can plant with spring ephemerals and those shade loving
Natives which can be a lot of fun so the spring ephemerals are very important to early emerging bees especially the queen bumblebees because they’re some of the first to emerge and they are on they’re on a kick to find floral resources so that she can begin making you know getting her brood
Started for That season so those early ephemerals are so important to those emerging Queen bumblebees and we’re going to talk about some of those plants that are so important Midsummer mid to late summer golden rods are so important for beneficial pollinators the bees butterflies beetles um other serapid
Flies they rely on those mid to late summer blooms to come out for you know to find those floral resources so some of these spring ephemerals for for a shady setting and I’m just going to let you know this is a handful of them there are so many more um spring is
Probably my favorite time of year because all these spring ephemerals are emerging and it’s just a joy to know that spring is on the way followed by summer that all our native plant PL so Spring Beauty um is actually there is a specialist bee and it’s tiny and it only
Feeds on Spring Beauty that is it here on campus in the Sanford Natural Area so there’s a lot of Spring Beauty all around and on a sunny day when those have begun to emerge these little bees are all over that Spring Beauty Virginia bluebells Dutchman’s britches white
Trillum those are some of the big ones that the queen bumblebees will find and it’s really fun to watch if you get that opportunity to see either bumblebee on Dutchman’s Brides or squirrel corn both of those are D Centras those plants are Buzz pollinated so that Queen bubble bee literally hangs
From the bottom she VI H brates her body which releases the pollen and she gathers it and I can’t say how many times I’ve walked past some of our patches of both of those um both of those dentra species and I can hear that buzz and I can look down there she is
She’s vibrating her body to get that to get you know to get them to release the pollen uh wood poppy another fantastic slightly a little bit still still spring ephemeral but just a little bit later which is good for all the you know the other emergent bees that are coming
Out then we kind of transition you know still spring ephemerals woodland flocks Coline which also the hummingbirds will visit um oops forgot to name a couple of these other ones but there’s hepatica which is the one in the upper right corner and then down below dog tooth
Filet um again all of these and false Solomon Seal all visited by by you know all those native bees that are finally starting to emerge here’s kind of those late summer Bloomers um red Baneberry starts to come out um you know and again food source uh
I love zigzag Golden Rod and blue stem Golden Rod for those later Golden Rod species that you know they’re not aggressive um in nature and you know they’re not very tall either so they stay on the short side but again these you know they’re perfect for all of our native pollinators
Because they’re you know they’re starting to come out and it’s a food source more floral food source for our native bees Maiden hair fern makes an excellent ground cover in shady areas um probably one of my favorite ferns it’s just so dainty I absolutely love it so
The what plants worked in my area um and why did I start so why I started I really didn’t want to all along and I also knew that pollinators on a whole are declining and I wanted to do my part I wanted to create an oasis for our
Pollinators so that there’s a food source bumblebees can fly up to a mile even more to attain floral resources most of our native pollinators which honeybees are not native to the United States but most of our native pollinators are small the bees are fairly small and they really don’t fly
Very far so offering them a you know resources for food and shelter was important to me so how did I start I got rid of all the turf um I think the first summer we moved in I was done with it uh what changed what has changed some of
Those plants were a little too aggressive um Ironweed love the plant but it just it would seed like crazy so I sort of got tired of that one and the good news is I had other clients who had spaces and I could just dig them up and
Move them out H what did I learn that was a big one some things don’t always play well with others so they got moved to somewhere else and now we’ll talk about what plants worked so my entire yard is pretty much full on sun um that’s a red bud tree that has gotten
Actually much larger than that and so now it gives me a little bit of shade so I can actually plant some shady loving uh native plants under that tree which I am actually static about so those spring native plants it worked um Prairie smoke absolutely I just you know this is another Buzz
Pollinated plant that I could go out and sit and watch those Queen bubble bees grab onto the bottom of that flower buzz and they will release the pollen Prairie flocks you know what can I say about this gorgeous pink flower um I would get some of the Butterflies coming in the um
Uh what is it what is it what is it the bubble the hummingbird moth would come in um pasque flour look at all that pollen and they would be all over that including the Bumblebees but also the other ones also other bees once the weather once those temperatures warmed up and they were
Able to emerge slightly behind that I then have my hairy beard tongue and sand copsis um both are I’ll tell you what the sand coreopsis just blooms for oh my gosh um almost a month and it is a pollinator magnet for all the bees um no matter
What size they’re always all over it same with hay beard tongue usually the smaller ones we’re getting into those because it’s kind of tubular so the smaller bees could get into that the regular penamon slightly larger bees could get down in there um usually about this time I would start to see some
Honeybees begin to show up so those you know somewhere there’s some hives and they found my yard yellow cone flowers uh love this one as do the goldfishes once those seeds ripen swamp milked this is one of the other milkweeds I will put in I did create a small rain Garden so swamp
Milked is in that rain garden and is always covered by these incredible wasps solitary wasps so she’s doing her thing purple cone flour visited by so many of the the sweat bees would come to this one as well as um the bumblebees and occasionally some of the when I would catch them the
Honeybees so these are all mediumsized plants kind of the middle of the yard rough blazing star I love the blazing stars um they tend to bloom a little bit later in the summer and all of these would just be covered in bees native bees also the honey bees but it
Was just thrilling to watch all of those native bees come in and the butterflies the swallow tail butterflies the monarchs would feed and one of the golden rods that I do enjoy is Riddle’s Golden Rod um doesn’t get super large doesn’t spread super fast um and I do
Like this one and so do all the migrating monarchs and the other butterflies and the other bees as well so these two Prairie Dock and Compass plant can get pretty large so why would I have these in my yard so I have these closest to the house um
Because they do get tall the Prairie dock it’s the leaves those leaves will be over two feet long and over two feet wide and if you have a deer problem that is one of your plants to put in the leaves are very raw rough and deer don’t
Like that on their tongues so they will of course they’re always going to nibble but they’re not going to nibble much because of that roughness of the leave same and it puts up a the Prairie dock puts up a stock oh I think this year mine probably got up about nine feet and
Then all the flowers are at the top um the goldfinches absolutely love it uh as well as all the bees the compass plant supposedly it move you know a lot of sunflowers tend to move uh in regards to the Sun and Compass plant it’s the leaves that kind of turn to orient
Themselves in the Sun or if they get too much they can Orient themselves away from the sun again perfect plant if you have a deer problem because the leaves are rough this one has kind of short leaves all the way up the stock um I think mine got about mine tend to get
About six feet tall and flowers up and down the stock um all the bees absolutely love that plant as well as and so do I so these are kind of my two focal plants in the yard some of the other ones that I have put in uh Prairie Clover or excuse me
The purple Clover this is a really good one for those smaller native pollinators and if you look in that up left corner you can see a very tiny uh Native bee hanging out so again the thing is is to offer you know flowers spring through spring through fall but also different
Shapes and sizes because one size doesn’t fit all so that’s what we have to remember bottle gensin it is only pollinated by bumblebees because they’re the only ones strong enough to pry those pedals open and get down in there to get the floral resource and it is a riot to watch them
Do that bbal Monarda fistulosa hands down probably one of the one of the best mints um for pollinators this is a skipper of some species and everybody is always all over it another B balm I like is Bradberry B Bal it is a little bit shorter and blooms a
Little bit earlier so I have Incorporated that into my landscape just so there’s kind of those you know overlapping Bloom times between the two of them and this last summer there was a significant delay in many of the flowers due to that drought but the Bradberry
Bee balm that one came out gave some more Floral you know gave those floral resources to everything and then finally the Monarda fistulosa was able to come forth as well so um Ground Covers I tend to use penssylvania sge as a ground cover um I also use toes which is anaran
Neglecta so you can see how tall it is it’s not very tall this one does has done so well in a lot so I have my entire front yard it has a brick border then the soil’s up to the top of the bricks behind it and the toes is
Is one is in one of the corners that will just bake in the afternoon and toes can take a lot of neglect um probably if you look at the you know the species name neglecta so it does very well and what’s so what’s really fun about this plant is
That there’s um Carter bees Carter wood bees and they will actually so the the leaves are really fuzzy and those bees will actually scrape the fuzz off of the leaves and that’s what they use to line their nest with so on any given day there’s all these all these bees are all
Over just scraping the fuzz off because they tend to bloom early in the springtime so that part’s done but there’s a source for nesting material Notting onion um I I really love you’re gonna hear me say I love this plant I do I love just about every
Single one of them and nting onion is kind of a late summer Bloomer that finally comes out and you can see there’s a bumblebe just going to town Gathering you know getting nectar and getting the pollen to provision the nests with but um an excellent source
The a lot of the solitary wasps love it the smaller wasps love it and just a fabulous plant to also have in the yard and a short grower at that so the middle section is kind of you know oh I’d say that’s probably late summer so the butterfly weed is going
The anten are is full all those short guys are you know in the front I get taller towards the back um there’s Culver’s root so I have Culver’s root that’s in there again small flowers for those small pollinators um you know and a lot of this has just been experimenting of what
Works and what doesn’t the Rosen weed is up in that kind of upper left hand hand corner most of the Rosen weed is now gone because it just seeded far too much and it was just you know it was all over so I finally decided you need to come
Out and we can go and it can go somewhere else in somebody else’s yard that has plenty of space um some of the other ones I put in recently I have put in um oh my goodness I can see it uh um oh golly gez Royal catchfly so incredible beautiful red flowers the
Hummingbirds visit it over and over and over I have put some of those in and they call it catchfly because the stems are actually sticky and so insects land on those and well they’re stuck and let’s see two summers ago I was um one of my grad
Courses was in Northern Illinois and we went to some prairies and we’re walking along and I I had never seen this plant in the wild and I looked into the Prairie and I saw red flowers and I literally almost dropped everything and I went bounding through
The Prairie and my classmate knew that I was a plant nerd and of course they all wanted to know what is it well what is it and I just yelled out it’s Royal catchfly and oh my gosh what a stunning plant so I was able to get some plants
From I believe I got mine through either Prairie Moon Nursery or Prairie nursery and they’ve done so well in the yard it’s just an added you know piece of red for the humming Birds to come in excuse me and also you know Cardinal Flowers same thing excuse
Me um another ground cover I use is Ivory sge uh this is right up against hangs along the brick the brick pathway that I have you know the brick border I put in so just to put some other sges in and I like to put the sedges in
Sporadically I also use prairie drop seed grass as another ground cover um when I do a lot of urban Landscapes Prairie drop seed is one of my go-to grasses to put in it does not get very tall stays you know you tell the blades probably maybe a foot tall maybe a
Little bit more than that but not much the seed heads tend to get a little bit taller than that but as they wave in the wind or you brush up against them they release the most incredible scent and it’s hard to describe but I would say it
Smells sort of licoricey in a sense um again it’s just one of my favorite grasses to use in urban settings because you know it is such a wonderful grass it clumps you know doesn’t spread just little clumps and it’s a it’s a perfect you know I’d be happy just having a
Matrix of prairie drop seed and then just plucking in threes and fives of different plant material um here and there but if you need a if you need a grass and it has an extensive fibrous root system it’s awesome and that’s one of my favorites um Wild Petunia ruellia humus I have put
That in kind of along some of the edges beautiful blue flowers um it does so well in the Heat and I just absolutely love that one as well so why did I landscape with n you know why did I landscape with we lost your audio there Carolyn
Yep is it okay I think we got you back yeah oh sorry um we may want to um reserve a little time for Q&A towards the end just to a reminder there that sounds fine almost [Laughter] done and you know and you know so that’s
Why I did it and I didn’t want to all along on so these are the helpful resources that I mentioned uh literature and also nurseries so um any of these are so helpful they’ve got great um excellent inventory of plants I would you know encourage you to check them out
I’ll leave it there if you want to take a snapshot and excellent literature and thank you so much I really appreciated this and that is a bristle cone Pine some of those Pines are there’s a few that are over a thousand years old and this one right
Here could easily be 300 years old it’s you know the conditions are not conducive for growth so they grow very very slowly but that’s one of my favorite pictures and is there any questions thank you so much what a rich uh Fountain of information you are um oh I enjoy
It feel free to unmute yourselves if you’ve got some questions I know I’ve got a couple but I’ll let other people go first so do a lot of these say I wanted to have like kind of a full sun lawn setup um in Kent County where you’re from where I come you from
Every day is that kind of about the same plants yes you I have my parents home is still in Grand Rapids and a lot of those plants that I have in my yard are in that yard as well and look into your conservation districts because a lot of them have
Plant sales and I know that Kent Conservation District has a native plant sale where they have a number of Growers that come over so that’s a you know it’s an excellent an excellent opportunity to get native plants and Native shrubs and trees which we really didn’t talk about but that’s another that’s another
Lecture sounds good thank you you’re welcome BB go ahead yeah thanks I was wondering if is the Rosen weed a Rudbeckia no well it is in the it’s in the Aster family but it’s a syum species so we’ve got four syum species Rosen weed prairie Prairie dock Compass plant and
Cup plant are all silphium species I loved your presentation there was so much good information there um you know when you talk about with that uh Rosen weed plant how the problem is so many seeds in it spreads and that’s of course there are there are Horticultural
Varieties you know with uh where uh some of the flowering structures the anthers or the pistol have been converted to petals and so you don’t get seeds of course they’re Horticultural varieties and not native plants but it seems like maybe there’s got there should be a balance between what’s right for people’s
Yards yes so I will tell people if you want to use one of those Horticultural varieties um eonia um conlow there are I don’t even want to know how many Native ours we call them native ours um there are I will tell people if you are really
Thinking about those I always say keep the same flower color the same Leaf color do not do double blossoms because they’re absolutely there’s no floral resources whatsoever you know that’s been sort of bred out of it um so those are the things things like you know I’ve
Got a few native ours and you know one of my eonia peria is poow berry and stays a little shorter not as tall and lanky um I do like it the bees do come to it um New England AER there’s one called uh purple Dome he stays short uh
You know short and very fluffy with flowers the bees come to that it’s a lot of the ERS you could actually cut back about even the mints so maybe late June between mid June late June I’ll cut back I’ll half my New England Aster and it puts out more
Blossoms and stays much shorter so you know tricks of the trade so Mo how do you define a native VAR and are most of them then dwarf varieties it just depends it really depends some are dwarf a lot are different colors um or a variegated Leaf um I’m pretty sure you could
Probably find a lot of those in your box stores also at van addas I know that they’ve got a pretty extensive selection of those native ours um uh what’s the one over by Ann Arbor area um gee Farms they’ve got they have a lot of those native ours as
Well question jar goer um thank you um so um I I’m blind and I can’t see the pictures are showing I’m curious what the layout physical layout was did you have like beds that were separated by walkways or what could you tell me a little bit about your layout sure so any
So up close to the sidewalk so I did a brick border all the way around the front yard using pavers behind pretty much all three sides so the West Side the south side which is where the sidewalk is and then the east side which goes up the driveway all
Along I’d say around 2 feet in I had short plants so those short loving heat plants that did that could do very well because you know they’re baking um because there’s there’s no trees and then behind those I would put those mediumsized plants in closer to
The house sky was a limit so that’s where I have the Prairie dock the compass plant um I have panicum grass there’s some big blue stem grass uh what else did I put in some of the taller Asters the late later blooming Asters they’re all close to the house so I
Really wanted to keep short guys in the front for you know so that you had visibility so how how large I mean so when you have to do m or any kind of weeding to help estab get the plants established do you just walk in
Amongst I mean is it like a 20 by 50 feet you just walk in amongst everything or pretty much so I you know I initially put in some pavers uh for me to step on um just like flagstone um they’re sort of all consumed by all
The plants now but um you know it still works I just you know I literally Tiptoe Through the Tulips okay but you know they’re you know native plants are pretty hearty um but I do you know I’m mindful of where I step so I just sort of you know I get in
There in the spring once the temperatures are warm enough and I know that those native bees have emerged then I clean it up and just get ready for things to start you know popping up and cleaning up any anything I need to clean up and waiting I’ve got a couple uh
Native bee hotels so I clean those out and get those ready for the upcoming season and um you mentioned working with clients do you are you available for hire oh yeah this is this is the this has been the focus of my master’s degree is getting people in urban areas to just
Replace a little bit of their turf grass I went all out because again I you know I have a small yard but you know a 4×4 area is all you need to get you know with some things that are blooming consistently throughout the growing season that will help the pollinators
And for me it’s always been it’s been remarkable to watch every you know every summer you know I would have a new butterfly species and my wife would just laugh because I’d come bolting in the door get my camera and go back outside to get pictures of them excellent thank you it’s a
Wonderful presentation you’re very welcome Barb did you have another question yes thank you thanks um Carolyn I think your uh description of landscaping that pays attention to height when you’re using native plants is something that would be really good for um okay go ahead bar for you to pay attention to
Especially with those um those circles that have been planted in Meridian Township there’s one that’s um Park Lake and burum I think yeah and it’s n i mean I think it’s great to put in the native plants but it’s very ugly NY I think you know if there was attention paid to the
Height like described um it could make it a more attractive feature I would agree um you know I’m in Lancing we go that way to go to Costco and I always I cringe every time I drive around it because it could and again you know in a
Municipality it’s not a you know it’s not a oneandone you don’t plant it and leave it have to get involved you know a group of folks can get involved to try to you know keep that you know keep it clean um and you know and probably they just
Didn’t look at the right planting scheme of what to go in um I know it’s hard it’s the same thing along Pennsylvania Avenue in Lancing a lot of weeds have come in and I don’t think anybody’s doing anything and I cringe at that one too like what was what was your
Plot love to put together a team to um address that roundabout exactly so I’m gonna sign you both up I would love to because you know it really is um near and dear to my um you know get involved and and it’s you know it’s important so I just put my
Email in the chat so it is there great Tom the okus library U the head librarian in okus Tom Moore got in touch with me it’s been last fall I guess they have plantings around the oakus library that are native plantings and I took a
Look at them they have an issue with the person who’s tended those has retired they need somebody to take it over and they just need instruction so I took a lot of pictures but this has been really helpful to me I don’t have a landscaping background at all and just hearing the
Strategies uh Caroline has been really great and I’m I’m with I’m the president of the meridian Garden Club and I want to get in touch with you to see if we can get you in to talk to our members oh I would love to I love to talk it’s a passion
Bruce yeah Emma Campbell uh and the Meridian uh Conservation Corps oh yes she uh periodically gets a group together to go down and do weeding and things in that Park Lake uh um burum um rain Garden area so I’m sure you know and we’re all a bunch of
Volunteers basically and um we could uh we could stand for a little bit of uh expertise to take care that oh I would love to absolutely I know Emma very well we’ve done a lot of invasive species removal um especially over at waldemar uh Nature Center that’s kind of been our
Um that’s been one of my focus points with with everything so I’ve done a lot of work with Emma she’s fantastic and yeah I would love to you know love to help out with that roundabout and maybe kind of do some redesigning of it and rethinking of what we should put
In that’s really exciting um I I do want to mention that there is a green grant program um this year that’s the funding has doubled and so we have the opportunity to do some projects I understand you helped with the Cornell Woods Pond restoration yeah Sarah Sarah’s often comes to these
Dialogues um but yeah if you have other projects in Meridian that um need a little bit extra help um definitely um I can I’ll try and share the green Grant okay form Barb has done a project with a local school and um some of you others of you may have
Been involved with some of those as well but um Kim had a question absolutely hi yeah I just wanted to um Define uh what you do for hire uh is it designing land Landscapes the actual planting I do it all you go on all that it’s just me um sometimes I usually get
Um being in the be Garden uh I have a lot of you know I have a lot of students and a lot of them want to learn so I usually um I pick a few students up as well to help me out uh their backs are younger than mine so that’s the big
Thing but yeah I do the Consulting the design and then the installations so but then I always tell the homeowners that you know it’s up to you guys to sort of uh you know that first year to water make sure things don’t Peter out and and do the weeding so because until things
Get established you know weeds are G to come in so that’s that’s just what happens great thank you you’re welcome what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve run into in helping helping people get started I you think you probably hinted at that but it is it’s the maintenance afterwards
Um and you know because that’s a big one is it’s not a oneand done I have a client in in the Lancing area and she had you know front and back and and the um the hell strip so to say all done in native plants you know I wasn’t the one
That did it but there were some bad plant choices and so for a number of Seasons I was trying to rectify that and still trying to rectify it um just things that should not have been planted where they were um so that was a challenge and and you know it’s still
Kind of ongoing I do more of a Consulting with her now she’s got a good crew that comes in because it was taking up so much of my time and I really wanted to get more people into planting native pollinator Gardens and little pocket prairies is
What I kind you know just those little pocket pollinator Gardens and so it was kind of taking my time away so you know it just depends on if it’s a new installation you know you got to keep the maintenance up and even once it’s established there’s still
Maintenance um it might be you know it might be deadheading something so that they don’t spread uh might be removing some of those RIS ominous spreaders and that was the you know for this client in Lancing that’s what it was so to try to pick a way at getting those out of the
Landscape thank you um by the way Emily Conway who’s done uh Urban Prairie restoration is going to be with us in a couple weeks um next next week Nick dup uh with the city of Birmingham is a principal planner is going to talk about the leaf blower ordinance that they have been
Implemented and um in February John Sarver is going to join us again talk a little bit about the solarized program if you have other talks that you’d like to give or topics you’d like to suggest for a green dialogue please let me know um any remaining questions in our last few minutes
Here thank you so much Carolyn I understand you’re giving another talk at noon yes same one thanks for squeezing Us in do you have any other um words of wisdom you’d like to share before we depart you know just like the um you know if you plant
It they will come um it’s really amazing I I’m just in awe at the species of bees that have come in and I’m trying to get better at identifying them so that I can kind of keep my own record of what is visiting um and you know and it’s just
Exciting um I love watching the you know kind of those spring Bloomers come up and then everything just flourishes and it’s just you know it’s a flutter of activity in my front yard so just and Planters you know Planters can work too zenas are a fantastic bee and butterfly plant
Believe it or not so lots of our annuals can be used as pollinator plants in container gardens so you know that that’s another that’s another aspect as well great love to hear more about your um Master’s um thesis as well and helping people get started in the small gardens
Anyway thanks everybody have a great week and hopefully we’ll see you next week a thank you everyone really enjoyed it thank you so much talk to you soon thank you