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Talking Native Plants with Guest Laura Greenfield
120 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of Hort Culture, we chat with Laura Greenfield, founder of Oakland Farm Trees, a nursery that specializes in native plants. Laura shares her passion for growing and caring for plants that are adapted to the local climate and soil, and how they can benefit our gardens, wildlife and environment. She also gives us some tips on how to choose, plant and maintain native plants in our own backyards. Tune in and learn more about the beauty and diversity of native plants!
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
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Transcript
Welcome to Hort Culture
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture.
00:00:15
Speaker
I've had lots of coffee. I have a really big coffee mug. So you're going to, you're going to be able to tell the level of height through this episode. And we're talking about some cool stuff today, but my from the question, you know, we always start an episode off with a good question. And, uh, instead of a completely random one, I have a good one that I'll also lead us into our topic. What is your favorite? And it could just be in this moment, you know, what is the one that you're thinking about the most? What is, what, what native plant?
00:00:43
Speaker
excites you. It makes you happy, that you love, that you tell everybody about. And when someone's like, I want to plant something, you go, oh, gotta have this. What
Favorite Native Plants
00:00:51
Speaker
is it? Josh, go. Shumerdoke. That's all I ever think about. Okay. All right. Cool. Ray.
00:01:01
Speaker
I'm going to have to say because I read it in an email, but also it's one of my favorite native plants. I used to dig it and sell it as an herb, but Goldenseal. Oh, yeah. I saw that email come through as well. Yeah, I love Goldenseal. Look at me go. Well, mine is, of course, something that's going to pull a lot of different... It's going to come from a lot of different things. Mine would be nine bark. Phisocarpus is...
00:01:25
Speaker
one of my favorites. And then I get to introduce you to our wonderful guests today. Brett's not with us, but that's okay because we have a wonderful guest who's another brunette and I'm super excited to have some like more hair power, not even girl power, hair power involved in today's
Meet Guest Laura from Oakland Farm
00:01:40
Speaker
episode. So we have Laura on with us today from Oakland Farm. And I tell me your favorite right now, what excites you, what native is just pumps you up.
00:01:53
Speaker
Well, hello. Thank you all so much for having me and for bringing in Schumard Oak and Ninebark and beautiful forest medicinal golden seal. You'll need some great ones. It is a hard question, but in this moment right now, I was spending some time at the nursery yesterday showing and walking around the spice bush that I've planted. Spice bush is one that I've been getting closer and closer to.
00:02:16
Speaker
every year and this one is actually a female she just started producing berries last year and so that was you know just exciting to see her you know stepping into that and I don't know she just covered in flower buds and
00:02:29
Speaker
It's a really neat part of the canopy where Spice Bush can fit. I could go on and on, but every season, right? Like you should be able to have a favorite in every season or for every like different application. Cause people ask me all the time, what's your favorite flower? And I'm like, I don't know today or in May because that's a different answer. And I feel that's the same with like native plants because sometimes you're, you know, excited about Spice Bush and sometimes you're just, I want all the good fall color or whatever that is. And some plants, you know,
00:02:57
Speaker
do a lot of cool things like nine bark because she's the best. But yeah, no, that's wonderful. I'm really excited to talk about native plants. We've had a lot of requests for native plants. So shout out if you are one of those people who said, hey, can you talk about natives? Absolutely. And the only reason we hadn't yet is because we wanted to have this wonderful guest on today. So Laura, tell us about you. Tell us about your business. Tell us about, I don't know, if you got a cool dog, you can tell us about that too.
00:03:23
Speaker
Of course she does. Yeah. Yeah. We got two of them, two farm dogs that probably need some more jobs, but yeah.
Laura's Agricultural Journey
00:03:32
Speaker
Hi everybody. My name is Laura Greenfield and I'm born and raised here in central Kentucky. Grew up in Lexington, but also going out to Paris, Kentucky, Bourbon County, raised from a raised territory.
00:03:48
Speaker
And going out to my family's farm where my grandmother and cousins and family lived. And the farm has been in the family quite a while. And I always really loved going out there, spending summers out there, taking the drive on Paris Road, getting out of Lexington, being out there for holidays. And when I started at UK, I was just getting really interested in agriculture and trying to find ways to get involved on the family farm.
00:04:13
Speaker
In its history, it's been all sorts of things. It had mules. There's a couple of big mule barns made for stalls and feed troughs for the mules from 100 something years ago. It's been a lot of row crops. Of course, tobacco. We tried the hemp pilot program to grow hemp for seed a handful of years ago. Now it's predominantly beef cattle. Then we have a small herd of
00:04:40
Speaker
a cow-calf finish operation of you know the cows and the calves and yeah my my fiance my uncle's out there farming we're all farming together got our two dogs then up
00:04:50
Speaker
It was 10 years ago. This year we started the tree nursery and that's just been the joy of my life to get to be in that journey and getting to know these plants more and more every year and meeting people from across Kentucky. There's so many people that are seeking out native plants and doing a lot of really cool projects with them. It feels like I don't know about you, Ray.
00:05:13
Speaker
I've been, I've been an agent now for 11 years. And so every year it feels like there's more and more people coming in asking for natives and where do I get them? And you know, the first five or six years I was here, it was kind of hard. There was one place that might have just like a couple of the basics, the milkweed, the, you know, great things, but nothing, not the vast array of great native plants we have here in Kentucky and certainly not woodies and shrubs because obviously they take some more time to get going. So.
00:05:40
Speaker
It's so exciting now. I feel like the past two years, I've really been able to give people some options and say like, oh, if you want to go, you know, get woody shrubs or trees, go here. If you want pollinator specific, go here. It's just really, I've just really seen that grown, which is awesome because it seems like people who really might not normally landscape, they don't really care, but somehow they suddenly care about natives, which is really cool.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, that makes me wonder, and maybe everybody can kind of answer like this question, but what is, are people voicing a reason for their desire for natives? Like, is there specific reasons they're asking for it? I don't know, Laura, what do they come to you looking for when you speak to individuals or businesses? I'm assuming you sell to both. Is that true?
Growing Interest in Native Plants
00:06:29
Speaker
Individuals or businesses come to you?
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, we sell a wide range of folks. It's people, maybe in more urban areas, more cities where they just have a yard and can plant a tree or a line of shrubs or even, I mean, there are people who wanted to put a micro forest in their backyard, you know, and then yes, cities and parks and conservation districts, folks working off of conservation.
00:06:53
Speaker
grants, you know, reforesting their farm or establishing perennial wildlife food plots. I think a big reason people are so interested in this is one that we're really standing on the shoulder of giants. You know, as that phrase goes, there's the generations ahead of all of us, the folks that got it and really saw the benefit and ecosystem values to these plants did a ton of legwork educating
00:07:17
Speaker
Communities on it and you know having very very small scale, you know backyard nurseries and now I'm able to go to some of them as my mentors and
00:07:26
Speaker
you know, learn from them. How did you communicate about this? You know, let's talk about how we show people the caterpillars on these plants. So just in general, you know, small, local scale, there's been a lot of education over the, you know, past decades and more. And then just a lot of research at the national level too. I have Doug Tallamy's book right here. You know, Post-it note marked up. He did research for folks that don't know up in the Northeast on
00:07:52
Speaker
I think the product of a lot of his books is about the pollinator relationships with these plants that we call native species that formed over evolution. Another big book I got that we lean on is Dr. Mary Wharton's Tree and Shrubs of Kentucky. Oh, that's a good one. I think we're reaching this point where the foundation has just been building, just thinking about building the soil. We're all trying to build the soil.
00:08:20
Speaker
It's just, it's become a really rich environment. People know about the plants and I think you're, you know, interested in just something different, you know, plants that really work with our landscape and it's starting to make sense to people. Before we get too deep into it, I guess we should kind of in a round way define what we're considering natives or how do people in general define that?
00:08:46
Speaker
Any of you guys have a definition you want to throw out there? I know we were talking a little bit about this earlier. It doesn't have to be super specific. But what's your all's definitions? Laura, especially you, where you're in the business of natives and you have all this personal interest in natives, what's your definition? Just curious. Yeah, I think that's an awesome place to start the conversation. And I think my answer may be a little unexpected.
00:09:14
Speaker
being someone who has run and sold native plants. And so I think there's a lot of different definitions that
00:09:25
Speaker
I think we've been handed from different places and some of that is just in general found in Kentucky or common in Kentucky. We see these in books, like some of the books I reference, old records that we have or cultural knowledge that was passed down, lists that were shared from UK or from Fish and Wildlife. I hear some folks trying to talk about a definition sticking to a particular timeline.
00:09:47
Speaker
Even they were here before Daniel Boone got here. Some other ways that people define native plants are maybe it's not just native to Kentucky as a state in which our borders that we have created, but they're more native to eco regions. What is native to the top of the mountains of Eastern Kentucky? What's native to the flood plains of the Mississippi River?
00:10:10
Speaker
Another way people define it is it's defined as a negative. Sometimes it's not quote unquote invasive or it's not quote unquote alien.
What Defines a Native Plant?
00:10:19
Speaker
But I really feel like these definitions that I just said aren't the full story because native actually changes based on the particular timeline that you're looking at. Our ecosystems have constantly been changing since the beginning of time and just like a stream is meandering back and forth trying to find a balance.
00:10:37
Speaker
The ecosystems are also orbiting around a balance. And so what we consider as quote unquote native here in this certain point in time is actually not the forever condition. You know, thinking about climate change that has, you know, Earth's climate has always been shifting, of course, drastically now with, you know, human induced climate change.
00:10:58
Speaker
disturbances, natural and man-made, ecosystems are just constantly shifting. So I think it's really hard to land on something particular and say, this is native. And I'm not even sure that's really of benefit. What I say, because sort of long story short, to answer the question that when I'm talking about the species that I'm growing and the word I've been handed to label them as native, but I'm really like longing for a different word, but
00:11:26
Speaker
Some of the traits I focus on are these are plants that have long standing deep relationships and connections with their ecosystems. They have evolved alongside the climate, hydrology, soils, pollinators, wildlife. They have these really complex, beautiful symbiotic relationships. And they have this ability to adapt as their ecosystem changes, as they have since the beginning of their time here.
00:11:54
Speaker
And then just in general, you have species that are working in balance and supporting mother nature trying to reach a balance. That's probably really good. I love your point that you made that natives don't stay in one spot because they move like everything else and they have different dispersal mechanisms. And I've heard that and part of the definitions in my readings that I've done is it's natives that progress with non-human or with no human intervention. That's one of the aspects of natives.
00:12:20
Speaker
Another that I've heard is, you know, pre-European settlement in the Americas. But all of this is kind of exactly what you said. They've developed in a certain way in their local ecologies. They don't have any kind of massive movement with intervention.
00:12:35
Speaker
Yeah, I like that a lot. I mean, I hadn't heard that articulated that way before, but it's like deep ties and relationships that pre-exist in these ecosystems. I like that a lot because my shorthand kind of answer usually is something like
00:12:51
Speaker
you know, was here pre-Columbian exchange. But you know, as you point out, it's like these are living things with processes. And there are all these external factors influencing things. So it's, it's, it's always going to be a moving target. We can't just pick one point in history pre 1492 and say, this belongs and this doesn't.
00:13:12
Speaker
or this fits and this doesn't yeah so that's really it's really it's really cool to think about just how long these timelines are of evolution and plant migration you know we are just here for such a short amount of time and we see these as you know the common plants that are here but that's just going to continue to change i think an interesting example i've been thinking about recently is
00:13:36
Speaker
Northern Cataupa, one of the plants we call
Catawba Trees: Native or Not?
00:13:39
Speaker
a native species here in Kentucky, they're huge ones in Central Kentucky, but actually in documentation I found it's like, well,
00:13:47
Speaker
They're actually, their eco region, they're quote unquote native to is Western Kentucky in the flood plains. And my grandmother tells a story of growing up on the farm and someone came by in a wagon to sell cotelpa trees. And that's why there's a row in the front of her yard of cotelpa trees. And so a lot of them, you know, now we must think in central Kentucky were planted or now, you know, have spread by their own, you know, seed.
00:14:13
Speaker
But I'm just thinking when we documented, we see catalpas just in Western Kentucky. At what point in May or plant migration did we catch them? They weren't always in Kentucky. Were they moving? Do we actually catch them at a moment in evolution when they were trying to get more north or more east or maybe out of Kentucky? We caught them at a very particular time. And so
00:14:37
Speaker
We know, you know, since then, climates change. Definitely soils have changed since then because like I said, you know, non-human and human interference and disturbance has happened. So yeah, I think it's just good to. Oh yeah. Go ahead. Sorry.
00:14:54
Speaker
I was just going to say, I think it's just, it's always, it's always nice to land on, you know, what, what do we just be curious and about the plants, you know, who are they interacting with and what are those relationships? How long have they been around? It's, it's way longer than us. Uh, Alexis, Laura and you too, Josh. I mean, when you speak with people about natives, are they thinking about things like this? I'm just wondering, particularly you, Laura, like when people come to you, like what's their motivation
00:15:21
Speaker
that they state for coming and, you know, because natives, that's a pretty niche thing sort of still. It's becoming more broad spread, but I mean, why do people say that they're interested in natives and they want to involve themselves with natives? Yeah, there's definitely a lot of support because of all this education and research that happened about supporting the pollinators.
00:15:44
Speaker
And so, as y'all, you know, I imagine you know, there's all of these insects in the world and 90% of them have evolved alongside just like one to three species of plants to reproduce and host on. Only 10% are generalists. It's kind of wild. And so, you know, Spicebush, like I mentioned earlier,
00:16:05
Speaker
It's cousin sassafras. They're the only host plants to the Spicebush swallowtail caterpillar. And people, you know, there's been a lot of campaigns, you know, creating monarch waste stations, which is amazing. And likewise, you know, a lot of these other butterflies and moths can only reproduce on certain plants. And so people will come just focused on that. You know, I've learned about the monarchs and the milkweed, and I want to do that for everybody else.
00:16:34
Speaker
I would say that was, it just seems like that stem that I was going to say that earlier, like that monarch and bees too, right? So I think whoever kind of these way stations for, and all these like, you know, they're starting with these like sort of B little B way stations, but the people who sort of created monarch way stations, I think whether they did it on purpose or not, but
00:16:58
Speaker
included a lot of plants that are good for other pollinators. And not always necessarily the exact host plants that are needed, but maybe it's a nectar source for something. So maybe it's not great for the caterpillar, but it can be good for the butterfly. But on top of that, let's create these waste stations and they'll pull double duty for something else. It created an awareness of that. There is a need for this. And so I think that's where a lot of native things came from, where
00:17:27
Speaker
they're deep diving into a monarch way station and then they're like oh look at this other little tab about swallowtails oh i didn't know that i'm gonna include that in my monarch way station and then you know it's like oh that's a native or is that native to my area what else can i support so it sort of just was like a trickle down effect the way i've seen it in my you know my area and so then they get to this ultimate place of like
00:17:48
Speaker
having these native gardens and they notice that their native plants seem to do better in their yards than, you know, their, you know, some of their other plants that they've gotten. And then all of a sudden they're killing off all of their ewes and their IVs and all those things and putting in. They're trying to kill those things. They're trying to kill them. They're trying. Yeah.
00:18:06
Speaker
And putting in these native species and really trying to do rain gardens, it just seems to be like this sort of trickle down effect that kind of, in at least my area, stemmed from sort of those monarch way stations and support the bees initiatives. And it was just like people just kept deep diving, kept clicking the next tab on the internet, right?
00:18:30
Speaker
But it's been good. It's been good to see people caring about other things as a result of caring about this kind of monarch and bee issue. I call pollinator gardens the gateway to natives. Exactly. And I see pollinator gardens like I was in front of Country Boy last year and I was like, oh, that's an awesome
00:18:51
Speaker
you know, pollinator garden and it raised so much awareness. And like you said, Alexis, it makes people ask other questions. And then it starts this whole line of inquiry kind of down the line. Like, well, I can support the monarchs, but what else can I do in my pollinator garden? It's just like, it's an excitement and all the different things that go along with that. It's, it's been great to see. I've got a friend who, it was like,
00:19:14
Speaker
that exact thing happened to her. It was like suddenly she found out that the monarchs were in trouble and she was like, I got to do something about this. It was like, you know, when we, when Laura, when you and I were young, it was the sea turtles, right? Like the sea turtles are all dying and we can't have straws and we got to cut our six packs up, right? So now it's like the monarch and the bee or the new sea turtle, but
00:19:33
Speaker
So I just watched her little garden grow and her come to me and say like, what else can I buy? What else can I buy? And now it's, you know, she's got four spice bushes and she's, she only buys plants based on what the, you know, pollinators and their different stages are and just the release of the caterpillars. And it's just a whole thing. And now she's getting into the birds and how does that ecosystem, you know, work into,
00:19:58
Speaker
you know, these pollinators that she's supporting and it's just, it's been fun to see how this like tiny little thing has grown into this massive garden that she's got with all these different natives involved.
00:20:11
Speaker
I think it's a really cool, yeah, that's cool. It's hard if, if not impossible once you learn about these interconnections to close your mind to the web. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. A lot of my talks when I'm talking to garden clubs or, you know, people, uh, a lot of my talks about native plants end up talking about the caterpillars, honestly, and birds and, you know, the insight, you know, thinking about,
00:20:40
Speaker
these woody plants are eaten by the insects. Then the insects do this incredible magic of transferring the sun's energy up the food web. They're so critical to every single aspect of the food web, of which we are a part of.
00:21:06
Speaker
But yeah, there's other, I think pollinators are a big gateway as y'all are saying. Butterflies are really the gateway. People love butterflies and if you can relate butterflies back to the plants that support them, you have them. It's easier to get kids involved, right? Because butterflies are so exciting and if you start them young with this idea, then it just
00:21:27
Speaker
flows up the system from these elementary schoolers. They mention that. I can't remember what class it was, but I remember somebody pointing out this phenomenon of the, quote unquote, charismatic megafauna. And it's like the animals that we like, that we look at. How do I save that? Because it's really hard to just say, well, ecosystems are cool. What do you embrace with that? How do you identify that? So it starts with saying,
00:21:54
Speaker
don't you care about this? And look, it's part of this whole huge family and it has a habitat and yeah. So the way it was put to me, Josh was you don't relate anything any plants that support cockroaches because people may not care about those butterflies, even though they're both important. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, they are they are here and they are important in their own way. And that sort of relates to another
00:22:19
Speaker
Another thing people come seeking out is they're doing removal of introduced species. I was hoping we were going to talk about that, yes. I think it's hard to talk, if we're calling one thing native, people want to call something different. They want to give another name to it.
Restoration with Native Plants
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, people are working on their property to remove, introduce plants like garlic mustard, bush honeysuckle, you know, further down south it's kudzu. I mean, the list goes on. And so as people are doing removal, they are replanting with native plants. You know, an example is that
00:22:58
Speaker
part of the canopy that spice bush in our woods typically occupies when a forest is disturbed and bush honeysuckle is able to take up that space, that then isn't space for spice bush. But I think, I mean, similar to my definition of native being a little bit more complex, I think it's also
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, talking about who we call invasives is also really important. I got some customers who say that they hate invasives and speak really harshly, use really emotional harsh language about them, and are buying woodies from me. Then maybe the next appointment an hour later will be a customer who is speaking very differently about
00:23:46
Speaker
quote-unquote invasives and they might be folks living with bush honeysuckle and managing it spread through grazing and also planting natives or you know down south folks are learning more about kudzu and piecing in that cultural knowledge that none of us had when you know
00:24:02
Speaker
everybody was introducing it, you know, how do communities live and work with it, use it as food and fiber and medicine in Asia. And I just think it's wonderful and funny that, you know, both are seeking out these species that we've already talked about have so much value, and even guys we haven't mentioned, you know, pollinator support, but riparian buffers, you know, help for our water quality, food crops, all of that. But I think when we talk about invasives,
00:24:27
Speaker
the, I think it's really important to name that we have to first accept where we're at now. You know, we have caused, we as humans have caused a ton of disturbance that is here. You know, an example is Bush Honeysuckle didn't just come in and take over pristine, giant, healthy forest. You know, we first logged those forests and took away their ability to support Spice Bush.
00:24:52
Speaker
And we've learned now that, you know, bush honeysuckle is one that can really thrive in those conditions. And so the way I want to operate and, you know, encourage other folks to operate is just, you know, taking responsibility, lean into that acceptance and learn from these why's, you know, why actually is this happening and why were the monarchs struggling so much? Why are, you know, the horticulture industry too has, I mean, a giant responsibility for bringing in introduced plants that brought within diseases and beetles and,
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah, we have caused a lot of disturbance and changed the ecosystem so quickly. Usually, this would have taken place. Evolution happens when things are out of whack and we have whacked up so many things. Understatement of the year, Laura. It's whacky out here. At the same time, I believe Mother Earth is handling this. She's the best one who knows
00:25:47
Speaker
Who knows how? Her timeline, though, is just much longer, much more sustained than ours. And so we've created so many opportunities for evolution to happen. And some of us aren't patient enough to wait another 1,000 or 10,000 years to see how this all shakes out, how the stream meanders back. And so that's why there are definitely folks who are putting energy into removal and replanting. And at the same time, like I said,
00:26:15
Speaker
at least the other 50% of my customer base are folks that are living with these introduced species and still planting natives, you know, not letting anything stop them. Somebody's, one person's invasive is another area's native. And I thought that was interesting because they were just pointing out the fact that it kind of all relates to the speed with which somebody brought something somewhere typically, or they disturbed an environment that led something in that was, you know, maybe moved through human intervention.
00:26:43
Speaker
But I thought that was really cool. They said one person's native is another person's invasive, and they were just speaking to the fact that, you know, it's here now. We deal with it. And I had a completely different take when I was, prior job, I was a commercial landscaper. And I never thought about it in terms of natives at that point. I thought about it in terms of whatever I could get my hands on, but I loved working with natives.
00:27:06
Speaker
because they were adapted to local conditions and I had less follow up phone calls typically with plants that were considered natives. And that's one of the things I think from a functional perspective in landscapes is I love the thought of natives that they are well adapted to the local ecology, the local environment.
00:27:28
Speaker
And that's one of the reasons that I recommend them a lot because I think in the long run, they're not zero maintenance, especially during establishment. Maybe that's a misconception we can talk about a little bit. They do take a little bit of establishment in some cases.
00:27:41
Speaker
But yeah, that's the reason I like natives, is that their adaptability, that they are adapted rather, so. And I think sometimes when I'm working with gardeners who, you know, maybe they have a very traditional landscape, you know, they have nandina, they have day lilies, boxwood, those kinds of things, nothing wrong with them, but they're, you know, ready to, they want to do a total overhaul because they feel, I think a lot of the time, some level of like guilt, you know, and they're just like, I gotta completely overhaul it.
00:28:09
Speaker
but they still want this no maintenance or low maintenance. And you're like, well, invasives are low maintenance, but then you start telling them the names of some of these natives. You know, you've got, and what I'm thinking of immediately is things like Joe Pi or some of the solid day goes, which is a golden rod, which is the state Kentucky flower in case you guys didn't know. I know you guys know, but like listeners, if you didn't know,
00:28:35
Speaker
You start telling them this and all they can think about is sort of that very aggressive. It's everywhere. You know, they think of it more as a weed. And I, that's, I think why I kind of hate the word invasive. I almost wish it was something called like alien because you know, goldenrod can be like invasive in your garden beds. If you don't have a good species, you know, if you have a very aggressive species and so it's natives can be aggressive. It can be kind of hard sometimes when you're talking to people who.
00:29:01
Speaker
really want the idea of natives, but they don't want to work hard. Right. Yeah. The low maintenance landscape, right? Low maintenance landscape in general. When I used to do more work with like the nursery extension stuff, you know, because there's a, there's a profound benefit to having a quote unquote low maintenance landscape that you're not having to mow and stuff like that repeatedly.
00:29:25
Speaker
But I think one of the educational framings I used to use was to point out that a backyard isn't truly like the middle of a forest. So when you are planting species, they don't have the benefit of being surrounded by all of their existing friends and family connections. It's a tree on its own. And that's why it needs more attention and support because it's in that built environment. We've already kind of
00:29:54
Speaker
changed, it's like typical place in such a way that we have to- Well, and not all of the land, like we were saying earlier, what's native? Well, it could be found in Kentucky, but is it found in Western Kentucky or is it found in the hills of Kentucky type of thing? And you're trying to plant both of those things in a full sun area that it might not, that maybe it's a full sun plant, but it's more alkaline or it's more acidic. So just because it's native,
00:30:20
Speaker
And I tell people that all the time, like I just got a question this morning, someone wanting to know where to find a bunch of white pine seedlings. And I said, well, like here's, you know, I gave them some options on where to find, you know, a hundred or whatever seedlings. And then I said, but if it's, if you have clay soil,
00:30:36
Speaker
That's not, we don't see them thrive here. They thrive over by the gorge, over on areas that have a sand here, maybe a more acidic soil. Uh, the drainage is very different and you know, we're only an hour, an hour and a half from the gorge, but we have heavy clay here so that, you know, just because white pine might be found in those areas does not mean that it's going to do well in Boyle County, Kentucky. So just like thinking about that and it's, it can be just as, just sometimes it's hard to think about natives, uh, as it is to think about
00:31:06
Speaker
you know, just any plant that you're going to find at Lowe's or something. Well, yeah, we have this. I was going to say we have this like kind of association because it's a gradient, right? Like if you go into like a very maybe not a downtown space, but a tightly population dense area, that built environment can be 100 percent artificial. You can create whatever soil texture you want and depth and all that. But as you move outwards, you're
00:31:34
Speaker
less and less likely to be doing something like that, right? Like the energy required to do something like that just becomes too costly and you'd rather not create something brand new and instead work with what you've got. Yeah, sometimes it's a really cool. There's some really cool work that landscapers are now you might be hearing people call themselves native landscapers, just meaning they have a specialty in designing
00:32:03
Speaker
these landscapes based on these species that we've been talking about that have all these interconnections with the ecosystem around us. Sometimes I think people have a misconception that a quote unquote native landscape is more wild looking or more messy.
00:32:24
Speaker
It's really, there's a lot of possibilities with using these plants in a landscape. And I tell people just because it maybe looks a little bit more wild, it's not going to look like a boxwood. Maybe thank goodness for that. It's going to look interesting and then in so many different ways. And just because something maybe looks a little bit more wild, it doesn't mean that it looks messy.
00:32:47
Speaker
But I really enjoyed getting to work with certain landscapers because that is something when people are coming out and learning about these species from and with me. A lot of people are still wanting to seek out some landscape design support because it can be intimidating if you're working on a landscape that you really want to aesthetically look good. And I've seen some amazing ones where there's a flower show throughout the year. Yeah.
00:33:14
Speaker
come out like fireworks. One of my friends called it, as she described them, I thought that was a really beautiful way to put it. The color palettes are just beautiful tones. You can't almost beat the palettes of what American Plum turns into throughout the year, just starting off with
00:33:35
Speaker
the white, white flowers, even before there are any leaves on the tree, plum has just covered in white flowers and then the green foliage just gets greener throughout the season and then the dots of red plums pop up and then the foliage turns. It's just, it's a show just like we get to see the sky change every day.
00:33:54
Speaker
You know, that sounds like good landscaping principles. Are you telling me that natives are not magical? I still have to use good landscaping principles. You have to know something about the soil, Alexis. Josh, you have to know something about the ecology of the spice bush because it's a mid story, not an upper store. I mean, so we're talking about just, I mean, you still have to adhere to those principles. Are you finding that that's why our landscapers kind of, do they take that into account? I'm sure.
00:34:22
Speaker
Laura, when they come to you, they have a specialty. So I'm just assuming that they do take that into account. Oh yeah. Yeah. These folks are, I mean, as curious as they, as they should be about these plants and really particular about the spots to put them in. And I do say to people, you know, if you're going to try a plant in a different spot, you may be not a typical spot for it. A native is a good, a good one to give a shot at, you know, out of all of them.
00:34:50
Speaker
But yeah, they do. It is really important to communicate where they like to be. And I'll often ask people just, you know, look at landscapes that you really admire or want to emulate, you know, or bring closer, you know, home to you. What plans are there? What's the spacing of them that are there?
Hybridized Natives in Landscaping
00:35:06
Speaker
What's the upper, mid and lower canopy? And then we think about the phases to establish those.
00:35:12
Speaker
We kind of been talking about, you know, we mentioned what your definition of native and things like that. And one thing that I think pops up a lot, at least when I talk about natives with people is the native plants that have been hybridized. So it's, you know, an echinacea or a baptism or even a maple tree, right? So we have native maple trees here and maybe it's, it is our true genus species, like native, but it's been hybridized. What is everyone's like feelings on those, um, mine is that.
00:35:45
Speaker
It depends on what your goals are, right? So when I'm talking to someone and their goals are a pollinator garden or a garden that is going to support the ecosystem in some way, as far as birds or whatever, usually I'm pointing them towards the straight species because a lot of the time our hybrids have been, they're bred more for something showy or
00:36:07
Speaker
You know, better fall color, better flower color, bigger flowers. So a lot of the time those nectar sources or leaves, even sometimes leaf size, all of that has been bred out or is that a minimal? But if there's people who are like, I just want a garden that is going to be better, you know, it's going to establish better. Maybe it's going to weather the weather, the weather better kind of thing, or there's like a hard to a very challenging area to garden.
00:36:36
Speaker
in their garden, you know, then, then going with a hybrid is not a bad thing necessarily. And, you know, I grow, I'll cut flowers and I grow a lot of natives. Like that's kind of my, my niche is natives for cuts and I have a mix of solid species and hybrids because they bloom at different times. And so in my mind, I'm supporting the ecosystem, but I'm also putting less into them.
00:37:02
Speaker
So it's kind of, I don't know, that's how I, when I talk to people, it's really like, what is your goals with the natives? What are your all's thoughts on that? Like those hybrids and things. I'm with you on that, Alexis. It is, yeah, it comes down to what, what are your goals? And same thing with folks doing introduced removal, you know, what are your goals with this?
00:37:21
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen some different pieces of science about how even leaf chemistry can change with hybridization and things like that. So yeah, I think it's just looking into what are your goals with it and for this particular cultivar or clone that you're looking at.
00:37:37
Speaker
you know, just learn a little bit more about it. I do talk to folks about, I grow a lot of fruit and nut species, but just the straight native species. And so when folks come to me and they're looking for a particular pop off,
00:37:52
Speaker
cultivar or elderberry or hazelnut. I'll point them to some awesome growers we have here in Kentucky who really specialize in those specialty orchard species, but I like to talk about the straight native species and the genetic diversity that you're supporting the ecosystem with.
00:38:16
Speaker
I've planted plenty of cultivars and will add a handful into our orchards here and there, but I'm also planting a lot of a straight native species because those are going to be the ones that have a shot at being really adaptable with any sort of disturbances or climate shifts that are happening.
00:38:33
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree with both of y'all, although the phrasing I usually use coming from ecology is the cheap answer. It depends, but it does depend on like every question can be answered with, it depends. And, you know, same thing. If somebody's looking for kind of wildlife support and, you know, restoration of habitat and things like that, then definitely the kind of the straight native. But if somebody is looking more for
00:39:00
Speaker
especially in like an environment that they want to, you know, protect their house from like wind or something like that, like some other ecosystem service. And it's an environment that's like really harsh or cruel than, you know, something that's kind of been bred a little bit to be more like structurally, like tough, pleasing. Yeah. Yeah. Question for you guys. You guys are the perfect group to throw this at.
00:39:27
Speaker
But let's say somebody is brand new to the concept of natives and they're looking for just general support. They're looking to find out more information. What's your all's favorite references? Lord, you've already thrown out some, two very good ones. But how about websites or other resources where they can go and plug in something like a zip code and get some information on ground covers or upper story trees or, you know, grasses that may be native. Do you guys have any favorites? I know we have some good ones here in Kentucky.
00:39:58
Speaker
As far as websites go, uh, let's do websites. I'm a big fan of, um, what is it? The Kentucky native plant society. I've been on their website a whole lot because I love the fact that, um, you can do things, uh, by zip code and they've got a lot of resources on there, but, but what else? How do you guys direct people as they're just looking to get more information?
00:40:21
Speaker
The one that I have, I leave, I don't even print the whole publication because I think I can throw some people off, but I print out the tables that are in that and it's something that's always out for the public to get to whether I'm here or not.
00:40:37
Speaker
is we have a rain garden publication that in it is how to put in a rain garden, blah, blah, blah, but it's also rain garden plants. But in these tables, it has everything set out. I love a good table, right? And so you can go to shrubs or ferns or these herbaceous perennials, all of these different styles of plants.
00:41:02
Speaker
And then you can go through there and you can just look at a box and be like, okay, I need a shade plant that's in a dry area. Here's a list of them. And so you can kind of cancel them out wet area that's in full sun or whatever that mixes. And so I leave that, I just
00:41:17
Speaker
take that out of that publication. We can put that in the show notes. And so for Kentucky, but it could be, you know, useful if you're in any area, you might have to do a little bit more research, but at least you have those options in front of you that you're like, Oh, well, I have a dry shade area.
Resources for Native Plant Landscaping
00:41:32
Speaker
Here's some plants that would do well. And then maybe you have to call your local extension or do some more research on your local native plant groups. But I love that. And I use it all the time. And then for my people who have some design,
00:41:46
Speaker
who really need someone to design it for them, essentially, or just struggle with that, which I'm one of them, so no judgment. Actually, the city of Lexington has some really good ... I forget what it's called. I'll find one. I want to call it plant by the numbers. Is it the approved Lexington street trees or something? I think it's the list of their street trees, but it's this native. I think it's plant by numbers.
00:42:10
Speaker
Plant by numbers. So there is Josh, yes, the street trees. If we're talking about trees, yes, but the plant by numbers for Lex, they have a couple different options. Full shade, full sun, around your mailbox or around your home and what, and they're, I think all natives or mostly natives and it has like color scheme. So if you're like, I love blues and pinks, I would love to plant around my mailbox, native plants and blues and pinks. They give you a list and they give you just like a general picture.
00:42:40
Speaker
So you can kind of imagine what that would look like. And I think that can be really helpful for people who are just wanting to get started, know where to go. Those have been really great when I've worked with people. And then they adjust that, right? They might take that plant by numbers and they say, oh, I don't like the look of that. I'm going to add in this different echinacea from this other list. But it helps visualize that. So I give that to everybody. Is that just for like Central Kentucky and Lexington, Alexis, that resource?
00:43:09
Speaker
You can look it up online, but it's got natives on it. So again, you'd have to kind of think about what is native, but for most people, their homes are pretty, what did you call it earlier, Josh? A built environment. Yeah, like a built environment. So it can be a little bit more applicable to I think most of Kentucky. But again, you got to do a little bit of legwork on your own, but the basis is there.
00:43:33
Speaker
It seems like the lady bird Johnson, you mentioned like how you can drill down a list, uh, given specific like sun versus shade versus soil type, uh, national one that I use as the lady bird Johnson out of, I believe Texas. Uh, but it's the wildflower center and it's. Applies to the entire country based on zip code, but it can be very specific. It's drill down tool is amazing. The lady bird Johnson wildflower center. Or have you ever.
00:44:00
Speaker
Heard of that one or used that one. I love that one because you can get so specific based on specific sites. I really like that one. Yeah, I've definitely used that website before and it has, like you said, really particular information about, especially the pollinators, which caterpillars are hosted by that plant and all of that. I think just even wherever you're at, listening to this, just finding a guidebook of the trees and shrubs that are found in your area.
00:44:30
Speaker
It doesn't even have to have native in the title, but just what are the plants around me that I can start to get to know. I think a companion guide to that would be what are the insects around me, even just a butterfly and moth guide to start off with. You really want to have some of the full circle picture, get a book of the mushrooms, the fungus that's found in your area. It's all connected as we know.
00:44:55
Speaker
But I love having just a stack of books with me and just, yeah, classic, taking them to the woods with you. Wherever you're at, whichever country you may be in, there's probably going to be some reference materials for the flora and fauna that's there. So I guess if you're a self-directed learner, just seek out that information. Try to find some reputable information on where things can be located. It's maybe different. It's going to be different for your area. Yeah.
00:45:24
Speaker
Yeah, and talk to any grower that's in your area, you know, and whether they call themselves a native species grower or not, you know, and again, a lot of people, something I've really learned is
00:45:35
Speaker
A lot of us are out here growing plants and we may not have a native tree nursery or a flower farm, but something is really in the air calling a lot of people right now to grow from seed and cuttings and just get more plants out into the world. I've had my fair share of setting up at farmer's markets with containing plants and I see a lot of other people doing that too. Just talking and sharing knowledge is a really
00:46:05
Speaker
a really powerful way of learning about these plants too. So one thing we actually, we got so excited about like the in-depth of like, what is a native and all of the ecology of it all? But we didn't actually ask you what, I mean, we know you grow natives obviously, but tell us more about what you all have there and what is available for people in the area.
Offerings at Oakland Farm
00:46:28
Speaker
Yeah, sure. We grow about over 30 species of trees and shrubs. We started the nursery 10 years ago first as an effort just to get more trees planted on the farm. So much of our land, it was cleared and we love to get trees back for livestock, but also Kennedy Creek runs through our farm, which drops into Stoner Creek, which is Paris's water supply.
00:46:57
Speaker
We just know about our watersheds and water flow. Every bit of it is really important. My family actually, I guess about 15 years ago, planted a native buffer around that creek. We just want to continue to piece that back together, get more shade for cattle, add some orchards, get more deer on this farm would be awesome.
00:47:18
Speaker
And then we started to diversify the farm operations too. I'm the sixth generation to be stewarding this land. And so what's my piece of the puzzle here, running cattle, but what else could we do? And so just economically diverse the operation was a part of this goal too. So yeah, we grow. Everything is in two gallon containers. Everyone is in two gallon containers.
00:47:43
Speaker
We started off growing big canopy trees, you know, a ton of oaks, tulip poplar, sycamore, coffee tree, black gum. And the more I learned about all these species around us, I got really interested in our edible landscape plants, papa, American plum, all the different hickories we have. We have some huge hickories on the farm.
00:48:06
Speaker
hazelnut, and then our native flowering shrubs. Our native flowering shrubs are just amazing. Some can get 10 plus foot tall and create living hedges or privacy screens. Sometimes folks come to me and ask about, I want to block out an AC unit or block out a view of a fence or my neighbors.
00:48:27
Speaker
I'm like, well, my pines are in two gallon containers that are pretty small, so it's going to take a minute for them to get that big. But I've been able to convince a handful of people, let's plant some Carolina allspice, let's plant some spice bush or American plum in this hedgerow. And during the year, you can't see through that at all. And there's a ton of winter interest in that too, even when the leaves fall back. So yeah, we grow, all the containers are above ground.
00:48:54
Speaker
on an irrigation system, which of course is really helpful. They're all between one and four foot tall. We're always trying to get them a little taller, but make sure the priority is that root ball, making sure the roots are happy and healthy. We stopped growing in plastic probably maybe six years ago. The roots can just circle so much in plastic, especially when I might be caretaking for these plants a couple of growing seasons before
00:49:22
Speaker
They go to their forever home when people buy them. We started growing in these fiber pots that are made from recycled plastic water bottles. It's really neat. I see a lot of those on the market now. The ones I have aren't biodegradable, so you've got to cut them off.
00:49:39
Speaker
But yeah, just trying to grow really healthy and high quality plants that people are interested in. Every year I've tried different plants. Some I grow from seed that we collect on the farm. We have some beautiful
00:49:57
Speaker
oak trees and hickories and the plums we've planted and nine bark and grow from seed from our stock and many others and then some we buy in as starts and our value add is growing them out for people. In the woody market, in the industry, there's one end of the spectrum is bare roots that we've all seen and handed out at giveaways or been on the receiving end of and those can be pretty cheap
00:50:26
Speaker
per stem, 80 cents, maybe a dollar per stem and really quick to go into the ground, but also because they don't have a lot of roots on them, it's going to take them a while just to get established. Other end of the spectrum is the big trees you buy that are wrapped in, it's called ball and burlap. They're normally grown in the ground and then cut out of the ground.
00:50:48
Speaker
that process can sometimes take as much as 30% of their roots off. So it's going to be hard to get top growth on that plant until those roots grow back. And so our intention has always been let's grow a really solid, established, healthy root ball. So these plants are ready to sink into the soil and get growing. And in that sense, death loss is typically a lot lower than either, you know, those other ends of the spectrum and even maintenance can be lower too.
00:51:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that's awesome. The friend I told you whose garden has just exploded over the years has a couple of your trees. I can tell you that they are also alive after two years and they are huge. They took off super fast.
00:51:36
Speaker
that you all do a great job and really care that root ball, like you said, is so important for those young trees. And I think a lot of people can, there's research done on sizes of trees and there's, everyone always thinks, well, I'm going to go put in this big three inch caliper tree because it's kind of that instant gratification. They want the bigger, the better, but research is showing that some of these smaller ones, these one inch
00:52:00
Speaker
which are a little bit larger than what you're talking about, but are within three years are bigger than those really big, big ones. So it's kind of like, yeah, you got to be a little bit patient, but it's only a year and you're planting a tree that will probably outlive you. So a year is nothing.
00:52:15
Speaker
to wait. Commercial landscapes were notorious for that. Right. Get more bankrupt and you're cheaper, and that all comes back to usually that root system is a lot less disturbed. And so the size that you all are doing are also really manageable for people. I have planted ball and burlap trees and man, that's an ordeal. Even a smaller ball and burlap tree, you're lugging it around, you're trying not to break it.
00:52:39
Speaker
is just like, I mean, if I didn't have a gift card for a really nice tree, I would have bought a much smaller one because I can plant that by myself. There's definitely a given take on that. Yeah, that's right. Sometimes you got to bring out some equipment. It was all grown out. It was a whole thing. Yeah. I've seen little kids plant our trees and that's pretty cool.
00:53:06
Speaker
The size of our root balls is pretty nice. We've experimented a handful of ways. If we have folks buying a few hundred trees and we're trying to get as many out on our farm, what is the most efficient way to get them in the ground? It is a two gallon, so it's a couple shovel strokes. We'll dig that hole. We've used the auger on the tractor too.
00:53:29
Speaker
just to zip in some holes, and it's a good size, but you got to be careful using some of that equipment. They can just really create a smooth sidewall of that hole. Yeah, like that glaze. Yeah. Exactly, and you want to just score that up and give the group something to penetrate into.
00:53:49
Speaker
But yeah, we, yeah, like I've said, we have folks come out for pollinator support food crops, perennial food crops for wildlife, instead of planting a bunch of annuals, annual corn or soybeans for deer, for example, or, you know, turkey, whatever, whatever you're trying to put in the freezer, planting a bunch of trees, and we plant a bunch of persimmon, maybe you get some too, you know, and hold some deer on your farm, and then a big
00:54:17
Speaker
a big, you know, set of projects that we support, our plants support, our riparian restoration and stream restoration projects. I think our waterways just need a ton of help, you know, talk about whacked out, you know, disturbed situations, you know, that's a big one. Yeah. All the invasives and disturbances. Yeah.
00:54:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That we, I mean, it all just comes back to us, you know, that we, we brought all that, all that here. And so, um, as, as folks are, you know, trying to put some money and some time into helping our streams and increase the water quality, the, the plants, whether it's the herbaceous perennials or it's the next level up, you know, the mid canopy shrubs or the, or the trees, you know, they all fit into that project as well.
00:55:02
Speaker
Sweet.
Visiting Oakland Farm
00:55:03
Speaker
Well, any last questions before I to ask Laura, how we can find her and contact her and follow her and all that good stuff. Any lasting questions? Awesome. Well, Laura, tell us how can they find you? How can they buy trees? How can they just follow around on your journey? All that good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Just come talk about plants. Share your email with me too. We have a, our, our nursery's name is Oakland farm trees.
00:55:31
Speaker
We're in Bourbon County right outside of Paris, Kentucky on Winchester Road. You can find us online at oaklandfarmtrees.com as well as on Instagram at our name and Facebook. We only do appointments at the nursery and so it's my number and my email on all these different platforms and so
00:55:51
Speaker
you can just reach out and we book an appointment and you come out and visit. At a handful of times, we've had events on the farm for tree week, hosted urban forest initiative here in Lexington or garden clubs have also scheduled visits to come out and university classes. So if anybody has a group that wants to come out and see a small mid-scale nursery operation, happy to show what we do and what we know, and sometimes we even get to travel back
00:56:21
Speaker
on the farm and just see the 350 year old oak trees and the hickories we harvest from and we put in a stand of native warm season grasses. It's pretty cool to see those growing. So yeah, we're trying to do a lot of different stuff and just build a farm operation that isn't reactive so much as it's proactive and just supporting mother nature.
00:56:43
Speaker
Awesome. Well, that's so exciting. Well, thank you so much Laura for being here with us and talking natives. Like I said, it was something that a lot of people commented on. So when you were like, Hey, I was like, yes, come hither. Let's talk all of the things. So we're really excited that you were able to join us today. And I am excited to come out and see all the cool stuff that you're going to do. So
00:57:05
Speaker
Now I'm just going to come out and we're going to be like, I know you, we're best friends. Anyways, thank you. That sounds really good to me and thank you all so much for the conversation and the opportunity to be in conversation.
00:57:19
Speaker
in this world with y'all. Thanks for doing what y'all do on your end. Happy to have people like you out there doing the good things and making these things available. I know, like I said, Ray and I, people come to us all the time. They're like, where do we get it? It's really awesome now to have people to recommend that we know have good quality product and really care about not just making a sale, but the whole ecosystem and how those interact.
00:57:45
Speaker
If you have any questions, you can definitely contact Laura or you can contact us and we will get with her. And if you want to contact us, you would do that. You can shoot us an email. That link is in the show notes. You can also follow us on Instagram and shoot us a DM, which is what Laura did. Uh, so see, it's not me just making up that you can contact us on there because you can, and it'll be me. So, you know, just FYI. So you can do that. That's hort culture podcasts.
00:58:09
Speaker
If you want to leave us a review just tell us just if you just want to love on Laura and tell her how awesome she is Please feel free to do that and you don't even have to bring up the rest of us because who are we she's amazing Tell her how awesome all the things she's doing are but we hope to hear from you guys soon Thank you for being here with us and we hope that as we grow this podcast you will grow with us and join us next week Have a great one