Why Choose Native Plants for Your Lake Property with Jacob Macke

In Episode 19 of The Lake Doctor Podcast, we welcome Jacob Macke, owner of Chapman Lake Nursery and a passionate engineer-turned-native plant grower. Jacob shares his inspiring journey—after erosion threatened his new Chapman Lake home during windy storms, he discovered native plants' deep roots for shoreline stabilization. Starting with milkweed during the 2020 COVID summer, his family raised and released over 50 monarch butterflies—sparking a deep dive into native gardening.

He explains key benefits: native plants like swamp rose mallow, showy tick trefoil, and butterfly weed thrive in Indiana's soils, filter nutrients from runoff, support pollinators and wildlife, and prevent monocultures when mixed with grasses. Jacob contrasts true natives (like butterfly weed) with non-native invasives (like butterfly bush), offers tips on establishment, rabbit protection, and seed collecting, and highlights his local sales, events, and upcoming workshops at the Lilly Center. Tune in for an uplifting story of how one homeowner’s fix can serve as a blueprint for healthy lakes and thriving wildlife across Indiana.

Learn more about the Lilly Center's work at https://lakes.grace.edu/.

Have a question we could answer on the podcast? Send an email to lakes@grace.edu or submit a comment below.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Thanks for joining us on the Lake Doctor podcast. I'm Susie Light, and my co-host, Dr. Nate Bott, is a professional lake nurse.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Yes, that's true. I received my doctorate from the University of Michigan in Lymnology, which is the study of freshwater lakes. In today's episode, we're really excited to have Jacob Mackey. He's the owner of Chapman Lake Nursery.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

And Jacob's going to tell us the difference between butterfly butch and butterfly weed. We are so excited about today's episode, the doctor is in.

A Seawall Erosion Wake-Up Call

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Oh we had an opportunity to move into our dream home on the lake, and so we moved to Chapman Lake. And so we left our neighborhood, our neighbors, which all were lovely people, including you. Thank you. And uh we found some new lovely neighbors up on Chapman Lake that we love hanging out with in the summer and winter.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

How did you start your journey with being excited about native species?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Um, I would say it it has been a really interesting journey. I I don't have a background in um plants, biology, any of that. I'm an engineer by trade. And we moved to the lake, and within that first fall, um started to have problems where the wind was blowing waves over our seawall. We have a concrete, like seawall, brand new concrete seawall, just like anything you see around our lakes. And the water is just pouring over it, splashing over it, and the landscaping is washing away, mulch is washing away, and I'm starting to see like bare dirt, holes starting to fall through the dirt because it's eroding away. And I said, I have a problem here.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

But I'd heard, I think a few people talk about how native plants have deep roots, and that might be something that can help with erosion control. And I'd also heard a little bit from my kids' school. They went to Washington STEM, and they collect monarch caterpillars, monarch butterfly caterpillars. I was like, okay, I think those two are related. How do I do this? And so I started researching like, where can I find these native plants? What are native plants? I actually had no idea. I hadn't even seen a monarch butterfly at that point to my memory. I mean, maybe I'd seen butterflies growing up, but I couldn't tell you what they look like. Um, so I find things like the Indiana Native Plant Society online, and then they've got a network, a map of where you can find native plant nurseries, and sure enough, one's got milkweed. And so we drive up to Jan up in South Bend and buy some milkweed and plant it in the new landscaping to help prevent our our shoreline from eroding. And it was the most amazing thing. Within a week, my son was like, I just saw a monarch lay an egg on the plant, and I I feel bad a little bit. I I was that dismissive parent for a second because he was so young, and I was like, You didn't just see it. And I'm like, No way. He's like, No, I saw it, and sure enough, I didn't even know what I was looking for. I looked at the plant, didn't look like anything, but then you know, looked a few days um later, and we had a caterpillar on our milkweed, and we had just planted it. And this was the summer of COVID, summer of 2020, and everybody's locked um out of everything else. And so what we did that summer was learn all about monarch butterflies and native plants.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

So we, as in your whole family, did this, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, and we're collecting monarch caterpillars and raising them and releasing them, and we're releasing over 50 butterflies that first summer, and it was just the magic that we all needed, you know.

Native Vs Non-Native Vs Invasive

SPEAKER_01 4:28

That's really cool. Well, and and so in that he was talking about native plants, right? So, so here the science nerd and me, we got to get some definitions out there so we know what we're talking about. So oftentimes in landscaping, we would have non-native plants there, plants that we would get from a typical greenhouse that doesn't provide uh the native plants. You mentioned uh deeper roots and native plants, and so that's one of the good features we have in native plants. So our native plants are um they're adapted here in this location, so they fit well in our climate, in our soils, in the levels of moisture that we have. And so they're the plants that are supposed to be here that have been here. Then we can have non-native plants, which is obviously the opposite of that. They're not from around here, often brought in by humans from some other part of the world, and they can be invasive, which is another term we've talked about on this podcast. Invasive means they're aggressive and they move in and they outcompete some of those good native plants.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

And they might create a monoculture.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

And they could create a monoculture, yeah, yeah. So if we have these invasive plants, they're so good and so competitive that they start to crowd out all other plants. So they're the only plant in that area, which would then be a monoculture. And so uh what Jacob's talking about here with these native plants, these are the types of plants that we want to see around our lakes that we want to see um uh continue to have more of those in our area.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

So, Jacob, when you're planting native plants and you you want to avoid a monoculture, are there plants that go well together?

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Uh yeah, I think one thing that a lot of people don't realize with native plant gardens, and I didn't at first as well, is how well grasses really help. Uh grasses such as uh rushes, things like that in balancing native gardens. Because like you're saying, Dr. Nate, the all of these plants are really well adapted to this environment. You can plant them, and once they're established, you don't have to do anything. They're gonna look fantastic you know, in the spring when it's really cold and wet, in the summer when it hasn't rained for two months, they all look beautiful, but they can spread and fill out an area. But if you have these grasses, they'll kind of balance out uh the area and keep some spacing between the flowers, and they'll also keep the flowers from like the taller ones from flopping over. Because you'll get, you know, native plants like um asters that are three, four, five feet tall, but if they're not supported by anything, they flop over.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

And we've seen that here at the Lily Center for Lakes and Streams around our uh facility here. We're in the Dr. Danay Miller Science Complex on Grace College's campus, and all of the plants around our building are all native plants. And so we've been uh kind of testing which ones are neck next to each other and do well and have had to move some around over time. Um, we've kind of learned learned uh as we've gone along.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

I love that you both are engaged in research um and that you you did research, typical engineer, right? You looked at a scientific process of how to plant plants that solved your problem. So how's your shoreline now?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

It's great. Um the plants that we planted, uh the main one was choriopsis and uh the specific variety San Coriopsis, um, it likes really rough soil, sandy soil, rocky soil, and it'll produce a lot of seeds. And those fall, we did um we did some like boulder for uh a rock wall a little bit. So glacial stone in front of your concrete. Behind it, okay. Yeah, just to kind of shore up the the land behind it because it was like a slope. So we put that, but we've let the choreopsis, it'll drop seeds in the cracks of those boulders, and it likes that almost better than the rich soil. And so we have choreopsis growing out of like almost every crack of those boulder walls. That's really cool, and it just fills out in spring in like this beautiful yellow like display of little yellow flowers, and everybody drives their boat by and they're like, Oh, we love your landscaping. So that's that's doing really well. And then we did actually do the watershed foundation's program of glacial stone in front of the seawall. So we mitigated it on both sides of the seawall.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Very cool.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

So those native plants are important because they not only support insects and birds, what else do they do?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah, so so the it's habitat, but it's also helping to filter water, right? And so Jacob has a great example there on his lakefront property because it's filtering two ways. As those waves come and splash up on those boulders, as you were talking, and those corepsis plants are there, those waves, that lake water has nutrients in it. And so those plants are absorbing those nutrients as the water splashes up on them and as the water starts to percolate down into the even rocky soil where those plant roots are all down in there. And so the plants are taking that up, but they're also intercepting uh any nutrients that are coming from land headed towards the lake. And so they're sort of doing double duty in that way. And native plants are superior to non-native plants because they have such great root systems. And so Jacob could speak more to that from personal experience of growing these plants. But these root systems are amazing in absorbing nutrients and absorbing um moisture as well.

Roots Grasses And Two Native Examples

SPEAKER_03 10:32

Well, Jacob, you brought a couple examples of native plants. Do you want to tell us about what you brought?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah, I brought um so right now in my greenhouse, we're just starting the plants. They're they're just appearing from seed germinating. Um, and so these are some of my earliest ones. And I brought uh swamp rose mallow. So one of the things about native plants is you get to learn all these fun names of plants.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Swamp.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yes, swamp rose mallow is a plant that you may not have heard the name, but you may have seen the flower. Um, the flowers for these are some of the biggest flowers in the native plant community. And so, you know, it might be a five inch, five, six inches across flower once that actually blooms in midsummer.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

And typically they're pink or white, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yeah, they range from pink or white, I think, um, from what I've seen. And then there's there's similar flowers that are cultivated to different colors that I've seen around the area, but those aren't the native ones. The native ones are pink or white. Um, so that's one I've brought in.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Is that how we get marshmallow?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

There's another okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

That's a research thing. Somebody's some smart person's gonna look at that and put comments in our yeah, like marshmallow.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Like the marshmallows you eat.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah, marshmallows like s'mores and stuff. I don't know. Seems like I mean, we're talking swamps, marshes, mellows. I don't know. We'll have to look that up.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

So I brought I brought that one. Um, it's a baby right now, it doesn't even have any true leaves on it. All it has are the cotyledons, which are the first leaves that that come out of the seed. Cotyledons. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

A new word for me.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Okay, so those of you who are just listening, you might want to switch over and watch on YouTube if you want to see what uh what Jacob's talking about here.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah, so if if you look, this one only has two leaves that are coming out of it, and they're the first two leaves that came out of the seed. And they don't they're almost all of the the plants, these are dicots, they have two leaves, will look the same way. So whether they have super straight, narrow leaves or really wide, broad ones, the first ones look like this just round, generic leaf shape.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Itty bitty.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah, really tiny leaves. Um and they don't do a lot of photosynthesis, is what I've read. Um, and they kind of feed the plant as it's getting established. And then then the second set of leaves would be the first true leaves that would resemble more like what the plant's actual leaves will look like.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

So it would be hard as you're starting a lot of seeds out, you have to have them in certain parts of your greenhouse because just by the at the cotile leading stage, you would not be able to tell one from another.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

And I I have had some issues with labeling where a sticker fell off, and now I'm going, oh shoot. So you gotta wait until it gets a little later and it's gonna have to wait a long time to identify. But for the most part, I do a pretty good job of of labeling them and remembering which one's which. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

So a little potiledon plant-ish thing that you've got in a pot, how big is that root?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

These these roots grow really quickly. Um, when I go to replant them in the pots, then they're at least three inches long for something this size, if not longer. So three to five inches long. And we'll push them into the pots so that they've got room to fill this out for when you plant them.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

But so the above-ground part of this plant is barely visible above the soil surface. These two cotyledons um surfaces are about the size of green peas, but yet you're saying that the roots are already three inches.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

And that pot is two and a half, three inches, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, it's two and a half inches across. So it's about, I think it's like three and a half inches deep. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Isn't that amazing? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

So this one, um, swamp rose mow, it'll be about five feet tall. It loves to be in those plantings you're talking about, right along the water edge, uh, really wet, or even you know, almost in the sh in the water plantings.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

So would that be in a wetlands or along a lake or a creek?

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Where I see it in our lake is along channels and creeks that are still getting a fair amount of sun. So not a super shady creek like you'd see with a lot of trees over it, but where there's a lot of sun and there's some calmer water, I'll see this along the shoreline.

unknown 15:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

So when we talk about wetlands, we've talked about them a number of times on this podcast series. We've talked about marshes, they are often sunlit wetlands, um, not like a swamp, which would be more of a wooded wetland. And so these would be more typical in a marsh-type wetland.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

But it's still called a swamp, rose mollow.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah, which is interesting, right? So um, because in a swamp, typically you're gonna have some trees in there. Uh sometimes it could be you're still gonna have areas of sun, but uh, it's gonna be interesting.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

So it'll be in the sunnier area. And then the other plant that you brought, I love the name of this showy tick tree foil.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Mm-hmm. This is a new one for me, actually. Um, but I've I've been making lots of connections in the native plant world, and one is with uh people that sell seed, collect seed, and use it for restoration projects. And they got me some of this species, and it's a beautiful um pink species that is more in like a prairie or a savannah. This would be away from a wetland. And this is another one, but it actually does have its second set of leaves on it. Um, but again, it's still super tiny, it's not not even the size of my fingertip. Like, those leaves are even smaller than the first one. Even smaller, but it has its first set of true leaves on it, which are smaller than the cotyledons. Um and it's probably got an even more extensive root system going.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

And there is there is a picture on the little orange um display case that shows what that looks like when it's in flower.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, I'm excited. I think it's gonna be a beautiful one. This one looks like one that might take a few years before it flowers, and some take two to three years.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

So typically typically, where would somebody find that if they were out walking in the out walking in the trails? Would they find it there?

SPEAKER_00 17:22

I think you would need um either one of those preserved contemporary savannah landscapes, like one of those few remnant places that exist, or a restored area.

Building A 17-Acre Restoration Site

SPEAKER_03 17:36

So speaking of restored areas, tell us about your uh your project, your property project.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Yeah, that's that's something that we're really excited about. So all of the interest in native plants led to more native plants, led to there's an opportunity here maybe to um start doing this locally, where I'm not just uh providing plants for ourselves, but for other people in the community. And once I started doing that, I got so much excitement from everybody in the community, including people like Nate and you from the Lily Center, that I'm like, okay, this is great. This really is turning into something, but we we're gonna need a home for it. So we started looking for a place that Chapman Lake Nursery could have a home and found some agricultural land that was within budget. And it it turned out that we were able to get 17 acres of farmland that we purchased last summer.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

And so you're gonna want to tune to the YouTube channel because Jacob brought pictures.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

This is the this is the early mock-up that I made of where our land is, and then um some ideas of what we might want it to look like. So when we first got it, I was really familiar with all these prairie plants, and I'd heard a little bit from actually this podcast. You had it was Nate Simon from Blue Heron Ministries on talking about savannas, and I'd done a little reading. I'm like, oh, that sounds amazing. I love to plant oak trees and prairie plants and put them together. And uh our families on board, they're excited really as well. Of let's do this, let's actually do a restoration project and put this type of landscape where these plants are coming from on the property. And so people can come out and actually see it in person. You know, you're never gonna find showy Ticktree foil in somebody's garden, but hopefully we'll we'll have a place that you can see it in person. And so that was our initial idea. It was like, let's look at this as uh put a piece of prairie, because you can't there are woodlands that you can go to in the area, there are beaches and gardens, but a prairie is a little harder to find. And so that would be really awesome for people to see. Um, so that's that was the idea, and we got it started on okay, how do we do this restoration project?

SPEAKER_03 20:11

So Jacob's work tucks in nicely with the Lake Dr. RX.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, actually, uh, we've already been talking about, you know, potentially uh some of this area that his family has as being an early demonstration area for Lake Rx. So Lake RX, um, you'll remember, is where we're developing custom prescriptions for individual lakes in our region where our research has shown what the major problems are on a particular lake and what the most strategic solutions are. And then putting those solutions, implementing those solutions then becomes uh the next phase. And so Lake RX is uh establishing and implementing then those prescriptions for those lakes. And so we know we're gonna need to do things like constructing wetlands, restoring wetlands, um changing some of our agricultural practices, um planting uh native plants along shorelines. So a lot of the things that we're talking about here are examples of those solutions. And so uh Matt, our lead researcher and I were able to go out to uh Jacob's property, uh the native garden property recently, and with others, just start to dream a little bit. And so that for our from our standpoint, that was a lot of fun to be kind of at the beginning. I'd be curious to know from your standpoint kind of how how did that day go?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

And and I I had a great time. It was really fun because it represented. So we had you out, we had the Watershed Foundation out, we had um Blue Heron Ministries is doing the rest of And then my brother is doing the civil engineering work on it. And it was a great like example at the very beginning stages. It's a completely snow covered, cold winter day. There's nothing on the land. It was nice you had a campfire there to keep us a little warm. Um, but it represents like we're gonna have a space in the community and have the community involved and welcome there. And so that was really exciting. And for people, not just ourselves, to be excited about the project was really cool.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah. And just dream, right? I mean, there was talking about well, if we move some dirt over here and if we change the slope there, and these kind of plants can go over here, and oh, we got to make sure that we're, you know, capturing any eroding sediment from here, and oh, nutrients can get uh, you know, sequestered or absorbed in this area with these plants, and uh, it was really fun.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

So initially you were thinking prairie, that's and things kind of changed a bit.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, I again I'm background as mechanical engineering. I didn't know I've heard wetlands and I've heard, you know, restoring wetlands is good, but I was looking at a cornfield, and so I thought, okay, that'll probably be a good prairie, you know, it's dirt, cover it with plants, like sure. But what I didn't know, and people started telling me is I started looking to what resources are out there, and I'm talking to like soil and water conservation and the NRCS and different groups, and they're like, Well, you may have the soils you need for wetlands, but I'm like, Well, I don't know what soil types there are.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Do you know what soil types like I forget the names of them, but hot and muck would be a common one that we'd have in our area, which is which is usually under a lot of our wetlands.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

But they they've surveyed the soil types, and that's in the records they have available, and they looked and they said, Yeah, you have four or five acres worth of wetlands qualified soils, and so you might want to look at doing a wetlands restoration. That's exciting. It was very exciting because that brings a whole nother set of plants. It's not just these drier prairie species. Now you need all the wetland species uh and a lot of wildlife that you could bring in with that. And and I think I'm equally excited about the potential of the wildlife coming in.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

So it's 17 acres, and you're gonna be able to put a wetlands. Will you also be able to have prairie area in that 17 acres?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yep. So you you'll have the wetlands habitat, some like low pooling areas where water can collect, uh, but not necessarily stay there all year round. Um, and then adjacent to that will be some prairie areas and savannah areas. There's some woods next to our property, so it'll kind of transition all the way from a marsh to a woodland all on one property, you'll be able to see.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

And you've got a stream that comes through, more of an ephemeral stream, not constantly flowing. But so on this in this one area, four of the main five ecosystem types that we have in northern Indiana prairie, wetland, stream, forest. The only thing that's missing is a lake, but there happens to be a lake pretty close by, just a little further down slope.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

That's another great thing. It's on it's really close to Chapman Lake, which means it actually flows into Chapman Lake. So all of the water that comes from that stream you're talking about, or any just runoff from the road that goes through the property would eventually trickle into Chapman Lake, the lake we live in. And so the lake that we boat on, swim in, like that's gonna all be impacted by what we do on this land.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Everywhere anybody lives in our county is on a watershed, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Yep. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Oh, that's so exciting. I bet your kids are thrilled with this.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

They're pretty excited too, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

So they were at Washington STEM. Are they in middle school now?

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Yeah, I have one in middle school edge wood, and the other one is he she's at Lincoln in the in the gifted program.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Are they gonna follow your engineering uh path?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Or maybe a botany path.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

That would be good.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

That would be cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

You know, we know this really good school that's got a really good environmental program. Yeah, let's keep talking Grace College to those kiddos. So um, what more is it gonna take to make your vision a reality?

SPEAKER_00 26:35

That's a good question, and that's one that I'm learning as we go. Um, I think the first thing is a plan. And so we're working on that's where my brother comes in as a civil. He's doing uh a site plan, and that's gonna cover creating all the elevations where we need to move soil, where we need to put soil to have uh the baseline topography that we need for this. And then on top of that comes the restoration plan that will come from um the group we're working with, Blue Heron. And they're gonna tell us, you know, what do we need to plant? What do we need to treat for invasives is something I've already gotten plenty of homework from him on the invasives that we need to get rid of ahead of planting. And so then it'll be doing earthwork and adjusting kind of the layout of the land and then planting and then maintaining that over the years once it gets going.

Homeowner Tips Rain Gardens And Rabbits

SPEAKER_01 27:35

So what kind of and we've also started brainstorming about education, right? Maybe there's some uh a trail that could go around the property with some signage teaching people about the different types of plants or the different ecosystem types there. Uh, we've talked about even if we can figure, figure out the logistics of it, um, doing some sampling where we see kind of how water gets cleaner as it moves through your property. And so there's there's lots of uh fun things to dream about and plan.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

You went right down the path I was gonna ask about. So, as a homeowner and somebody who doesn't want to take on a huge, big project like you're doing, what lessons can I learn from what you're what you're doing? And where can I go get more information?

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Aaron Powell Well, one thing I would interject right away is everybody's property has got some sort of slope to it where you've got water moving from point A to point B on your property. And so before that water leaves your property, can you make sure it's as clean as possible? And so these sort of planting ideas can happen right on someone's own property with native plants often along a border area where the water is headed towards. Uh, maybe it's along a street, maybe it's in the back corner of the property, but maybe it's up against the house where downspouts are coming down. Uh we can do things called rain gardens, but but these plants can intercept that water and so filter the water so it's cleaner as it's leaving the property. You were gonna say something else too, Jacob.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah, I I think you have a couple parts to your question, and you did a good job explaining part of that. Um, I think one of the things that I didn't really see before I got started on native plants is there weren't a lot of great examples of all of these things that you're talking about. And so that's part of what we want to do is you know, we'll have the big restoration area, but we also want to have some smaller um garden areas that look more like something that you would have in a neighborhood at your home. So people could see, okay, I see these beautiful plants out in the restored area where there's all the wildlife, but I can also see the same plant in a small garden. Okay, I maybe this is something that I could replicate in my home garden and it still looks beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 30:01

Talk about that lovely garden you planted at Kerr Park.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Yeah, so we did that's another example. We did uh I was reached out to by the parks department and Warsaw Parks Department. Warsaw Parks Department. They said there's some interest with the art committee, which I think you were maybe involved with. Maybe. Maybe. And they said when we we put some of these art sculptures, we'd love to do a native garden around it. And like that would be another great opportunity. So we planted a native garden in Kerr Park along Market Street as a way to show here's what these plants can look like. And we've got plants in there that'll bloom early and then throughout the middle of summer, and then some asters and things that'll bloom late in the summer. So it's always looking a little different throughout the year. But things like that I think really do help people visualize it, doesn't have to be on 17 acres. It can be that one is 10 feet by 20 feet.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

Is it that big? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

And you know, it the good thing, specifically at that park, is we were worried that kids would start climbing on those sculptures that are there. Oh, and by putting the garden around it, it helps, it helps create a barrier.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

So I hadn't that had not had not occurred to me at all.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

Thank you for doing that.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

I think what we planted works really well for it. It does. They're not tame plants, they're wild plants. Um, and they will they grow up all the way around those, and so it does, I think, deter people a little bit in that way.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Yeah, I I was just gonna interject that because I I think people think of native plants and they think, oh, that that that's not gonna be as beautiful, it's gonna be really hard to maintain, um, it's not gonna look as manicured. So native plants definitely have some advantages. Now, you mentioned one thing which which can can uh detract for some people, which would be um by definition, they want to grow and expand, just like all plants do. A lot of our cultivated plants have been uh changed over time, so they don't have viable seeds and so they stay in a smaller area, whereas these want to grow and expand, which moving out in a certain planted area can be actually really good and helpful, right? And in a in an environment along a lake shore, or where you're trying to filter uh water and sediments and nutrients, that's really helpful. But they can also take less maintenance in the sense of you don't have to add fertilizer, you don't have to water them, even when we're in drought conditions. So these these plants that we have here around the science complex at Grace, we have never had to water these plants, even in some of even in some intense drought times, um, because they're used to living here and they can handle some dry spells in our our local climate. So I think that's a really cool feature. And and as you said, as a barrier, these plants, some of them can get pretty tall, they can get pretty thick, and so they can even be sort of good border areas. And I'm sure you think about that from the standpoint of when you're putting different plants together, which ones are blooming at which times, which ones are taller than other ones, which ones are more aggressive or less aggressive, and you can kind of put just the right ones together.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Yeah, you do have to balance your height and how like how much they're gonna spread and grow. Um, but all of them will, once they get established, they will kind of fill the area. And so I think the most effective thing that I found is just making sure they have an area. So if you have a garden area that has a border to it and you mow around it, it makes it really easy. You're like, okay, that's their space. We're gonna let them spread and move around and pop up in different locations and do their thing. But then by mowing around it, you've kind of kept it to that one location and it keeps it really neat.

SPEAKER_03 34:04

So you inspired me, and I planted some native species in my side lot. And the first year I struggled. It felt like every critter was eating all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Well, they love it.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Yeah, that's the other part of native plants, right? Oh, they love it. And so the creatures in your neighborhood were starved for good and good food.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Put out the most delicious salad for them. They absolutely love it. The bunnies. They come and get it and they and they eat my milkweed, which is what I want for the monarchs. And the bunnies are like, Thank you. I'll just chop that right to the ground.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

We never had bunnies until I planted that stuff, and now we've got this big crop of bunnies. So how do I help my native species grow? Do I just have to plant more of it?

SPEAKER_00 34:55

There's some of that, and there's a few, I think, things that I've learned. Um, so the ones that you figure out are really delicious, like my milkweeds that I really want, the bunnies will come and just chop those. So sometimes I'll protect those for you know, the first few months. You can either put a cage around them or a cylinder or something to let them get established. But then once they're established, they can handle a little bit of eating as well. Uh, but then there's just mixing them in with other plants, like the grasses I mentioned, or there's anything in the mint family they don't really like as much. So if you're mixing in those plants with some of the other plants they do really like, it'll provide some cover for them. So it's tricks like that that helps get the garden established. The other thing is that for a first-year garden, like these little teeny tiny plants we have here, they're spending all their energy putting roots down. And so you're you're not gonna see a lot your first year. Um this the the showy tick tree foil, I think like a lot of legume species, it'll take a few years before it reaches maturity and will actually bloom and provide seed. So that first year it may, it may even only stay a few inches tall while it's it's establishing those deep roots that it'll need for those drought times.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Now, people who are a little less patient can choose to buy larger, larger potted plants from from your nursery or other nurseries, right? Where where it can already have a year or two or three of growth and they can put it out there and have a little bit more of an established plant right from the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Still need a barrier because those rabbits love that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yes, yes. That's what, yeah, we're we're working on that. You know, I'm in my third year of this, and so I start a lot of plants for their first year, and then I'll have some left over from last year that'll be second-year plants and really ready to go as well. So yeah, you can get some second-year plants from native plant nurseries, and those should flower right away and be a little bit uh easier to establish.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Now, one thing though, I would think about, because I know this is the case with trees, you can buy um trees, our soil and water conservation district uh will sell really small tree saplings, often bare root or Arbor Day Foundation, will send these to people. Or you can go to um a nursery, a local nursery or hardware store, and maybe buy a potted tree that's already, you know, five or six feet tall. And I've been told that over the course of maybe five to ten years, that much smaller sapling will catch up and maybe even outperform the potted tree just because they're they're they're just sort of um growing aggressively, kind of starting right from very small, whereas the potted tree kind of contained. It was kind of in shock then when it got planted a little bit more mature as a plant. Would you see similar things or think there would be similar things maybe with these smaller native plants as well? That maybe some people might want to reconsider that idea I just threw out there of buying a potted plant that's already three years old and more firmly established. Maybe after year six, you'd have the same thing as if you would have started with a really small one.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Just do it all. Get the big pot so you get, you know, a little something to look at and then plant the seeds.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Oh, kind of in the mix around it. Yeah, that's a you that makes your money go a little further.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

The question's a good question, and it's a one, it's an interesting one to think on of maybe an experiment we could run of if I put a seed in the ground and let that grow naturally versus planting something that germinated in a pot until it was, you know, something I could sell, plant that in the ground versus something I kept in a pot overwinter into a second year. And by year five, how do the three look? Yeah. I don't know that we'd see a lot of difference because these plants grow and sometimes their lifespan might only be three to five years. But I I like the I like the question of like which one you know would do better. It is difficult to grow them in pots because they don't like it. They want to get their roots deep into the ground. Oh, right. And so that is a little bit of a struggle is to keep them contained, to keep them in these, you know, small containers with their roots not being able to reach all that.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

So you mentioned something interesting. The lifespan of the plant might be three to five years, but they're reseeding, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 39:34

So what do you mean by reseeding?

SPEAKER_03 39:36

They're oh re seeding. Yes, not not like a receding hairline, like planting new seeds that they drop.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

I never realized those. Reseeding? Both those words sound exactly the same.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Yep. Yeah, the ones that are um shorter lived, like there is an annual that's really pretty, uh partridge pea, that it only lives for one year. And so it'll grow very quickly, flower, and then it's gonna it's got some really cool seeds that explode. So it's got a seed pod that looks like pea, a pea pod, but when it dries out, it it opens up and twists open and shoots its seeds super far. And so we had one by our driveway last year, and we took a tape measure out to see like the furthest, because we could hear them from you know across the yard. Just hear this click and then it's it's exploding open. And we measured up to 20 feet. Wow. That it had shot the seeds across the driveway.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

Tell me the name of that plant again. Partridge pea? Partridge pea.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Okay, who needs fireworks? We've got native plants, huh? 20 feet. Yeah.

unknown 40:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

Jacob, are there plants that you strongly desire to grow? That like, is there a holy grail of a native plant that you want to grow in your Chapman Lake nursery?

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Yeah, part of the reason why I'm here is because of butterfly weed. And so that's the that's the milkweed that I put on our logo, and it's uh a monarch host plant. Um, but it's a beautiful orange, bright orange blossom, like super bright orange. You don't really see a lot of orange flowers, and this is native to Indiana. They're they're even trying to make it the state flower of Indiana, because our current state flower is not a native flower. Um, but you got to get the soil conditions just right. It likes it really dry, it likes a little bit rocky soils, and it likes to be amongst some grasses, like almost like a true prairie situation. I see it do really well along the roadsides where like the Department of Transportation has planted it. Yeah. But in my own garden, I've struggled sometimes. I've overwatered and killed them. The rabbits eat them, and so I was constantly buying butterfly weed. I'm like, okay, I need to just start growing this and finding the right conditions for it to thrive.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

Now, I've also heard there's a plant called a butterfly bush. Is that a good plant?

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Butterfly bush would be like giving your kids candy, but also candy made from another country because it's it's not a native plant. Uh, it's I don't remember where its origin is. It can be invasive. It's not a super, I don't think it's a super problematic invasive, but it it is invasive. Um, and it will attract a lot of butterflies, but uh from what I've read, it's not great nutrition for them. And so it it brings them in, but it's not necessarily giving them the fuel they'll need.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:50

Okay, I've got something to eradicate at my house.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

And that was we even did the same thing. And so I have I had a year where I took pictures of all the butterflies in our butterfly bush, and now I'm completely in the deep end of native plants, and so we got rid of the butterfly bushes and we planted asters.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

Okay, good. Well, I do have some of that butterfly weed in my garden, so I must have really crappy soil with a lot of rock in it.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

It is this area grass growing around it, too. We do have lots of very sandy soils, and I always thought Indiana was covered in like forests growing up. That was what I was told. But we actually did have the the environments we're talking about, the prairies, the wetlands, the savannahs, savannas. Yeah, I didn't know that, but they were present in this county, in this area.

SPEAKER_03 43:42

Isn't it fun to learn this stuff?

SPEAKER_00 43:44

It's fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 43:45

Yeah. So I'm so thankful for the Lake Doctor podcast and the opportunity to learn about these native species. And tell us about your nursery, Jacob.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Yeah, so we're on our Third year of growing plants and selling them here locally in the community. And what we do is we go to primarily like native plant events, or we go to a couple earth day events, and we'll have our plants for sale. So this spring, I'm going to Fort Wayne for an earth day event or Lake Wahwasee for an earth day event. And then we'll do some native plant sales in South Bend and at Lake Wawasee. And then we're going to do a sale here in Warsaw at the Barn 1880 over Memorial Day weekend.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

Oh, good. I'll see you there.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to it. I think there's a lot of excitement in this community for native plans. And so I'm hoping to see a lot of people there.

SPEAKER_03 44:43

And do you have a website?

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Yep. You can go to Chapmanlake Nursery.com and it's got our calendar and my contact information. And coming in April is when we'll post what plants we have available. Once we've got everything repotted, like we've shown and it's ready to be planted, then we'll we'll put those available for sale on our website.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

And speaking of calendars coming up in October, uh, there'll be a uh workshop that you're going to be doing here at the Lily Center as well. I think for like the third time. Yeah, this will be the third year. What's that workshop that you've been doing?

SPEAKER_00 45:19

We do a seed collecting seminar where we show people in the community how to collect native seed. So I like collecting all of the seed that I grow here locally that I can from my garden, from gardens we've planted with the city of Warsaw, other places. And so showing people how they can do that to collect the seed they might want for their gardens is something we've done each year with the Lily Center. And so we do that uh in October is usually when the seeds are ready. But I think you have a whole series of events, not just related to seed collecting, but also like native garden design, if if people are interested in checking those out.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

And where can people check that out, Nate?

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Lakes.grace.edu is our website, and we've got all of our events on there. Now, Susie, I've got a question for you. If you're trying to collect prairie seeds, native prairie seeds, where do you think you might collect those?

SPEAKER_03 46:14

Well, I think where I think I might go, I probably legally can't go.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Where would you think you might go?

SPEAKER_03 46:22

There is a prairie near the skating rink.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Oh, okay. Yes. Uh so Acres Land Trust had that for has uh owned that. Um, I was saying just more in general places to go, often along railroads.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 46:38

And near cemeteries. Any idea why? Why would we have prairie remnant areas along there? Or I well let's open it up to our guests too. Maybe Jacob has some ideas.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

Well, I'm guessing because it was flat.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Well, partially. Any thoughts, Jacob?

SPEAKER_00 46:55

So as I've been looking at what is native, I finally went and got a recommendation to look at. Charles Dean was a botanist in Indiana in the early 1900s and went all over the state cataloging what native species were present uh and their distribution throughout the state. And people like him wrote about going to the places you described because a lot of the open areas had already been converted into farmland. But the cemeteries or along railroads were places that weren't allowed to grow back into a forest.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Um either because they're being maintained or because trains were throwing sparks and creating fires along the road rays, which have been like what Native Americans would have done to maintain some of the savannah and prairie landscapes. And so that's where they could find these species that you don't really see anymore because it'd been turned into agriculture.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Really cool. Yeah, we've got some amazing heritage here in Indiana for sure.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

That is an interesting tidbit of information.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

Yeah, and when we were working on restoring some prairie habitat here on the Grace College campus, that's what we did. We worked with uh Nate Simons from Blue Heron Ministries, and we went out uh and collected seed for a few different years, and then we went and planted those into some of the the uh we have three 50 meter by 50 meter experimental plots on the campus of Grace College.

SPEAKER_03 48:32

Um people could tune into that um podcast.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

Yeah, where we talked more about that with um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:39

Controlled burns, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:40

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

So when I collect seeds from my butterfly weed, um what do I need to do to do that?

SPEAKER_00 48:51

You gotta time it right is first. You'll see them make a seed pod in the summer to early fall, and then you wanna wait until it cracks open, just just a tiny amount, and that means they're ready. But if you wait too long, they're all attached to fluff, like little cotton floaty things. I don't know how to describe that better. Floaty things, like dandelions. Like a dandelion. And once they open up, they're gonna they're gonna disperse by the wind, and it just turns into a mess. So if you can get them right as they crack, then you can collect those seeds, store them in a dry spot until you're ready to cold stratify them. And that's another thing you'll need to learn how to do.

SPEAKER_03 49:34

So I gotta attend that workshop on October 3rd. And it will be where?

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Yeah, we're actually gonna be right here in this room where we're uh recording this podcast in our learning lab at the Lily Center.

SPEAKER_03 49:48

All right. Jacob, thank you so much for being with us today. We really learned a lot about native species and the wonderful plants that you're growing at the Chapman Lake Nursery. And we're excited that you're going to be helping us with harvesting seeds. Thanks for being here today.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

It was my pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 50:10

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lake Doctor Podcast. You can share your thoughts or submit questions by leaving a comment or sending an email to lakes at grace.edu.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Listening to this podcast is just the first step to making your lake cleaner and healthier. Visit lakes.grace.edu for more information about our applied research and discover some tangible ways you can make a difference on your lake.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

We'll see you next time. The doctor is in.