Minnesota Gardening Podcast

Plant Healthy Plants: Part III of my 3x3 Course

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We continue our 3x3 series with the final installment focusing on planting helpful plants to feed pollinators, save water, eliminate chemicals, and store carbon. This free course from Minnesota Gardening provides nine keystone actions for creating a healthier lawn and landscape.

• Introducing the concept of "helpful plants" as an inclusive alternative to the native/non-native divide
• Explanation of keystone plants that provide the most ecosystem services for local wildlife
• The importance of reducing lawn areas by converting 20-30 square feet annually to helpful plant spaces
• Why starting with smaller plants is more cost-effective and often produces better long-term results
• Bonus action about reducing salt use to protect waterways (one tablespoon permanently impairs five gallons of water)
• Tour of the Minnesota Gardening platform and membership benefits
• Community support for transitioning to environmentally responsible landscaping practices

Head over to MinnesotaGardening.com and click on 3x3 to download the workbook, see photos, and access the complete course materials. This course is free for now but won't be forever, so check it out today.


Want to switch to more environmentally-responsible landscape and lawn care practices but don't know where to start?

Join our movement bringing together Midwest homeowners so that we can to make the world a better place for our kids and grandkids by building up strong local ecosystems for songbirds, pollinators, and our families to thrive.


Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

Speaker 1:

happy tuesday, my friend. It is great to uh be here with you. My name is brad tabke, host of the minnesota gardening podcast, and today we have part three of three in our three audio episodes of uh. Three by three, which is a free course we have at minnesota gardening for now on how you can take in our three audio episodes of 3x3, which is a free course we have at Minnesota Gardening for now, on how you can take nine keystone actions to take today for a healthier lawn and landscape. So I hope you have enjoyed parts one and two, and part three is the conclusion here and you can head over to Minnesota Gardening and get the video, download the workbook and see photos and lots more there at Minnesota Gardening. So you go there and click on 3x3. And again, this course is free for now, but it won't be free forever, so make sure to go over and check it out today. So with this episode here we have the audio of Plant Helpful Plants, which we talk about what you need to be doing for planting plants that will feed pollinators, save water, eliminate chemicals and sit store carbon, plus some bonus action items, and so we have those here for you today. So I hope you enjoy and head over to MinnesotaGardeningcom and check out 3x3. All right, I hope you are enjoying this quick free course for everybody here at Minnesota Gardening, so I just appreciate you being here.

Speaker 1:

We're going to go into seven, eight and nine here in plant helpful plants, which is kind of the crux and the majority of what we do here at Minnesota Gardening, and wanted to quick give you a tour real quick of what Minnesota Gardening looks like, just so you can see. It is our flagship website, minnesotagardeningcom, and so here is the second, the main page, where you land, and so you can look at it as like a contained social media site, but without all of the crazy folks and without all of the terrible information. Everything's curated, everything is made sure that we're accurate here and getting you nothing but the best information about your transition to more environmentally responsible lawn and landscape practices, and so that's here. We've got an awesome community of folks, and so people are posting all the time. We have monthly masterclasses, and so this is just the main updates section through here, and so this is just the main updates section. Through here. There's a discovery section where you can see the upcoming classes that we have. Checklist says, once you become a new member, what this means and all the members near you. This is the core of things all the cool members and wonderful people that we have I think, because I'm recording it's loading slowly here but just a lot of awesome, awesome people who are doing great things. We have monthly classes for everybody to have. This is the main menu over here. On the left, we've got a welcome to Minnesota gardening, which you've already done, three by three course, which we're in now.

Speaker 1:

Then we've got two different communities. One is a free community where people can get information, and so these are our master classes. All of our podcasts live here and just general information, and our weekly emails that go out, which are just built to help everyone learn more about feeding pollinators, eliminating chemicals, saving water, storing carbon. But the crux of everything is here in our members area, and so membership is $37 a month. Stick around to the end and we'll give you a pretty good deal on this. And so these are our members. They get personal time with me, one-on-ones monthly, a lot of different information and photos and a lot of how-to guides and step-by-steps and personal Q&As, and so it's pretty cool and I highly encourage you to join. But that's not the point of being here, I just want people to learn. We've also got a garden coaching session, which anybody can purchase. A seasonal calendar and then available to everyone is my favorite things. So these are resources that we find really helpful here at Minnesota Gardening. And then, as a member, you also get access to the helpful plant database that we're building out now, which will have hundreds of different plants on here as we're aggregating it into an easier way to find information about the plants that you know and love. So we will go now to plant helpful plants.

Speaker 1:

So planting helpful plants is really important. So if you look closely here, you can see that the upper Midwest has a couple of different eco regions, and so we wanna make sure that we are planting helpful plants that are in those regions, and so I'm gonna step on my soapbox here a little bit and with that, let you know that we really avoid using the word native, because it has a lot of political and terrible connotations and also it's not super helpful in the landscape context of things. Because we talk about helpful plants, because there are many non-native plants who are extremely helpful in our local ecosystem. You think about all the annual flowers that we plant. Those are mostly often helpful plants that have pollen for our pollinator friends and a lot of good things. That way, there are a lot of things that we consider weeds that are actually helpful for our local ecosystems, that don't necessarily need to be labeled as weeds and disintegrated and those kinds of things, and so we want to make sure that we're talking about things in the right and most inclusive way that we possibly can, and so we talk about helpful plants. Most of those helpful plants are native plants that have co-evolved here in our local areas, and so we'll get into that in just a second.

Speaker 1:

Those plants that are really the most helpful are what we call keystone plants, and so there are a handful of plants for each of these eco regions which are really, really helpful in shrubs and trees and perennials and grasses that really are extremely helpful and beneficial to our local ecosystem. So, as I've talked about many, many times, it takes between five and 7,000 caterpillars to grow a clutch of black cap chickadees. So black cap chickadees to grow to adulthood. Five to 7,000 caterpillars that's a lot of black-capped chickadees. So black-capped chickadees to grow to adulthood. 5,000 to 7,000 caterpillars that's a lot of plants, that's a lot of caterpillars and we need to make sure that we're supporting those kinds of things as much as possible, and so that's exponential across the system, and we want to make sure that we're supporting all of those pollinators in order to have caterpillars for songbirds, because songbirds are really important to our local ecosystem and those populations are collapsing, and so we want to make sure that we have all of those things available for our children to see and experience, because when we lose those key cogs in our local ecosystems, things start to break up and we want to make sure that we're supporting those as much as we can in our home lawns and landscapes, and so we want to be planting helpful plants and in our home lawns and landscapes, and so we want to be planting helpful plants.

Speaker 1:

Keystone plants provide the most ecosystem services, provide the most services for pollinators and insects and songbirds that we possibly can, and those have co-evolved in our region for the pollinators to be able to work with the plants, and so a lot of those are singular, a lot of them like if you think about monarchs they eat milkweed. That's all monarchs caterpillars eat, and so we need to make sure we have milkweed to support the monarchs. You have a lot of native bees who only work with one type of plant, and so we need to make sure that we have those available for all of those plants, and so keystone plants provide the most ecosystem services. If you download the workbook, you'll find a list of keystone plants for the upper Midwest. Those are really great places to start on getting plants planted in your landscape. Number eight is very similar different vein plant, more helpful plants, and so with this we want to make sure that we are giving the most space and the most time and the most availability for helpful plants to thrive and support our local ecosystems.

Speaker 1:

As we talked before, lawns do absolutely nothing for our local ecosystem. They don't provide anything but a place to play for our families and kids, and even that can be problematic on different things, and so we want to make sure that we're using that lawn space for the best possible needs. We want to take any places where you have lawn that's unnecessary. If it's difficult to mow, if it's a corner where you never go to, if it's a spot that stays muddy, if it's a slope, whatever those are, start there and just take 20 to 30 square feet each year and eliminate that turf and go ahead and plant helpful plants in those areas. It could be anything that falls into a helpful plant category. So we've got a list of further helpful plants in the workbook if you want to download that and grab those.

Speaker 1:

Fall is the best time to be planting these things, right in end of August, labor Day, weekend type area, and then spring is the second time. Number nine is bigger is not always better and, uh, this is a really important one, because people think that landscape and planting these helpful plants is going to be really expensive, that you need thousands and thousands of dollars to do that, and that just couldn't be further from the truth. And so in uh, spring again, second best time to plant plants. But, but in the spring you can always go to your county, your local soil water conservation district, and they will have plant sales where there are bare root trees that cost 50 bucks you can take and grow acorns. You can grow oak trees out of acorns and it's a bit counterintuitive on things, but when you start things small, within five to seven years they're generally about the exact same size as if you start with a big plant. So if you get a big tree that's 10, 15 feet tall, that has lost a significant amount of its root system, and so it is not able to get super stressed in that transplanting process, and even though it starts big and is substantial, it doesn't grow. It starts really, really slowly until it can get that root system reestablished. And so a small plant, however, is much more resilient and it doesn't have the same stress of the planting that a large tree will have, and so it will grow significantly faster and be caught up to that plant within a few years. And so starting small is really helpful.

Speaker 1:

Plugs for perennials and grasses. It'll take an extra year for those to grow into the size that if you were to get a one-gallon plant, but those are only, you know, an eighth of the cost of what a one-gallon plant would be. So start small. That's the way you can afford to do more, you can plant them closer together and it's a really good thing. So next up we have bonus action. So this is I was teasing a 10th thing, and so come back to the next lesson and we will get there all right. Thank you so much for being here for three by three, our free course for Minnesota gardening on how you can do nine action items today in order to be more environmentally responsible in your home lawn and landscape, and so we've got another bonus for you here today. Let me pull it up. And so we've got bonus actions here for you.

Speaker 1:

So number 10 is salt use. People don't recognize just how harmful and detrimental salt use is to our native natural areas. So our natural waterways here in the upper Midwest are extremely damaged by salt use, whether that be roadway salt use, whether that be in your driveway and your sidewalk, and so we need to make sure that we are minimizing this salt use as much as possible. So do not use salt for melting snow. You need to shovel that snow, blow that snow off. Whatever you're doing, however you do that, make sure to do that first, and then only use salt for slip and fall prevention. It's important I'm not saying it's not important whatsoever but do not use more salt than you need. So use a lot less than you think, and if it is still slippery, you can add some more for sure, but make sure that you are reducing that salt use as much as possible, because what happens is a tablespoon of salt, just one tablespoon of salt, will permanently impair five gallons of water. So let me say it again so a tablespoon of salt will permanently impair five gallons of water and that means that our freshwater fish cannot live in that. That means that it is killing off a lot of plants, a lot of things that we have in our waterways and systems. Many of you will have storm drains and things off of your home that go straight into a river, straight into a creek, and that's extremely problematic and really important that you do not use salt as much as possible in those areas so you can switch to sand Gives great traction on things, but make sure you're reducing that salt. Use as much as you can and only use as much as you need in order to be safe and avoid slip and falls during the winters. That was number 10, a little bonus action item for you here.

Speaker 1:

Next thing, I just want to encourage you please become a Minnesota Gardening member. If you liked this type of content, if you liked knowing more about how you can switch to more environmentally responsible lawn and landscape practices at your house, become a member. So we have just an awesome community of folks, as I showed you a little bit ago, who are sharing, who are giving their experiences, who are encouraging and helping folks become more environmentally responsible, because all of our futures, all of our kids' futures, all of our grandkids' futures, belong and require us to do better, and this is a way where we can all do better together. So, in switching to more environmentally friendly lawn and landscape practices, give you tons of step-by-step instructions. Whatever you need to meet your goals. You don't need to be 100%, completely chemical free, but over the course of the year, I will teach you how to eliminate the vast majority of chemicals in your lawn and landscape practices. You will reduce the amount of water use and you will also reduce how much work it is to take care of your lawn and landscape.

Speaker 1:

So, if you want to spend more time with your family, if you want to increase, improve the health of your family, so if you want to spend more time with your family, if you want to increase, improve the health of your family, reduce carcinogens, we are here for you to help you do that. So, becoming a Minnesota Gardening member, we will help you throughout the course of the year with all of those things as well. We have a helpful plant database. So if you have plants that you want to learn more about, if you want to find the top five plants that have yellow color. We will have those for you. Those are all, uh part of where we're coming gardening task list, so that just what you need to be doing and when you do things to make sure that you are optimizing your time and use monthly one-on-one zooms where you and I talk one-on-one uh one-on-one and help out with those things.

Speaker 1:

You can check us out at minnesota gardening for two weeks for absolutely free. So if you just click on the link below, we will be here for you. So it's two weeks free and then after that it's just $37 a month. You can cancel at any time. Obviously, hope you don't cancel because you love us and you love the community and love being part of something bigger, where we are working to make the world a better place, starting with our home lawn and landscape, and so I encourage you highly to grab two weeks free of Minnesota gardening and become a member here, and so just click the link below and you can get started for just two weeks free.

Speaker 1:

No commitments, no, nothing. You can cancel at any time. There's zero risk for you and I hope to meet you in person as soon as so let's do this together. We are the solutions, we are the answers and we can help do this. Our world is on fire. Cancer rates are skyrocketing, insect and songbird populations are plummeting and we can do a lot to help out in all of those things. So again, I encourage you, become part of the solution with us here at Minnesota Garden and become a member and get two weeks for free and check us out. It's no risk whatsoever. So I hope again to meet you soon with your first one on one monthly zoom. Thanks a lot, have a great day.

Speaker 1:

All right, with all of that, I hope you have learned something. And if you just take one or two of these actions that we put forward here in three by three, one or two of these actions that we put forward here in three by three, I know that you will be making huge change in how we are handling our landscapes and do some really, really good work, and that will spread to your neighbors and that will spread to your community and that will spread to your state and we will work together to switch to more environmentally responsible lawn and landscape practices. And, as I said in that last video, as we are switching more, it's a really huge help to have a community and have people around you, working together to in that journey and making sure that we're doing the right things and making sure that we are learning and growing together, and with that, I hope, you become a member of Minnesota Gardening. It is a really, really great community where we have step-by-step instructions, guides all the things that you need for becoming a more environmentally responsible homeowner and doing the best things for your family, for your pets, for your neighbors, because right now we have epidemics going on around us. We have collapses of insect population, collapse of songbird population, skyrocketing cancer rates, and it's personal and really important to me that we do everything we can to keep those things from getting worse, and so I'm doing my part, trying to get everyone, in the best way possible, to become more environmentally responsible in their own home, lawn and landscape. It's really easy to do just a guide for that, and that's what we do here at Minnesota Garden.

Speaker 1:

So head over to Minnesota Gardening. There you can get two weeks free for now and you can check us out again two weeks free at minnesotagardeningcom. And from there you click on members area. So the members area is where you join and get access to a lot of additional content and a lot of additional things, where we take you step by step through how to make this world a better place. So I hope you join us and join all that community over at Minnesota Gardening and help us do the good work. So I will see you next week with another episode of Minnesota Gardening.