Converting Lawn to Prairie: Native Nerd Resources with Caitlin Yoder

In this episode of the Lake Doctor podcast, Suzie Light and Dr. Nate Bosch sit down with Caitlin Yoder, Watershed and Special Projects Coordinator at The Watershed Foundation (TWF). A Grace College graduate, Caitlin shares how her love of gardening and problem-solving led her into watershed work.

She walks through the TWF’s cost-share programs—Healthy Shorelines and the newer Beyond Lawns initiative—that help landowners convert lawns and shorelines into native plantings. From prairie plantings under solar panels to projects under five acres, these programs make it possible for properties of almost any size to contribute to clean water and healthy lakes. Caitlin also shares about the Native Nerds Kosciusko community group, the real-life challenges of home gardening, and why building local connections matters just as much as the plants themselves.

This episode is a hopeful look at how all communities and properties can collaborate to be part of the solution for healthier Kosciusko County lakes and streams.

Caitlin Yoder grew up in Warsaw, Indiana and attended Grace College, where she received a degree in accounting. She went on to receive a Certificate in Watershed Management from the Indiana Watershed Leadership Academy at Purdue University. Since 2021, she's worked as the Watershed and Special Project Coordinator at The Watershed Foundation. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, creating community, and helping folks take action for their lakes. She currently lives in Winona Lake with her husband, Vince, two sons, Theo and Fletcher, and Sammy the dog.

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

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Transcript

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Welcome And Meet Caitlin Yoder

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to this episode of the Lake Doctor Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

I'm Susie Light. And I'm Dr. Nate Bosch.

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Dr. Nate Bosch, my favorite Lake Nerd, who's our guest today.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Today we have Caitlin Yoder. She is the Watershed and Special Projects Coordinator at the Watershed Foundation. And we're going to talk about community, some of the projects she's involved with with the Watershed Foundation. It's going to be great.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

And we're going to talk about her hobbies, including joining the Native Nerds. It's a group that's looking at native species of plants in our community. Stay tuned, the doctor is in a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of aitlin Yoder, welcome to the Lake Doctor Podcast. We are thrilled you are here with us today.

Gardening Lessons From Trial And Error

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Tell our listeners and our viewers a bit about you, please.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, my name is Caitlin Yoder. I was born and raised in Casyasco County, grew up in Warsaw. I went to Grace College. I'm a Grace College grad and had a short stint, not so short, six-year stint, working with Nate at the Lilly Center, and then have transitioned in my career to working with the Watershed Foundation, where I am the watershed coordinator, working on a lot of their projects and programs.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

And what are you doing in your personal life?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

In my it's a lot of gardening, a lot of mini homesteading, raising two rambunctious boys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

What sort of gardening do you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Um I have been learning, teaching myself over the last few years and learning um to do like vegetable gardening. I started out with just a few raised beds when I lived in Wynona Lake, and now we've got just a little under an eighth of an acre planted in corn and potatoes and tomatoes, um, peppers, pretty much zucchini. Lots of zucchini. So I have this harebrain dream to preserve enough food for the winter.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

That's my really can or freeze? How are you gonna love it? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah, yeah. That's where the potatoes are coming in because they're really easy to to cure and keep, you know, less complicated.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

I grew potatoes last year. I didn't understand that you needed to cure them. Yeah. So explain that to our listeners, please.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

So for potatoes, you have to dig them out of the ground, you don't clean them, and you have to leave them in a really like aerated, dark place for I think like seven weeks, and at that point they're ready to store long term. But I did the same thing. Like I said, I'm learning and teaching myself. I rotted an entire batch of purple potatoes two years ago because I didn't do it right.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

You know, that's the that's the fun thing about gardening, and it's the fun thing about the Lily Center. We learn as we so what other secrets have you learned?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Oh, I've been battling vine borers for a number of years on squash and potato or um squash and like pumpkins, like any kind of like vining plant like that. They're these little worms that get in in the spring and they will eat their way through the stems and just decimate your your squash. So I've been learning to plant them later in the season, like closer to fall, like a July planting, so they're ready later in the fall, because at that point that moth is not around.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

You know, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So yeah, yeah, it's a constant battle against nature.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

So it almost sounds like you have a hobby gardening farm.

Hobby Farming And Respect For Farmers

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Sounds like you and Nate have something in common. Nate, you have a hobby farm.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

How's that going this year? It's going good. The plants we grow is pasture plants for our grazing animals, so alpaca and sheep. So we have Valet's black-nosed sheep, so we're raising those. And what I love, speak like like Caitlin, kind of learning as you go. I love learning about rotating pastures, minimizing parasites, um, as you were just talking about, and um just trying to have as healthy a sheep as possible. And there's a lot to learn about that. Both of our organizations will work with professional farmers on the agriculture or the livestock side, since we have a lot around our lakes and streams here in Casciasco County, and so it's fun to get a little peek into their world as we do it uh as a hobby farm. I'm just glad that my livelihood doesn't depend on it. Yeah, it's it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

It's kind of humbling to do it on a small scale and still really struggle with certain things, and then think about like, well, my income doesn't depend on this, so it's l less stakes for us, but it's high stakes for the agricultural community. It is, and the weather too.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

It gives us a lot of respect for them, I think.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

We've learned in our podcast that lakes and streams have systems.

Nature Systems And Plant Survival Tricks

SPEAKER_03 5:07

Do gardens and farms have systems?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Oh, for sure. Yeah, that's um I I've always been really fascinated by different systems in nature, and I think that's why I really like gardening um and like the seasonal aspect of it. Like there's you know, a time of rest, a time for planting. It's just very um peaceful. I love that rhythm. Um, so that's one of the reasons why I continue to to do it even when it's hard. It's just really satisfying.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Sounds biblical in nature, doesn't it? Yeah, yes, it is, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah, I love speaking of plants, I love thinking about the biology of plants. How do plants disperse their seed, for example? All different mechanisms. You could have an oak tree that just drops the acorns, which are just lots of new nutrients, not very many of them, versus you also have the strategy of like a cottonwood tree that sends millions of seeds long distances, right? I love thinking about how do plants deal with water shortage or temperature stress or outcompeting other plants, or how do they avoid being eaten by an herbivore. So plants are fascinating, um fascinating parts of God's creation. It's really fun to learn about.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

And I never realized the timing of a plant to avoid a pest is helpful.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I do all my cool weather crops now in the fall, like carrots and cabbage and all that kind of stuff. Um I've just found it does better here in the fall because of the pest pressure.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

Now, one of the things that you studied when you were here at Grace, I think, was accounting. That was, yeah. Yeah. And that is very um so from somebody who's probably got more of an artsy kind of background, I would think accounting is rather nerdy. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

So can artists be nerds too? Sure they can. Okay, yeah. All right. I'm just wondering why you're just lobbying that just on this side of the table over here.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

You know, different brains engage, different sides of your brain engage. Um are there garden nerds?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Oh, yeah. I think any anything that you're like super passionate about and want to know everything about would put you maybe into a nerd category. But yeah, I think it's cool to be passionate about something.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

So and how did you learn more about gardening as you made this journey? Because you started with raised beds, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I mean, I saw a lot of in my family, maybe not my parents' generation, but like my grandfather grew tomatoes and sold them in a roadside stand, and my great-grandfather was like really well known in the county. Um, Hugh Sweetcorn. He grew, he had um, I don't know, like three acres maybe over by the cemetery. And he grew sweet corn, and I went and I helped him plant the corn and he grew some onions too. So I remember we had this little stick he made to like poke holes in the ground and drop in the onions. So I mean, I had that experience. Um, but honestly, like a lot of Facebook groups I use for asking questions and um figuring out what worked for other people to try. So I this year, oh, and um finding people locally, so through Facebook and then talking to people locally. Um I planted, I don't know, hundreds of corn and beans and stuff this year, and then nothing came up. And I was Googling it, I was on Facebook groups, couldn't figure it out, and then I um saw a woman I met through a Facebook group at the farmer's market, and I was like, Brittany, what is going on? I don't understand why nothing's coming up. And she asked me if I had dug up the rose to see what was going on, like if I could see any roots or anything. So I did, and there were no seeds there, but I found a ton of ants.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

And um, so lo and behold, these ants, just like Bugs Life, you know, were taking my seeds back to their little homes, you know, and thriving, but my seeds weren't, so I had to put down diatomaceous earth, you know, anyways, do all these things, and now I have sprouts. But but yeah, just kind of that, and maybe that's what I like. I like problem solving and and that community networking has been the best way that I found to figure things out.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

So I don't mean to go off on too much of a tangent here, Susie, but do you know what diatomaceous earth is made out of?

SPEAKER_03 9:17

Yes, I do. I do because I've used it. I do, I do. I've only had one cup of coffee so far today. Tell me, Nate, what is diatomaceous earth?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Made out of diatoms, which are phytoplankton. They live in our lake. So they're the little algae that live in glass houses, they have glass frustruals. And so even after they die, though the glass little homes uh stay and persist. And they use them for filtering, they use them in cleaning agents, use them a lot of farming processes for insects. So pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Yeah, how do they get harvested?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yeah, do they do freshwater diatoms?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

I thought they were ocean diatoms this whole time, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

I don't know how they get them.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

So diatomaceous earth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 10:07

And you can buy it at a hardware store in a tractor spot.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

In big bags, yeah, it's really handy.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

And it's helpful to get rid of pests?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Yeah, it's kind of violent. Anything with an exoskeleton, it will like slice and dice and dehydrate them.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

So let's get on to better topics about topics.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

So um what systems do you find intriguing, Dr. Nate?

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Well, I I I as I said before, I love thinking about you know, how do plants compete with each other? Um, I love thinking about how do plants deal with uh or with herbivore pressure. So plants often will have uh spikes or really hard coverings like trunks of trees, um things that can't be digested by other animals. Um I like thinking about uh how do they deal with stresses of water or temperature. And um right now we're recording this during a really hot time, and so plants have to balance this need for pulling in carbon dioxide uh into their stomates, the little openings in their leaves. But whenever they open those stomates, they release water vapor, which then, if it's dry, then they don't have a lot of water, you know, excess water reserves. And so there's the to do photosynthesis, they need to pull in CO2 to eventually make the glucose, but they can't keep the stomates open too long because they're gonna dry themselves out. And so there I I love just thinking about those balances and how everything's just designed so intricately.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

So, Caitlin, you are growing corn now. Have you noticed the corn sweating?

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Everything feels wet right now. I'm not sure what's the corn and what's everything else. People too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Healthy Shorelines And Beyond Lawns

SPEAKER_03 12:04

So tell us about your work at the Watershed Foundation.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yeah, so um I get the really cool opportunity to do the coordination for a few of our cost-share programs, which are um we at the Watershed Foundation, what we do is we come alongside different kinds of landowners to help them implement practices on their land that will improve water quality. Um, so we have um two water conservationists that work with our ag community, and um they are very experienced in agriculture, so like they they do a really good job of speaking the language and helping problem solve for cover crops, no-till, all that. But the two programs that I get to work on are Healthy Shorelines and then this new program that we have called Beyond Lawns, which is technical assistance, which basically just means someone can come out and give you advice based on your specific property, and then we have some reimbursement for the cost of implementing that practice through grants. All of our programs are kind of based around practices that are going to help slow down, spread out, and soak in stormwater as it's running across the watershed to filter out any any pollutants. So for healthy shorelines, we are helping um lake property owners through an informational workshop and some funding assistance to be able to transition their concrete seawalls into uh a healthier shoreline, which would include glacial stone, and then ideally kind of a border of native plants. So that's gonna help to slow down that water and infiltrate anything that like last a ditch effort before it gets into the lake.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Is a side benefit of that keeping geese off your yard?

SPEAKER_00 13:47

I yeah, I think that's the idea for a lot of these shorelines. And I think Lily Center did uh a goose poop in Winona.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

The Watershed Foundation when they were working on their uh shoreline restoration around the Limitless Park at Winona Lake, then they asked us to help out with a little research project on looking at plants and trying to keep geese out of that area. It can be an E. coli threat, um, but also uh it can just be annoying for people to have to walk through uh goose poop. And so that visual barrier, those native plants make a visual barrier so that the geese don't feel comfortable. And so they do have that extra benefit.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Okay, so healthy shorelines.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

I'll say one more thing about shorelines too. So that that's the water coming in. There's also nutrients that can come into the water from inside the lake from that churning of the wave action hitting that concrete seawall. So when we make that like steady slope of the glacial stone, it breaks up that like impact of the water coming in and it doesn't churn up the sediment into the water there. So we're coming at it from both angles with those with those shorelines. Um beyond lawns this is a program to help people to incorporate native plants into their property, whether it is like a larger area of converted grass to prairie, or if we're just gonna do like a landscape like the Lily Center has out front here where you're using native plants versus um, you know, traditional, maybe ornamental plants in your landscaping. Um the reason why we want to encourage that is because a lot of native prairie plants in particular, their root structures are really long. Like a turf grass, I think, I mean, it's like this long, their root structure.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

So when So Caitlin's holding up about an inch and a half. Yeah, yes, just for a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

But I think, gosh, I'm trying to remember exactly how many feet. It's like over ten feet. Some of these prairie plants, their root structures go down that far into the soil. So it's um creating these pathways for water to enter in as it's raining, so it's helping to infiltrate, and then they also kind of make like a like a net when they're holding the soil in place. So by keeping that soil covered and making those deep channels, the water is able to get in get in really easily versus in grass where it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

And soil doesn't run off when there's a heavy rain.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Right, correct.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

So I mean, like that's you know, TWF, the whole our whole mission is to be able to encourage people to be able to do these different practices through being, you know, helpful by providing information and resources, um, and then that little financial offset as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Yeah, those are great programs.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

So Caitlin, you you talked about cost sharing. How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yes, so a cost share is um essentially a grant program. So we have an application. So if you are ready to pull the trigger on a shoreline or an agricultural agri agricultural practice or implementing native plants, then you would send in an application, and then if approved, you would complete the project, and then there's a final report. So the landowner is um responsible for for doing the work to start, but then we have a percentage of the cost of that project that we will reimburse you.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

So does it it does size matter? So I'm thinking there's a spot in my yard that I would like to turn into native plants rather than my green lawn. And um since I live in the watershed, I would just call your office, go online, what do I do?

SPEAKER_00 17:23

So yeah, we have um the beyond lawns, the size thing, we do have um two different programs essentially that you can participate in. So that's kind of why this program, why we put it together in the first place. Um there are a number of different cost shares for large properties through like USDA, like soil and water, DNR, like those kinds of groups, but the cutoff for those is five acres or more, um, which in our area a lot of properties are much smaller than that. So that was kind of the gap we were trying to fill by putting this program in place. So as it stands now, our Beyond Lawns Prairie grant, which funds a little more, is for an acre and over. And that would often look like that prairie transition where you are eliminating a large portion of your property and planting it into native plants.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

So for someone who lives in Cassiasco County, if they might want to see an example of what that looks like, do you know where some of your uh locations are?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

I do. Yeah, so the best one to go look at would be um at Leesburg, Harrison, or Jefferson, or I'm sorry, Leesburg, Harrison, or Eisenhower Elementary. Um our pilot project for that prairie program was um to replant underneath their solar panel fields into a low-grow prairie, and that is in the beginning of its third year, so everything's really starting to bloom. So that's another thing with these prairie plantings, is it takes about three years for it to look like what you would expect it to look like. Um, so that's been a really cool process to be able to watch that come to life, and we've had the kids involved through a partnership with Soil and Water to go plant the prairie the first year, and then we've been doing um diversity assessments every year after that to to get them involved and take ownership in it. But those those are blooming right now and they're they're really beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

I've just been past the Eisenhower one just recently, and it does look beautiful. And what a great use of that space and how innovative of uh you and the team at TWF to sort of see, like we were talking about before, that problem solving, right? So hey, hey, we've got grass. Oh wow, we've got to mow under all of these solar panels. And it's and or we could instead have native plants and have all the benefits of those and then have less of the the maintenance. What a what a win-win.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Well, saved them, I think, a little over $4,000 a year.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

And just mowing.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

Each school, wow. Yeah, that is cool.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Well, yeah, for the total acres we converted, yes.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

So you mentioned soil and water, and you also mentioned USDA. It sounds like you're doing a lot of collaboration.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Yeah, um, TWF and and Lynn, our director, that has been kind of the MO for the organization from the start. Because when you're working with landowners and on a watershed basis, you you have to look at it from that zoomed-out perspective. So when we're working with the landowner, we want to pull all the resources from all the different organizations that we can to make sure that project is a success. Um, so when we built this program, we formed a committee with all those partners to make sure that we were addressing the real needs and that it would function well alongside the programs that they already that they already have, you know. And with our um with our group, we're on a watershed basis, not a county basis. So there is a section of Casyasco County that we don't we don't do work in. So Soil and Water was gracious enough with our seedling program, which is for properties under an acre, so maybe something more like the landscaping out front here at the Lilly Center. They are funding a number of properties outside the county or outside our watershed within the county, so that we can offer that.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Explain that a little bit more if you would, Caitlin. So you were talking about there's kind of two divisions of beyond lawns or two categories. There's the larger one, which was was that one to five acres in size, because then there's a a bigger there's a different program with USDA or something for greater than and then less than an acre, is that that's what you call the seedling program?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah, it's just over an acre for the prairie program. Um there there are great programs through DNR and USDA. Sometimes those have um a little more restrictions on them. So I think for USDA in particular, you have to be registered as like farmland for a number of their programs. But um we're able to to make it kind of cut and dry. Um so if that fits better for your property, then then you know, over an acre. I think we had one person apply with eight. Okay, you know? So um, and then yeah, the smaller projects are under. An acre. It can be we had one grant that we gave where somebody had taken up the grass and replanted it into like native plants with seeds. But we've had a lot of people apply and do plugs where they are, you know, just removing their front landscaping that existed there and replacing it with already grown native plants. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

So a long time ago, Caitlin, maybe like when you were in grade school a long time ago, the watershed

Collaboration Across Watershed Partners

SPEAKER_03 22:28

foundation focused on Tippecanoe Lake, and you have expanded your footprint to include more of the watershed. Explain that.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Yeah, so um the way watershed works is they can be really big or really small. Um so yes, TWF started focusing right around Tippi, but at the request of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, or IDEM, we've expanded into that larger upper Tippecanoe River watershed area, which would include Pike, Chapman, Center Winona Lake.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Um because the Tippecanoe River focuses and flows through the side.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah, all the water flowing through those lakes will end up in the Tippecanoe River eventually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

And I think we've said in the past, like no matter where you are in Cassiasco County, you're in some type of watershed, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Yeah, you are. And and sometimes the watersheds can be nested, which I think is interesting. So you can say, hey, what's the watershed for this particular point on this particular tiny little stream, which might even be an agricultural ditch, and you could delineate a uh watershed there, or you could go to a certain spot on the Tippi River and say, okay, where does all the water come from that comes to this spot in the Tipee River, which would be a much larger land surface? And so it's wonderful their organization saw needs in a broader uh geographic area and uh looked to expand into a broader watershed area.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

It's pretty exciting stuff.

Community Building With Native Nerds

SPEAKER_03 24:06

So this is building community. Like you've got a water community, you have a gardening community. Um tell us about why community is important to you.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Well, like I mentioned before, I I feel like I had really good influences in my family of community builders, like my grandpa's who had their farm stands, and um, one of my other sets of grandparents owned a hardware store in a small town in Etna Green, and that was a very much central hub for their little town. Everyone had their own coffee cup on the wall, and I spent a long time. Like a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

So you'd go in there and you'd just pull your cup off the wall.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

She would have a fresh pot of coffee, and all of the, you know, old people would sit and gossip about what was going on in town. So that was always that always felt like really like wholesome and like a huge part of my childhood. Um, I think also I uh I was a really young mother. Um I got my husband and I got married in uh when I was 21, and then pretty shortly after that had my first son, and all of my friends had moved away and gone to college, you know, um, out of town, and I just very much felt like that, that need for a community and um was able to do a lot of work to build that for myself. So I think that through that experience in my family and being a young mother, um, and then in you know, being a nature nerd or whatever, you you just see how those um the importance of those intertwining systems and how everything supports each other. That's just been a foundational part of my my personality and my experience as I've you know grown in my career and my life.

SPEAKER_03 25:38

So if somebody needs some help in caring for their lawn or caring for their garden or caring for water, what would your advice be?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

So, I mean, we we have a lot of groups and resources in the area, in particular for this Beyond Lawns program, the seedling portion for the landscaping. Through my committee, we've created this group called Native Nerds, like Native Plant Nerds. We have a Facebook group. If you go to Facebook and type in Native Nerds, it'll pop up. Um but we also plan to host gatherings at these different nerds gardens. They've um they've done a lot of the work to learn how to do native plant landscaping in a way that is beneficial, you know, for pollinators and wildlife, but that um is really beautiful. And they've learned a lot of the lessons already, you know, and are are excited to share how to how to avoid some pitfalls, you know, or things that worked well for them. Um so I think getting plugged in that way. Um, and I know a lot of our groups have really awesome volunteer opportunities as well, and that's a great way to get plugged in and learn, um, but also get to give back a little bit to the effort to keep our lakes clean.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

What I'm just thinking about um there's a master garden gardener.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Gardeners, yes, and master naturalists, yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Where you can actually get certified in these areas. I wonder if there could be like a native plant version of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

We have yes, we've got the we have all the ideas, you know. It's just a matter of like winnowing down which ones we want to tackle first.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

Kind of like a garden, right? You're planting the seed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so no, we've definitely talked about that, or even just um being able to come speak at one of their meetings on native plants um and how that fits in to a traditional garden, you know. So because I think they can. I don't think I think people assume that to do native landscaping, you have to like just turn your yard into a prairie, which is great. And that that has probably the most um water quality benefit because of the the root structure, and that's what helps infiltrate and filter the water. But um there are some plants that just swap really well, like purple cone flower, you know, even that orange butterfly weed, like there are a lot of plants that you probably wouldn't even you wouldn't look at it and be like, oh, that's a native plant garden. It just seamlessly flows into the landscape. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:09

So you were um telling me earlier about finding a native plant somewhere and getting pretty excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

It was that butterfly milkweed that Caitlin was just mentioning. It is beautiful orange. There's not a lot of flowers that are orange. Orange seems to be less common than than some of the other flowers, but butterfly milkweed is a beautiful orange color.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

Um monarch butterfly host.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Yeah, and uh blooming um in sort of late June, early July. And uh yeah, really, really cool plant. Several milkweeds, common milkweed, and um I think there's a marsh. Yeah, there's many varieties I was looking for, yeah. So pretty fun.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

But the question was where did you find that milkweed bush? And what was the companion plant? You don't remember poison ivy. Yeah, did you get poison ivy?

SPEAKER_01 29:10

I did. Oh yes. Um, I am not a big fan of poison ivy, and uh, I get the alert allergic reaction. I didn't as a kid, and that's something interesting that that that immunity can go away. Um, as a kid, I could roll around in this stuff, but now as an adult, I get it just if I look like even just talking about it right now, I can feel myself starting to feel itchy. So let's move on to it.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

Okay, I was just gonna say you probably have a community of of pals who are as allergic to poison ivy as you.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Yes, some of my uh students uh share that concern when we're going outside for different field labs. And okay, one of the first lessons is we need to talk about poison ivy and what to look for and how to avoid it.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

So okay. Building community is important to Caitlin. Yeah, it's important to you in the Lily Center. You seem to be building a community of water uh advocates.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

How's that going?

SPEAKER_01 30:14

I think it's going well. Um, you know, there's uh many folks in our community that see the importance of water, um, see the stakes that are there for these water resources being properly protected, and people from government agencies can see that, uh, people who live around these water resources, whether on a lake or a stream throughout our region, um, people who see the economic benefits of those things, people who are inspired by those things. You mentioned um your artistic interests, Susie. And I think, I mean, you look at if you did a tally, my my nerdy scientist mind thinks like this, like, oh, we need data, you could survey artwork, and I would guess a pretty large percentage of artwork is inspired somehow by water. And so uh water is is really key and important to uh to a lot of us, and so I think that does help bring community together with that. I mean, with with community and with relationships, there's a there needs to be a common interest there. And so if there's a value for water, then there can be community surrounding that.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

I made um a note before I came here that lakes lakes are community builders on many like you have the people who can afford to live on the lake, but like my family was the family that went to the public beach, you know, and swam. But that's it's a gathering space, it's free, you know. You pack a lunch and you go make memories with your kids, and it's it's really um cool to me that people of all economic standings can gather around this resource that we have here to to build those memories and build community, um, which is I really like this Beyond Lawns program because I feel like it opens up the ability to um participate in keeping our lakes healthy and clean and around for a long time because it's something anybody can do. Yes. Versus like, I don't have a shoreline that I can convert. And I mean, I have my little hobby farm, but like I don't farm acres and acres of land, you know. So I I really like being able to include everyone in the vision of protecting our lakes locally.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

So key. And kudos to you and to the Watershed Foundation for seeing that need and then jumping in and providing that program. Because you're right. I I think you said it before, Susie. Everybody lives in a watershed. And so, regardless if you're right on a lake or you're two miles away from a lake or you're 20 miles away from a lake, what you do on your property is going to have an influence on a lake or a stream downstream somewhere. And so empowering people to make a difference on their own property, and and what I think is cool, I I used the phrase win-win earlier, these

Barriers And Realistic Native Plant Care

SPEAKER_01 33:10

are beautiful solutions, right? This is not this is not, oh, I have to sort of sacrifice this portion of my property to give it over to helping water quality. No, you're enhancing your property with these beautiful plants. And did we mention, by the way, you don't have to mow that either?

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Not as often as grass. There is there is maintenance involved. I don't want there to be like the perception that you don't have to do anything.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Yeah, so maybe you mention that. That might be helpful for people to know a little bit. How how are these uh sort of native landscapes, how are they managed differently than a mowed turf grass lawn that needs to be mowed every week or twice a week?

SPEAKER_00 33:50

So, like, yeah, for for grass, you know, you're constantly you have to mow multiple times a week during the season. They often require, you know, like fertilizers, chemical treatments. So native plants, they are adapted to live in this environment. So they oftentimes don't need um pest control, and that's that's the opposite. You want the butterflies. Most people are planting these because they want the butterflies and to support the insects, but because of the way their root structures work, um, they don't need as much water. They're a little more resistant to drought and and to flooding because they're gonna be able to infiltrate that water down. So, you know, if you're spending a ton of time outside watering your landscape, that's gonna be reduced a little bit if you have native plants instead. And in a prairie setting, um, mowing becomes the maintenance, which is maybe like in the very beginning, you're gonna mow like three times in that year. And that's gonna be to reduce weed pressure and to help spread the seed. So the timing matters, you know. So um, yeah, we want the sunlight to get down to establish those native plants. So you're gonna knock the weeds down, and then later in the fall, once they get the seed heads, we're gonna mow again to help disperse the plants that you want. So, and then some precision invasives management as well to keep those from taking root. So, but yeah, by the time you're in like year three to four, you've got a really nice base of the native plants, and um, it's kind of just precision, like I said, pulling out a calorie pair or you know, thistle every now and then. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Oh, thistle.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

We have some thistle. I heard pulling it out isn't a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Well, with gloves, let's say. Okay, no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Yeah. Yeah. So I think uh, you know, we have said the Lily Center serves Casciasco County. The Watershed Foundation serves the watershed that is part of Casciasco County and maybe part of some other counties. But wherever our listeners are listening, and I'm giving a shout-out to listeners in Dallas, Texas, and some in California, wherever they are, they have an opportunity to impact water quality by the practices that they use.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yeah. And even if they don't have this Beyond Lawns program in their community, they can say take some of these principles. I'm sure they could go to the Wat Foundation's website, learn about Beyond Lawns what sort of plants, how does the process work, and they could implement their own version of that uh in their own neighborhood and maybe even pull their own native nerd group together in their community and start promoting this sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Because their plants are going to be totally different than ours, you know, in Texas. I've I've actually gotten emails from people in Texas and Pennsylvania and different states asking for advice. Um it is, you know, we we formed this group for our area, but it would be something that would be doable in other areas and other states for people to kind of pull together this this community, you know, like we've been talking about. Um the our founding grant that we got to put together the plan for this program in the first place was from a group called Village and Wilderness. And their whole MO is to um help establish programs that promote microhabitats. So kind of the same concept, they're not necessarily a water group, but kind of the same concept as a watershed. They want as many little um plots of habitat for insects, birds, etc., that they can get because combined that is going to help sustain our populations of pollinators, etc. Um, so that grant cycle happens every year, I think.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

So the Watershed Foundation and the Lily Center are important resources in Cassiasco County. But wherever our listeners are listening or watching from, there are resources that serve them. Yes. So what are the barriers for people?

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Yeah, so um another thing that TWF has done for many years, even before I was there, is a number of uh social indicator surveys. So it's um social science uh survey that goes out to the community and it's gauging people's um level of information on and willingness to incorporate certain practices, including asking like what the barriers would be for someone to to do these things on their property. Um and for native plants in particular, and for many of the different practices, the biggest barriers are lack of information and the cost. Um, sometimes physical ability, you know, ranks up there too. So um by building our programs in particular to address those top two barriers, we're hoping that that gets people kind of over that hurdle. Um and our vision and our goal, especially with Beyond Lons and our native nerds group, is to provide like that extended community support versus, you know, we're here for the very beginning and now you're on your own, you know, to be able to help walk people through that process of getting these established and to continue to be that resource so that they're successful.

Finding Seeds And Getting Started Locally

SPEAKER_03 39:00

So if I were interested in getting some seeds to be able to plant my own native species, where might I look?

SPEAKER_00 39:10

There are lots of resources for native plant seeds. There are some really good online platforms. Um I think Prairie Nursery, Prairie Moon Nursery have seed mixes, Pheasants Forever has really good mixes. Um for maybe a smaller scale. One thing, one thing I really I love to do things as uh cheaply and as free as possible. Um these plants, because they're native, you'll be able to find them around locally, hopefully not in poison ivy. But um to be able to go collect seeds from these plants is a really good way to access them for free, or there are a number of different um seed banks or seed swaps. Um Warsaw Library has a kiosk and there's often native plant seeds there. Um Goshen, Mary Lee's Goshen Um campus, they have a seed swap every year too, and that is a really good opportunity to go get a variety of different seeds for free.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

And aren't there some seed opportunities at the Willie Center?

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Yeah, so we have done several seed collecting workshops where people can collect seeds right around our facility here, and uh so that's an option as well to get seeds in that way. I agree with Caitlin. It's great to be able to pull those uh locally here. One cost is good, but there's also uh an interesting aspect of the genetics of these plants. And so if we can pull seeds from local genetics of prairie species that have been here for a long time, those plants are going to perform better here in our soils with our climate than if we were to buy seeds from the state of Washington, for example, that are grown. Maybe they're the same species, but it might be a different genetic variety than what we have here in Indiana.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

That sounds like a system.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

It is. Is that a system? It is, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

I know there's um Lily Center does a seed starting workshop, is that true too? So there are some things to know, and which is where this like community support comes in as well. Um I know Native Nerds wants to do a milk jug um winter, what is it called? You know I'm done in milk.

SPEAKER_03 41:27

Like a little greenhouse. You use the the milk jug as a greenhouse.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Because a lot of these prairie plants and they need cold, cold stratification to sprout. So you you start them in the winter when it's cold, so they get that that snap it. It starts them germinating. You know, so you you plant them in that little teeny greenhouse and just set it outside, and then by spring you have sprouted really resilient plants. So um, but yeah, that that kind of information is what we're hoping to provide through our community group and through different workshops, you know, either in partnership with Lily or with our native nerds crew running it.

Final Thanks And Next Time

SPEAKER_00 42:04

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah, lots of options.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

So collaboration and community. And Caitlin, thank you for bringing that message to us today. We are thrilled that you were here sharing native nerd web no native nerds Facebook pagebook page. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

We'll have a website someday about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:25

Thank you so much for joining us today. Please make sure you tune in to the next episode of the Lake Doctor podcast when the doctor is in.