Denise Ellsworth: Okay, so it's my pleasure to introduce Deborah Knapke who is an author a lecturer and instructors who teach us lots of different plant material.
Denise Ellsworth: Courses she does a lot of presentations two groups she's a garden designer as Julie mentioned she's she's very involved in the Community, she helps their chadwick she also works with the governor's mansion that has a.
Denise Ellsworth: really wonderful native plants of landscape they're very involved with Community issues and and ecological and sustainable gardening known also as the garden sage.
Denise Ellsworth: So deb thanks so much for coming this morning, you can go ahead and start your slides I really appreciate your being with us and teaching us about how we can incorporate some of these great native plants that we've learned about into our own landscapes.
Debra Knapke: Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much to Nice for the introduction and also the burning question that seems to get asked every time Denise and I are together is, are we sisters not biologically, but I would say, spiritually and ecologically we are so there you go.
Debra Knapke: You know it's funny that comes up a lot and there's another person in the horticulture industry who we look very similar and we've been asked the same question So yes, you have many sisters in this world.
Debra Knapke: So my job today is to talk about native plants some design information, how do you make choices and decisions and.
Debra Knapke: Just you know i'm thinking, how do I encapsulate design into 15 minutes when I teach several quarters or semesters now on that so here, it is this is a scattershot of so many ideas just come along for the ride and let's see where we end up so.
Debra Knapke: This is part of my backyard and there are many native plants and i'll get back to what's actually back here now, but this was a picture I took back in about 2012.
Debra Knapke: And unfortunately another thing that I do have in this backyard are invasive plants, which is not something i'll talk a lot about today, but.
Debra Knapke: just want you to know that I know many of you are battling and basic plants and I have battled it for the 37 years that i've lived on this property so when people ask me what is an invasive plant I say it's tenacious and almost impossible to get rid of So there you are.
Debra Knapke: So our gardens are home places and of curve, it has taught us anything we really want our home places to reflect, who we are.
Debra Knapke: For us it's it's a place it's a space, it is our space we have ideas and we have themes we want our garden to reflect.
Debra Knapke: And, and there are many ideas and a lot of times, we have to be careful how much we want, because then we'll get nothing done.
Debra Knapke: A garden is where something happens growth and change, you can depend on it, and for those that put in a landscape and say okay i'm done now that's not the way nature works.
Debra Knapke: And our gardens are an ecology created by us, that is full of life, its foundation is the soil, and it is an environment that by creating we are responsible for maintaining.
Debra Knapke: and supporting, so why do we design places, so this is a border that I created it no longer looks anything like this well, maybe a couple things, there are four native plants in here.
Debra Knapke: And the rest are non natives.
Debra Knapke: As a horticulturist I like to grow.
Debra Knapke: Everything so many choices, and the only time I can fit something in, as you can see in this borders when something dies so.
Debra Knapke: As as things pass on in my garden different areas change, but the for native plants if you've spotted them the BAT tia and the far right, the oakley hydrangea in the lower left and in the middle.
Debra Knapke: They will be revealed later in late summer early fall are to at that time sinister few there, but we now call them back to or the.
Debra Knapke: Oh good golly.
Debra Knapke: isn't it funny I I can remember the botanical names, much more than I can the common names and it'll come to me later, but beans there we go.
Debra Knapke: So one of the reasons we garden is to create beauty to beautify a space to make it beautiful, for us, and sometimes it's a bit of a challenge with the joneses next door.
Debra Knapke: We also garden to support and to save would you believe For those of you who are not butterfly aficionados these two caterpillars are actually the same species.
Debra Knapke: A caterpillar has four in stars a butterfly caterpillar for changes it goes through, and what you're looking at the the beautiful sort of.
Debra Knapke: I don't know what you call see green caterpillar in the upper left is the fourth in star of the Spice Bush swallowtail and, if you look at the bird poop one.
Debra Knapke: In fact, the first in star looks like a little droplet of bird poop and then it gets closer and closer and I believe this is the third in star of the Spice Bush swallowtail.
Debra Knapke: And it makes me question why does nature take something that's nicely camouflaged looks like bird poop and turn it into a beacon say here I am eat me because that's really an obvious caterpillar when you when you see it in its fourth in star.
Debra Knapke: We also prepare soil if you're in a new build and a new build can go back as far as 25 5075 years where the soil is disturbed and, especially, more recently, when we brought in the big machines and we build big houses.
Debra Knapke: And we really rip up the soil, a big job of a gardener is to give back to the soil to get that nutrient cycling recycling going back and to get the biological Community back to where it was before this.
Debra Knapke: it's also to teach we use our Community gardens to make connections to bring people together to not only heal the earth, but to heal the connections, we have between people.
Debra Knapke: and honestly I can't think of anything that brings people more together than to grow food and flowers and herbs and then to use those and and the children here at Highland avenue.
Debra Knapke: The Highland Youth Community garden it's just amazing how excited they are you can't help but smile when you're there.
Debra Knapke: We also garden to amaze those special special plants those special events we have in our gardens, and if you look, this is at the Atlanta botanic garden, I was there in 2017, which was the year after marijuana came out.
Debra Knapke: rubber water and I came around the corner and saw this and she's she's huge and I was with a group of people, and we were just snapping our cameras on our phones like crazy.
Debra Knapke: And we garden to calm and to inspire to get back our mental health to relieve our stresses, and if again if it's anything that coven taught me is that my garden, other than my family is the most important thing in my life.
Debra Knapke: We also garden to grow, and this is a design, I want you to take a look at this, because I, this is a balcony next to where.
Debra Knapke: My son and daughter in law used to live in Cincinnati and look at the care in the placement of the tomatoes and the staking of the tomatoes and the blue and yellow chairs that match the watering can.
Debra Knapke: That is design of the first order and it's simple but it's design and it's loving design and it's healthy designed to growing your own food.
Debra Knapke: So, excuse me just a moment.
Debra Knapke: So how do we design places.
Debra Knapke: Well, we love the pretty it always comes down to making an attractive place this is at a public garden and it's a form of design with repeated plants and hard scape that is repeated and those beautiful box with stones up on the.
Debra Knapke: that's what the big round, things are called when you do that with box wood box with stones up on the wall and then repeated over, on the other side.
Debra Knapke: We also can use historical constructs, this is the cloisters in New York City and it actually was built in 1933 to look like a cloisters that you would have seen in high medieval Europe.
Debra Knapke: And 1100 1200s and the garden is supposed to look like that to have, though I seriously doubt that there would have been grass underneath the tree, it would have been more of a flowery made.
Debra Knapke: So, but as you're looking at this, you can see herbs and you can see just a lot of plants what we call the cottage garden style and again based on kind of a historical construct.
Debra Knapke: And here we create a place for repose for contemplation.
Debra Knapke: We look at we look at it will shake it to me always is a calming calming place and this isn't still caught crop gardens in New York City.
Debra Knapke: An amazing garden if you're ever in westchester county please stop, by the way, I noticed that we have people from all over the country in Canada and I saw South Africa so welcome i'm sure that wherever you are, you see examples of this in public and private gardens.
Debra Knapke: And sometimes we don't create the garden the garden is a prairie, this is a.
Debra Knapke: A protected place, if you will, the bigelow bigelow cemetery prairie bigelow family, you can see some of the that the monuments in the background.
Debra Knapke: And we not so much plant this as care for it and Edit it and make sure that invasive plants don't get in there and all the plants that you see here for the most part, our native plants and this.
Debra Knapke: This quote from Oliver sacks is very telling.
Debra Knapke: Nature calls to something very deep in US biophilia the love of nature and living things is an essential part of the human condition heart ophelia the desire to interact with manage and tender nature is also deeply instilled in us and it is.
Debra Knapke: So a lot of our gardens.
Debra Knapke: You know, when we think of a design it's something like this, and this is the design burger to Chico she designed in the 1800s late 1800s early 1900s.
Debra Knapke: In England and there are some of her gardens, or at least designs for her gardens here in the United States.
Debra Knapke: On Oh, she over planted Oh, my goodness, where one plant should go she put for.
Debra Knapke: She also have these beautiful gardens that needed a lot of tending this is high, maintenance.
Debra Knapke: And when you look at this it looks like everything's in bloom at once and it's not exactly that way, but a lot of these weren't blue, at the same time.
Debra Knapke: Lots of color lots of maintenance and while we like this honestly I prefer to see this in a public garden bed in a in a in my private garden because I don't have that much time.
Debra Knapke: Traditionally, in in when we teach garden design we teach our students, how to draw it out, we teach them to go on to a site and see what's there.
Debra Knapke: analyze what's working what's not what needs to change what does the client want what what what can we give them to for their dreams to come true.
Debra Knapke: we create a plan looks something like this, there are many kinds of plans, and this is from one of the books that I used when I taught at Columbus state.
Debra Knapke: And you know we go to a lot of effort to put it down onto paper we use art.
Debra Knapke: Line form texture and color and the principles of design on the right side to create these places of use and beauty for our clients and I just want to give you a hint it hardly ever goes in exactly as strong, so this is a dream that eventually gets expressed in some way on the ground.
Debra Knapke: But what I like to focus on is the ecology of the place what was there, what is there now, what can we bring back what was there, what we won't be able to bring back.
Debra Knapke: And there are times when one has to consider that native plants and my yard is filled with native plants, but there are times.
Debra Knapke: When non natives and cultivars of natives are a better choice, and as we go into climate change and i'm not going to dwell on this, just to mention it.
Debra Knapke: what's going to work in our gardens, is what is adaptable, what can deal with the changes that are here, and the more to come.
Debra Knapke: So keep that in the back of your mind to as you choose the plants that go into your gardens but back to this.
Debra Knapke: These are the level three ECO regions in the contiguous United States and if you want this map, you can go to the EPA site put in Level three ego regions and EPA, and this comes up.
Debra Knapke: You can also get into the state level now I have not mentioned my definition of native plant.
Debra Knapke: And I don't use time because time is is a slippery slope, you know, a player that was here before European settlement well choose when that time is go for it.
Debra Knapke: And, and which part of the country, because the Spanish were in California and in Florida, and the 1500s so do we go back that far.
Debra Knapke: Do we go back into the fossil record and find that in the western United States the dawn Redwood was here, well, that was 11,000 years ago now, might be too far, so let's get rid of time and instead let's think about a native plant is that its first home place was here.
Debra Knapke: Its indigenous to endemic to the place where it evolved with its soils its environment and with the animals that evolved with it.
Debra Knapke: That is a native plant.
Debra Knapke: Is it kind of vague yeah, but when you come from that place, it is easier to think about what belongs in your garden, and what does not so for Ohio and again, as I said, you can find maps like this, for your own state your own.
Debra Knapke: region, but when I think of Ohio your I think of these five fizzy graphic regions, and this is what the garden is based on at the Ohio governor's residence we call it the heritage garden, because it is the heritage of Ohio.
Debra Knapke: And so we have gardens that represent many different places in Ohio and you'll see a few of those in a moment.
Debra Knapke: But you can see the gross you know the big map of the states the gross Level three regions and now getting into level four and possibly even level five with this map.
Debra Knapke: And our environments are based on the geology of rock which majors soil that telegraphy land form.
Debra Knapke: By the way, I came from lake county up by the lake I grew up on the portage escarpment really cool land forms and when I came down to Ohio State for college and ended up staying.
Debra Knapke: There was this flatland is like what what happened to Ohio obviously i've not really been down to Columbus that much before, but it was so surprising to see the changes as we traveled.
Debra Knapke: It is also determined by the flora and fauna that are there and the evolutionary history of US layers of earth and of the plants and animals and the environment as it changed.
Debra Knapke: And so natural vegetation happens because of all of that, and if you look at, if you look at Ohio we were probably 90%.
Debra Knapke: forested before well that's kind of hard to say before what but usually we say in the 1600s, even though our lands had been a managed by native peoples before then, but you can see that a good part of Ohio.
Debra Knapke: Is forests, the green pink orange purple and Brown and blue are all for us and then those interesting gold fingers, those are prairies and those little blobs of black those are box and fence very interesting places.
Debra Knapke: So our landscapes are natural our continuance so natural landscapes are continuing to have different processes and and characteristics.
Debra Knapke: So in this case we have drylands we have uplands like you see on the upper left and hocking hills and southern part of Ohio these rocky legends that are very dry and we have low lens on the right, those are the very sandy soils of the openings areas by.
Debra Knapke: up by Toledo, and again by lake erie and then just to throw in someplace very different that has uplands and lowlands, this is the land around the Mount St Helens Caldera and a fascinating place to look at how dryness wetness to dryness how it occurs in landscape as land form changes.
Debra Knapke: We have water and wetlands and the upper left that is a bernal pool in the summer, it is dry and rock hard and it's by the little darby.
Debra Knapke: In the upper right, we have a fan, even though it caught the cedar bog, it is a fan and there's water present throughout the season, because of the water that is fed from underneath and then we have natural lakes and streams.
Debra Knapke: We also have forests and prairies to me that seems like on a continuum.
Debra Knapke: And if you hear scratching and meowing in the background it's because my cat wants in when i'm sitting at the computer he thinks that my lap is his territory, so please ignore that if you hear it.
Debra Knapke: it's the human element of zooming so or the animal element of zooming so back to full force in Paris, I see them as sort of opposites, but actually a long continuum.
Debra Knapke: And we're definitely in the forest in Highlands nature nature sanctuary in the upper left and we're in an opening in the kamala prairie in the lower left.
Debra Knapke: And then we have a wide open prairie patel darby creeks metropark in the lower right.
Debra Knapke: But in the upper right we have that kind of edge, we have a forested area and into the sand, of the oak openings again.
Debra Knapke: And these edges are incredibly important in our landscapes, because we have this this mixing of two different regimes coming together and the biological richness on those edges are amazing.
Debra Knapke: So when we create gardens i'd like you to think like nature mimic nature, knowing that we are not exactly replacing but that we are at least trying to replace return repair.
Debra Knapke: observe places in their plants my husband and I like to drive when we go on vacations and we've driven as far as Arizona.
Debra Knapke: We have flown into places like Oregon and California, and then we rent a car and we drive because the only way to understand the place you're in.
Debra Knapke: is to to be there, of course, it is kind of interesting to look from a plane and look down and get this this bird's eye view, although that's even probably higher than a bird but an air planes.
Debra Knapke: I view of land.
Debra Knapke: So when when I started designing in the early 90s, I thought of garden types and we make shade garden the sun garden a mixed border an herb garden, etc, but.
Debra Knapke: I changed by the late 90s, I was firmly in the habitat group looking at well this really reminds me of a woodland.
Debra Knapke: i'm making a shady woodland garden i'm making a sunny prairie garden there's a lot of wet areas here which plants belong here in this.
Debra Knapke: Instead of thinking of well I need to put a French drain in and drive this place out, so I can put the garden my dreams I started thinking about what here.
Debra Knapke: not how I could change it.
Debra Knapke: Even though by our very garden making we are changing or places.
Debra Knapke: Pardon me, so I want you to think like a plant.
Debra Knapke: And i've chosen, one of my favorite spring a femoral blood route.
Debra Knapke: It only offers pollen.
Debra Knapke: No nectar it blooms in April, it gives pollinators three days to visit before it says forget this, and pollinators itself.
Debra Knapke: And then it drops its pedals now if a pollinator gets to it the first day it drops its pedals then, so this is a very short lived flower you better know when it's coming up in your garden to get a picture like this.
Debra Knapke: In this area, it's very dry my garden, although you can see the leaves on the ground, the leaves stay leave the leaves let that nutrition go back into the soil, because look this blood route had no problem coming up in there.
Debra Knapke: So the seed pod begins to form and the leaves unfurl into this beautifully promptly compound leaf.
Debra Knapke: And in this area of my garden those the plant leaves last till about end of May, beginning of June, because it's dry and they go dormant in another part of my garden, where the land is whether they have gone into late July with the leaves before they go down back into the earth so.
Debra Knapke: Soil moisture has a lot to do with how this plant performed in the garden.
Debra Knapke: How does it survived by not being eaten all the dark things poisonous I know very few animals, want to eat this plan, at least it causes gastric upset.
Debra Knapke: And it's called blood group, because when you snap off where you go down to the root you get the the the root turn sort of a reddish color looking like blood.
Debra Knapke: It creates these defenses from the nutrition that it gets from the soil and the carbohydrates, that it makes during photosynthesis.
Debra Knapke: And notice how it's leaning a little bit, because it is reaching for the sun, because it's on the edge, where there is a little bit more shade, even though the leaves aren't fully on the trees yeah.
Debra Knapke: Now.
Debra Knapke: I do not use conventional inputs, but i've often wonder when this is on the edge of an area where there's a lawn.
Debra Knapke: And we put in our salt based fertilizers and our petro chemical based herbicides pesticides, etc, and since we, I have a silty clay, how much of that is moving.
Debra Knapke: into the garden and how much of those herbicides daikon specific which this plant is are moving into that area and have you ever wondered why maybe.
Debra Knapke: Some of your gardens aren't doing as well there on the edge of an area that you're treating and that's the last i'd say about that because i'm trying not to be on too many soapboxes today.
Debra Knapke: I showed this last year, when I talked and I show it in almost every talk when I talk about plants because a lot of times we are so involved with what goes on top that.
Debra Knapke: We don't think about the bottom we don't think that sometimes two thirds of the biomass of a plant is underground.
Debra Knapke: And these prairie plants these native plants look at how they go deep down to get what they need, and if they're on the edge with trees next to them, they have to do that.
Debra Knapke: Because the trees most roots stay in the top 245 feet of the soil and look at how these plants are going below that so they can get nutrition from the soil subsoil even some go down to bedrock.
Debra Knapke: So you have your grasses and you have your forbes forbes being the flowering plants and look at 15 feet for the compass plant.
Debra Knapke: And 15 feet plus for the blazing star is just phenomenal and once you start thinking of your soul you can't help but honor it please stop treating your soil like dirt.
Debra Knapke: So this is something that's often used in permaculture you know, looking at the different layers of the forest garden or the forest or the prairie or whatever, and I drew my own, because I was frustrated.
Debra Knapke: didn't show enough roots showed the roots of the trees some times, but I wanted to show the interaction of roots of all kinds of plants.
Debra Knapke: And that we often forget that the roots of trees go far beyond the drip line and the canopy and that roots intermingle and that are prairie plants, you know our.
Debra Knapke: are sitting there roots down, and we have balls corms tubers and rises and ground covers and we have all these plans, and this is the smallest subset of that, and many of these are native there are a couple that are not.
Debra Knapke: So, going back to that picture and just stepping back a little bit more of this back area of my yard.
Debra Knapke: These are the native plants that are there now, and I think I have forgotten a few, but I was just sitting here and trying to remember and if it had been spring summer fall, it could have gone out and looked at.
Debra Knapke: But I had to use my memory now, this is a picture from 2012 so any has changed significantly because my goal now is that when something dies.
Debra Knapke: In its place, goes a native plant or a native our cultivars of a native plant and one that offers ecosystem services that itself is a whole nother talk, but.
Debra Knapke: In my garden, you can see in the woody plants.
Debra Knapke: The good spire American arbor vitae, yes, that is not your typical not what you're going to find if you go to cedar bark, it is a cultivars but.
Debra Knapke: The Birds do use it as a place to live in, so it is offering some of those ecosystem services and I could go through all these plants and say what they offer to this ecosystem i've created in my backyard um but instead you know it's just to show you that.
Debra Knapke: It is easy to put native plants in your yard and you're possibly noticed that in the background, there is the Amer honeysuckle I battle that every year.
Debra Knapke: I have taken out a lot, but I also have a bank on a stream, so what i'm doing slowly is replacing with native plants and then just every year they get chopped back to nothing so that they're stressed and can't flower and fruit.
Debra Knapke: And and i'm just trying to get the native plants to go, so that I have roots holding that bank and that eventually I can take those honey samples out, I also have root proved gone down with a saw my roots are and just saw the the some of the.
Debra Knapke: The base from the roots, is it gets complicated, in other words i'm trying not to use Roundup.
Debra Knapke: Because I don't want poison the soil.
Debra Knapke: Now, stepping further back in my yard, you can see that I have a lot of plants that are not native because I am a food grower.
Debra Knapke: And an herb lover, in fact, food and herbs are the ways that my gateway plants into horticulture so compromises everywhere, and I do have grass, this is a picture from 2011 and half of that grass is gone that you see there so.
Debra Knapke: It looks a lot different and I guess I need to take another picture.
Debra Knapke: So how do we create designs, what is it that we do.
Debra Knapke: To make a design, so, if you look here, I chose pete Rudolph, who is a formidable designer amazing designs and you'll see a couple of his designs in a moment, if you look at.
Debra Knapke: On the right, this is a sketch, this is, this is the data dump, this is the form of a garden, and what do you put in it, and on the left is the finished.
Debra Knapke: Design for a portion of the new garden at Delaware botanic garden I can't wait to travel to state of Delaware I haven't been too long word or not Cuba for a while and while i'm there I need to go here too.
Debra Knapke: But he has his own way of designing and again, not everything goes in exactly the way it's designed and I love what pete Rudolph said in an interview wait one year, then we see what we have done wrong.
Debra Knapke: So keep that philosophy in mind and i'm working with Denise and.
Debra Knapke: partners in pollination group and we're putting together simple gardens that are going to be tested across the State of Ohio this coming year there's a Bumblebee garden for plants Bumblebee pollinators.
Debra Knapke: Plants and specialist, this is just a simple six by 10 plan.
Debra Knapke: And in this case there eight or nine planets whatever and it's not meant to be beautiful it's meant to show you the relative position of the planets in the garden.
Debra Knapke: Each one of those squares is a square foot and that helps you place the plants, it is not anywhere near as complicated as what pete Rudolph yes and here is the specialist design and we also have.
Debra Knapke: We also have alternatives in case some of them don't work but we're looking at how we can, how we can get the most in a six by 10 space now you could take these very same planets and put them in a space that is more careful linear that has the same square feet 60 square feet.
Debra Knapke: So, then, I started thinking, how can I make this simpler, so I started thinking of okay five plants what which five plants, could I use to get season from spring summer fall.
Debra Knapke: For a Bumblebee and a specialist be, and this is what I came up with, and we are going to be publishing these so these will be coming out somehow and we're still working on that, but.
Debra Knapke: But these are options.
Debra Knapke: For if you don't have a plan in your mind, this is a great place to start and if these are the plants, you want, then look at this planet, a boy, you know.
Debra Knapke: i'm not really independent men digitalis but what other spring blooming plan does does a Bumblebee you or a specialist being like and then you just sort of.
Debra Knapke: it's like a puzzle it's like a puzzle.
Debra Knapke: So let's look at some of the plants that let's look at some design some some places that have been designed.
Debra Knapke: With native plants in mind, this is the old prairie garden at the heritage barn the governor's residence and we have since moved it to a different area and this space has been redone and it is a beautiful mix of natives and non natives.
Debra Knapke: And this went to a different area that made more sense within the scope of the gardens at the at the residence so as you look here, you can see the compass plant over on the Left tall majestic and then closer in the Center of the screen and over to the right, you can see the.
Debra Knapke: prairie Doc someone causes dumbo ears Oh, please, I hope that combination doesn't make it out there a prairie Doc or a selfie i'm terrible with an acm is is a much better term.
Debra Knapke: there's also great comb flower the written and there's the beautiful frothy euphorbia.
Debra Knapke: In the White that you can see dotted out through the plan, and of course purple flower and a little spot of the Royal catch fly in the back.
Debra Knapke: end, you can see a, by the way, this is a point that I need to make.
Debra Knapke: You know those garden plans I showed you all about three years they're going to look a lot different because these plants like to move out they self seed they move around and, as I pete would have said in one year we look, and we figure out what we have done wrong.
Debra Knapke: So I have to show you this is one of my all time favorite summer plants, it is a hummingbird magnet you can see, by the long deep.
Debra Knapke: Oh gosh where the nectar is our i'm just blinking talking about so many different things, but what's interesting is there's very few robbing incidences where a bumble will chew into the base.
Debra Knapke: Of the tube the directory tube to get the nectar because it sticky Royal catch fly to catch edits very I don't know if a Bumblebee will be caught, but I know that if you look at this during the season zero that's another little insects stuck to the sticky sticky necessary to.
Debra Knapke: I don't know whether or not there are butterflies and mods that.
Debra Knapke: interact with this plant, but this plant needs to be more gardens it's spectacular.
Debra Knapke: This is one of people last design the lorry designs the lorry garden in Chicago and millennium park.
Debra Knapke: And there's just the backdrop, there are two trees there's the European beach and sweet Bay magnolia and then you're looking at covers route and you're looking at two cultivars of our perennial flocks and in the front you're looking at the.
Debra Knapke: The great blue will be Leah I have not quite figured out what the small plant is at first, I thought it was master but not sure.
Debra Knapke: But these plants, you know this, this was an August beginning of August and it's a simple design and I will tell you we I was there with a group from from garden calm.
Debra Knapke: And the curator of the garden told us that they manage this garden, and that the plants have moved over time and that pete Rudolph does come to the garden and say no, we need to take this back, we need to move this and Oh, I see this planet hasn't lasted.
Debra Knapke: There has been a lot of tweaking of the plan from when it was originally put in.
Debra Knapke: If you want just 10 feet, to the left as you're looking at the border, it becomes a to plant border it's Joe pie, we and straight garden flocks, although I think I see a couple of Laura in there.
Debra Knapke: Are Laura and it's a stunning design and it's two plants and I wasn't here to get pollinator shots in this instance, but I did get some fantastic point or shots.
Debra Knapke: In other parts of the garden, it also was not the best time of day, to take pictures, because we are there two o'clock in the afternoon.
Debra Knapke: So it was not easy to get pictures so that's the the sun let's go into the shade, this is, in my garden in the back and two plants here are not native the little.
Debra Knapke: lily of the valley in the back and the trillium luteal is actually native to South Eastern United States not here, but I love it so it's in my garden.
Debra Knapke: But here, it is keeping you know the big beautiful maple leaf looking plant that you see, is our endangered golden seal and it's just loving it back there and it did love it back there until I let the leaves stay.
Debra Knapke: And now it is entirely happy when I planted this they were each in their own little spaces, but they have now created a community that is this rich tapestry that you see here.
Debra Knapke: And the lily of the valley does not run roughshod over other plants, I think there was a discussion between golden seal and lily of the valley as to who was going to be where.
Debra Knapke: This is another shape place this is was a garden of a friend of mine who's no longer with us.
Debra Knapke: But he decided what one of his favorite plants was Virginia Bluebells so he planted his whole hillside with it.
Debra Knapke: At one point he had hostas in there also but the deer found they love those and those disappeared and he started putting more native plants and.
Debra Knapke: what's rather ironic, is that a lot of our native plants are also loved by dear and our dear food.
Debra Knapke: So I guess the trick is putting enough in or putting the poisonous ones in like blood roots, so that you have some plants left or that you have enough that you get to see them and the deer get to eat them to.
Debra Knapke: This is another place, this was another place of ads garden beautiful tapestry of the white trout lily and the seller dine papi.
Debra Knapke: And the large flowered billboard and dabbled in there also the the spring beauties just beautiful combinations of spring ephemeral, although a lot of times a solid I poppy will continue to be.
Debra Knapke: continued to be in place and and i've even had a couple street blooms in mid summer, it surprises me when that happens is when we have a moist we have a lot of rain that's when i'll get back.
Debra Knapke: By Julia another place in my yard trying to get by Julia to take hold i've seen large stands of it, and I also found out that is one of my resident dears favorite foods.
Debra Knapke: So I have different ways of trying to keep them away i've planted ferns this was when I initially planted them, the first year.
Debra Knapke: And now I put in more firms around them because dear do not like ferns and i've looked at other poisonous plants that I could put in here.
Debra Knapke: That that maybe will protect my spy Julia I don't know we'll see i'll let you know whoops sorry too far, this is a beautiful design by Nadia Nadia malarkey malarkey and yellow springs.
Debra Knapke: And this is for one of her clients and common plants but Look how beautifully they come together and they do some editing over time.
Debra Knapke: But mostly the garden has created this tapestry itself with oakley five range in the background, so there's something to see in the winter that's something to think about which of these have winter show like XO nation does, and then the little blue stem.
Debra Knapke: And the rattlesnake master and Buddha low on the sides grandma beautiful plants that ebb and flow in this garden and that's something that you have to learn to is that, after you plant a garden after you design it you change from designer to editor.
Debra Knapke: Another, this is a place in the heritage garden, it is a doing from the openings you saw that red sand earlier in the talk, well, we got some red sand we built up the dune we had to hold the sand in with the logs that you see there, and this isn't.
Debra Knapke: The reason i'm pointing it out is that not all native plants are the best place to put in your garden, yes to asclepius tuber Rossa, a butterfly weed.
Debra Knapke: But think twice before you put in the plant that is at the feet of this butterfly weed, and that is one of the accuracy items probably aquascutum our events, the field horsetail.
Debra Knapke: Once you put it in it never goes away, and it can have an effect on other plants stopping them from being able to grow as well, so i'd.
Debra Knapke: Be.
Debra Knapke: judicious in which native plants you choose to put in and leave aquascutum in its natural places where it has competitors that keep it more or less than its place.
Debra Knapke: This is another part, this is the cedar glade at the heritage garden, and here you can see the butterfly weed again and other plants, and it is in this garden that I had one of my most incredible experiences.
Debra Knapke: and
Debra Knapke: There were a group of us and it's not a video because one the video didn't turn out as well as i'd like so it's going to be moving from slide to slide but in fall the bottle generations were in blue.
Debra Knapke: And we were watching several bumble bees pollinate the bottle Jensen so ready, here we go.
Debra Knapke: There, she is i'm assuming it she because it's the fall.
Debra Knapke: Opening the flower working her way in.
Debra Knapke: Here we get to see just her fuzzy but.
Debra Knapke: There, she is pollinating and now she's back out and on to the next flower.
Debra Knapke: I don't know but that made me happy for the whole day and I kept looking at that series of pictures thinking that is one strong Bumblebee and especially also thinking, what kind of strength, what I have to have in my arms to do a similar task.
Debra Knapke: And I think this is the way that we learn the most.
Debra Knapke: By watching the interactions between the plants and the animals in our gardens when the plants are planted in the right places.
Debra Knapke: Which brings me to this one beautiful beautiful lakeside daisy endemic to just kelly's island in the marblehead Peninsula in Ohio.
Debra Knapke: And when a population is that small if we don't conserve it, it will go away, so we have a special place for it, the Alpha in the heritage garden, and we brought stones from kelly's island into this garden and transplanted got seed started see transplanted small plants into this garden.
Debra Knapke: So we have representative.
Debra Knapke: Representative county of the lakeside daisy in Columbus Ohio and when it's in blue, this is another thing that makes me smile all day.
Debra Knapke: pollinated by a bunch of many bees and one of these days i'm just going to sit there with my phone and document pollination time but just haven't had time to do that because usually, when i'm in the garden i'm working.
Debra Knapke: And just a small announcement right now i'm the interim garden manager of the heritage garden so for the next six months.
Debra Knapke: This garden is mine before I turn it over to a permanent garden manager and we are looking for that person so i'm putting a plugin.
Debra Knapke: And hadn't initially thought of doing that, but it just sort of occurred to me, so this is something that excites you and you're in the Columbus area, let me know.
Debra Knapke: up great resource, we have here in Ohio is the website Ohio native plant month.org on this site, there is a resource list of where you can find native plants.
Debra Knapke: And also, I a excel spreadsheet that hope taft and I will put together on different native plants and where they come from and that tells you whether or not you'd be able to grow it.
Debra Knapke: Whether it's the right plant for the conditions, you have on your home ground so please take a look, and while it won't work for you in Colorado and utah the folks there who are.
Debra Knapke: who have joined us and South Africa, I am sure that you have your own resources to go to to find out where you can get those plants and which plants are native to your home place.
Debra Knapke: I also want to mention that sometimes we construct a wetland we This may not have been there, a long time ago.
Debra Knapke: But this was an area that was waterlogged and if you're interested in hearing a little bit more of the story, you can go on to my website where I have a.
Debra Knapke: five minute video that talks about what we did in this this place, that was a mess that had a building on it, the building was taken down there, it is a wetland regime in this area, and they couldn't get the right thing to grow.
Debra Knapke: So we constructed a wetland and this the top picture is two weeks after our Earth Day planting and then three months after look at how it has filled in three months after these were all plugs 3700 and some odd plugs.
Debra Knapke: And it is still, it is still growing and beautiful and it has changed his composition, as the plants have moved around.
Debra Knapke: One of my favorite quotes and it's actually on my phone it's that I look at it almost well I look at it every day, every time I use my phone our greatest problem.
Debra Knapke: result from the difference between how people think, and how nature works, why do we do this, two trees, there are better ways to do this by this tree obviously is surviving and look at the.
Debra Knapke: Look at the the circumference the the diameter of this tree obviously has figured out how to live underneath those bricks but in the meantime it has girdling roots and it's not long for this world but there it is don't do this in your yard.
Debra Knapke: And finally, another one of my favorite quotes because I couldn't leave you with that picture to end my talk.
Debra Knapke: And i'll let you read it yourself, but this is what we do, we have dreams visions of paradise.
Debra Knapke: And no matter what we create whether it is just a small Garden on a balcony or it is a backyard, full of native plants or front yard, or even just one container.
Debra Knapke: I mean it is it's based on expectation of a beautiful spot, so this hope for the future is at the heart of all gardening Thank you for listening.
Denise Ellsworth: Great Thank you deb so wonderful and such great images and descriptions that really loved the very lyrical way that you present there were a number of people who want to come to the heritage garden, and maybe you can talk about isn't open How do people schedule that.
Debra Knapke: We used to have tours every every Tuesday, but with coven the residents as being careful I just spoke to the residents manager about when tours could start, we can have small tours.
Debra Knapke: Five to 10 people 10 people Max on Wednesday mornings, at this point, we would really like to bring back the Tuesday tours.
Debra Knapke: And we're watching the numbers go down in Ohio just like everyone else is watching numbers of coven infections.
Debra Knapke: And I for one would love to welcome people back in the garden we've we've not had you in the garden for two seasons and that's just awful, and so I hope with his 30s and we will be able to get people in so thank you very much, would love to see you in the garden.
Denise Ellsworth: Great thanks seven folks it's we're at the top of the hour, I see some folks are.
Denise Ellsworth: Putting a thank you into Dev I know she appreciates that if you have to hop off, but we're going to continue with some questions and so deb there, the question that came to the top was your thoughts on pruning shrubs, in particular, but shrubs and trees in the landscape.
Debra Knapke: In native for the for the most part the reason the and I have a whole pruning lecture.
Debra Knapke: But, and why we prune, but I do first of all I do my best to choose plants that won't outgrow their space, I have made mistakes, if you visit my garden, I will show you everyone.
Debra Knapke: So I do, I will pro always will prune dead and diseased limbs off I also prune to.
Debra Knapke: Bring boxwood in during the winter, but.
Debra Knapke: For the most part, I try not to prune.
Debra Knapke: I will correct structural problems because, once again we bring these trees and shrubs into our landscape, so we are responsible for them.
Debra Knapke: And I have prune some of my larger trees to limb them up a bit because my gardens became so dark.
Debra Knapke: And then, that I wasn't able to grow underneath some trees So yes, I do prune and but do it judiciously, although I have one ginko in my garden that was supposed to be a dwarf, and has switched back to growing 12 to 14 inches a year.
Debra Knapke: And it got a severe prune last fall and we'll see how it does and it make it the severest prune of all.
Denise Ellsworth: Around level.
ground level.
Denise Ellsworth: very severe.
Denise Ellsworth: There was a question about are there plant families that.
Denise Ellsworth: Give us the best bang for buck and I realized, we have folks from all over the country, though, maybe your thoughts on that.
Debra Knapke: So if you mean bang for buck in growing or with animals.
Denise Ellsworth: In times i'm sorry in terms of making a healthy ecological garden.
Debra Knapke: Ah, well, first of all, I mean the first step is to go see what was there, you know what your gardens can support look at the native plants for your home place.
Debra Knapke: And then you'll probably notice that there's a lot of mint family, there is a lot of the astro family there's a lot of the celery parsley family and i'm using the common names I can use botanical names, if you would like a lot of the p amp being family.
Debra Knapke: These are big major families, but there are so many others to.
Debra Knapke: You know I.
Debra Knapke: I remember being on a mountain top of my husband usually drives when we're when we're traveling and there we are in the rocky mountains in the front range.
Debra Knapke: And i'm reading some of the guides because i'm trying to look at these plants and figure out what we're going to see and in there, the the author talked about and i'm going to swear here ad sees another damn composite.
Debra Knapke: And we saw we saw so many daisies you know they're they're all over the place, so you will be putting in a lot of the daisies the astor AC.
Debra Knapke: And you know for me it's not so much the families, although when I think of herbs, I do think of different families, because the MID family is my all time favorite family.
Debra Knapke: But I don't only think equalize well ecologically is the whole package and which one of these will be good for the bees, which one will be good for the butterflies the hummingbirds.
Debra Knapke: The the turtles that everyone's welcome in my yard, the toads the frogs and also for me for supper yeah so.
Debra Knapke: I wish I could say that there's well i'll just stop there, because i'm rambling.
Denise Ellsworth: And there were lots of questions about the Royal cash fly.
Denise Ellsworth: And that was your hummingbird choice right.
Denise Ellsworth: Yes, yeah yeah.
Debra Knapke: yeah hummingbird and I wondered i've tried to sit there and watch to see if there are any law of butterflies, you know long for busquets, but it seems to be the hummingbird for the most part, and very small.
Debra Knapke: Things that I don't know what they are going in and out that also get caught on the the directory too.
Denise Ellsworth: So several questions folks are interested in your opinion on native ours, some of your images quite a few showed.
Denise Ellsworth: Different cultivars and just kind.
Denise Ellsworth: of how you feel on straight species versus use of cultivars.
Debra Knapke: that's a huge question and i'll put it as simply as possible.
Debra Knapke: natives are the ones that evolved with the other things in the environment, animal soil etc so that's your first place, but there are times when.
Debra Knapke: it's not always easy to find the natives.
Debra Knapke: And, and you find native bars instead.
Debra Knapke: If I use a native are it's one that gives the same or as darn close the same ecological services of the species does and I always pick on port machination.
Debra Knapke: Straight species second nation has that beautiful Cone.
Debra Knapke: The powder puff explanations, the ones that the comb was bred to turn into peddling structures offers little to no ecological services in the garden, and not only that the deer eat them right away because there's no protection.
Debra Knapke: So for me, I will always gravitate to a native bar that has the same features, the same nectar pollen sources as far as I can tell.
Debra Knapke: Or the same leaves that the caterpillars can eat.
Debra Knapke: that's what I will choose first if I go to a native bar and also i'm a horticulturist I test things out I bring native ours into my my yard, so I can see, are they visited.
Debra Knapke: The same way that my species are, and if you want an answer to that question mount Cuba, and I think cornell both are doing great great work at looking at who visits what and I think.
Debra Knapke: Our next question is who visits the non natives to I want that question answered.
Debra Knapke: There are some non natives in my garden to get nobody, and there are others, they get a lot.
Debra Knapke: So, again it's one of those interesting continuous when you go from species native species native ours that work native ours that don't work non natives and then, of course, in the very end are in basis and we know we don't want those.
Denise Ellsworth: yeah and that's a complicated question there's so many different answers and not enough research dollars and people to look at all.
Debra Knapke: I know.
Denise Ellsworth: A lot of groups really spending some time to to try.
Denise Ellsworth: That out there were a number of questions about leaves.
Denise Ellsworth: When to leave them when to shred them, how do you like to leave them.
Debra Knapke: This is what I do the leaves that are on the lawn a lot of times.
Debra Knapke: Early on, will just mulch them but later when the when the red silver maple crosses do their leaf dump I.
Debra Knapke: I.
Debra Knapke: rake them all up and put them in different areas to sit and compost.
Debra Knapke: And then that's the compost I use the middle of the summer, when it is hot and dry in the.
Debra Knapke: ground is opening up the leaves that fall in the beds, they stay I don't do anything to them, I don't tread them, in fact.
Debra Knapke: There, sometimes the wind will blow by and blow the leaves back and blow them out, and I put them back in.
Debra Knapke: I do get shredded leads from our township I get a big load of them, they go into some of my pathways that I woodland pathways and they also go on the edges of all my gardens and that keeps the.
Debra Knapke: And then I let the organisms in the soil take it in, but I leave the leaves the exceptions are around my Bucharest, I sometimes will just pull a little bit away because they're sensitive but, and these are he grew up Llosa cultivars of our native Bukhara um.
Debra Knapke: But many plants just come right up through, and as you saw the blood route had no problem at all.
Denise Ellsworth: The specific advice for dealing with a lot of oak leaves.
Debra Knapke: oak leaves are better shredded they will break down faster, they are probably amongst the slower ones to shred However, and this is something really important when you shred your leaves you might also be shredding.
Debra Knapke: The eggs or the larva or the caterpillars or the insects that have taken cover underneath those so.
Debra Knapke: Again, while I do mulch the early ones on the lawn for the most part, I don't shred my leaves that are in the gardens because i'm hoping that that's the nursery for my next year's insect observations.
Denise Ellsworth: And finally to get us kind of thinking about the season that's upon us your thoughts on spring cleanup when do you like to get into the garden, what do you do in the fall versus the spring from an ecological perspective.
Debra Knapke: I do very little in the fall in the fall I take out diseased plants.
Debra Knapke: You know I clean up this is not native but the leaves from my peonies which are covered with powdery mildew.
Debra Knapke: So I clean up broken branches if the if the plant is down on the ground, I will cut those off or i'll cut them in half, because I like to leave stems up because the day become future nurseries to.
Debra Knapke: In the spring I may cut some plants down and I leave most of the litter in the backyard the litter stays.
Debra Knapke: In those gardens in the front yard that's my public face and as it is i'm the weird person on the block, so you know I try not to do too many strange things, but there is a little bit more clean up in the spring.
Debra Knapke: Because you know plants are growing up, I cut down my my leaves and I will chop them from some of my my grasses and leave them in a pile and I then see those leaves woven into bird nests.
Debra Knapke: So I do things that I hope are supportive and try to harm as little as possible, keeping a lookout for any.
Debra Knapke: Any bumbles especially and I have, I also have open soil areas that I do not disturb in the spring.
Debra Knapke: So it's a combination in fact i've been doing less and less and less maintenance over time and, as for mulches the only time i'll use mulches if by some chance someone says hey I have some free malts that goes on the front yard, to make it look pretty.
Debra Knapke: So I become a lazy gardener in certain lazy gardener in certain aspects, but there still is a lot of maintenance on my still edge my beds, because that makes them legal looking in the front yard, because there's not a lot of grass in the front yard anymore.
Debra Knapke: and on and on again if you're in Columbus let me know you can come and look.
Denise Ellsworth: You know somebody always shares this idea deb of the mullet approach to gardening where the business and is in front and the.
Denise Ellsworth: parties in the back so.
Debra Knapke: Right right.
Denise Ellsworth: And people have been chatting of it commenting in the chat box about some of your great quotes that maybe that'll stick with the folks as well don't treat your soil like dirt.
Denise Ellsworth: I didn't.
Debra Knapke: have to read some of these later on i'll go.
Debra Knapke: on YouTube.
Denise Ellsworth: and not on YouTube, but I do sometimes post the chat.
Denise Ellsworth: Okay favorite if anybody's interested, you can save your chat to your computer finally w your your books alone part lone pine still publishing are they available.
Denise Ellsworth: On data.
Debra Knapke: A lot of them are available, as used books, the perennials gardening month by month and best plans for Ohio all are all out of print, but they are floating around you can find them in US bookstores and.
Debra Knapke: I keep saying i'm going to work on a book I need to update the perennials book, I really want to put more natives in etc, etc, but unfortunately I keep doing too many other things, and it takes a really you know.
Debra Knapke: focused approach.
Denise Ellsworth: So well if if putting up the book gets you to our webinars I appreciate that deb I know.
Denise Ellsworth: you're I know you're very busy, and all your design work and teaching, but really enjoyed having you here today, do you have a.
Denise Ellsworth: Recording session from death from last year, if you go to the V lab website, you can access that are our YouTube Channel and the depth thanks for inspiring everyone give us some lots of great images some thoughts some additions for garden some hope that we can we can do this.
Debra Knapke: Thank you very much, everyone for listening bye.
Denise Ellsworth: hey thanks bye bye bye everybody, thank you.