Hi everybody. Hope you can hear us. Um, thank you all for coming. My name is Brian Morgan. I'm the chairman of the Environmental Commission in Morris Township. Um, what the environmental commission does, we're a bunch of volunteers in the town. Some of us are wearing green shirts. Some of us forgot to wear our green shirts. Um, we're just a bunch of volunteers that just really
want to take care of our town. We care about sustainability. We do things like site reviews for any development that comes into town. And we do educational um educational events. Thank you for like this to help educate our towns about how they can be sustainable. So,
I'm going to very quickly hand it over to Charlie Shector, one of our environmental commission members, who's this is his brainchild. And over to you, Charlie. Just make sure you got your green microphone on. I've always wanted to do that. So, I'm gonna I'm g us in. Um, hello. My name is
Charlie Shakar. Uh, I've been a resident of Morris Township for more than 20 years and I've been a member of the environmental commission for more than four years. Uh, and again, as Brian mentioned, if you're not familiar with the environmental commission, I urge you to visit the township's website where you can learn more about what we do. You
can, uh, sign up for our monthly newsletter, which I highly encourage you to do. And you can do the same for Madison. Several of the people up here, they're going to all let you know who they are, but several of the people up here are with the Madison Environmental Commission. And uh I urge you to learn more about them if you're from Madison
or even if you're not. Uh one of the things, as Brian mentioned, we do as an environmental commission is educate our community on how we can all be better stewards of the environment. And that is the purpose of tonight's panel discussion. Um before we get started though, I need to give a few quick thank
yous. Uh first and foremost, thank you all of you uh for coming out tonight. You're making the effort uh to learn new ideas and practices and your time is precious and we really appreciate that. So we're going to try to deliver uh what you're expecting. Um I also want to
thank our five panelists uh for agreeing to share their knowledge and experience with us. Uh, I want to thank Brian Morgan and Claire Witcom who are respectively the chairpersons of the Morris Township and Madison environmental commissions for their support throughout this process.
And I also want to thank the Morris Township administration for promoting this event and providing this space and the technology support. And then finally, I have to give a special thanks to my fellow EC member Leslie Wentz Jones. I don't know where Leslie is. Leslie, wave your hand. uh for
partnering with me on this project and being just a wonderful uh supportive partner. Uh would you hit the next slide? So according to a 2019 report by the Ruter Center for Turf Grass Science, approximately 20%
20% of New Jersey is covered by turf grass. That's kind of incredible when you think about it. And this amounts to 953,000 acres, almost a million acres. And who knows, that was in 2019, maybe by now
it's over a million. Um, residential lawns surprisingly account for 75% of that number. So, we, all of you, and us, we can make a huge impact on an individual level with what we do with our own yards
and our properties and our lawns. Um, our goal tonight is that you're going to go home with at least two to three concrete ideas of how you can make your own landscape more sustainable. Um, without any further ado, I think we're going to kick this off and get
this started. So, Bianca Wright is our first speaker and I'm gonna hand it over to her. >> That's me. Hi, everyone. This is our first time doing this type of an event, so give us a moment while we work out our technical issues. Um,
one >> in in the meantime. I just want to also just mention >> I I just wanted to also mention, you know, so okay, so I just told you all this about turf grass and how much of the state is covered with it. Why do we care about turf grass and why what
what's wrong with it? So, uh there I think in my mind three main things. Um, it requires irrigation, which is a terrible waste of water, and a lot of that water ends up getting run off and wasted. It requires fertilization and and chemical herbicides to kill
weeds, and that also hurts the environment and gets into our water stream. And the final, and to me, in many ways, the most important thing is that um, turf grass is a environmental dead zone for wildlife. And I mean insects, mammals, amphibians, reptiles,
you name it. None of them uh receive any, as we like to call in the environmental world, uh services. Services being food, shelter, breeding areas, things like that. So, surf grass
is really um a problem in that sense. And we know that there's a huge uh decline uh globally in insect life. Uh many are calling it a die off and our grass is not helping. Is that
>> all right then? Let me get started. Uh so can you hear me? Okay. >> Sound okay. Thank you Charlie and thank you to the entire environmental commission of Morris Township for organizing and hosting this uh panel. I'm super excited uh to be here now uh
along my fellow panelists who I know and love dearly. So I am Bianca Wright. I'm a landscape designer uh and gardener for 30 years. And I have worked in private practice. Uh I have worked for design build companies, a public botanic garden
and um I started my own design business um four years ago. Um tonight all of us will be talking about new ways um to think about your landscape and I will be speaking about um or focus on ecology based gardening. Next please.
Uh what do I mean by that? Not this obviously. Um I think when you look at the bottom image, right, this is uh often times our typical suburban uh yard. Uh and this shows that we
>> Sure. >> Sorry. >> That's okay. So I think this is a great little rendition of uh somehow somewhere we all do want to connect with nature one way or another like watching birds the bottom part of uh this little
illustration um but doing it that way um the bottom image comes at ecological costs. There's no biodiversity here. Charlie just elaborated on that and I'm sure you've all heard about the uh serious insect decline that has been documented worldwide.
E ecology based gardening is about taking a step back and wondering what consequences our aesthetics and typical way of gardening have. Um and uh it is also empowering us to take action local action and garden for wildlife instead.
So central question, Charlie touched upon that is for us here in New Jersey suburbian um suburbia, how much lawn do we really need in our gardens and how much do we love mulching every year? And then possibly coming up with different designs uh and different practices.
Next, please. Like this pocket meadow on the left or that woodland garden, both of which I helped create. The left used to be all lawn in full sun and the right uh sea of
mulch um uh uh within a driveway circular driveway. So with these images I want to show that we can if we make the right plan choices u create abundant resilient and sustainable gardens that are supporting wildlife and easier to
maintain. Uh but please note they are not maintenance-free. That just doesn't exist when you garden. I'm sure you all know that. Um but they are way easier to maintain. Um next slide please. So ecology based gardening could also be
called gardening in sync with nature. And so coming up I'll talk about the following points. Next. Go ahead. Ecology. Go ahead. Yep. Keep going. Plans place and soil.
Plant behavior. And then design. And lastly, very important, land care, also known as gardening. Um, and just as a heads up, there are a lot of links, publications, article listed. Um, this will be sent out as a PDF with live links to you when you get the recording,
so you don't have to take hasty notes right now as you see the slides. Next, please. Ecology. Plants are the base of the food web. Um, but not all plants are created equal. Only some get eaten. Uh, I'm sure
most of you are struggling to plant something that the deer don't eat, but those are not the plants that I'm talking about. Caterpillars um are the plan are the creatures uh that we want to find plants for that they can feed on. Most butterflies depend on one or
few plant species to lay their eggs on and those are the so-called host plants. Caterpillars are the crucial first consumers that through co-evolution have over thousands of years have overcome plants defense mechanisms only to become food themselves for insects, birds, and
small mammals. That little pyramid on the left is showing that taking you back maybe to middle school science class. Um, and then the images on the right, the photos on the right are on the left, the uh iconic caterpillar of a monarch butterfly that showed up within the
first year that I planted orange milkweed in my front yard. And the following year, I discovered that little caterpillar on the far right, which is um of a painted lady um on my plantain sleeve toes. So, I'm
Thank you. puzzled every year, every time I find a new butterfly um or a new caterpillar in my garden. Um and uh it definitely shows that this principle the next button
please. Um plant them and they will come is true because clearly I didn't advertise. I didn't put up any signs. They just find them. It's amazing. Um next one please. But of course um the uh caterpillars that survive transform into
butterflies um and they are hungry too. So host plants to where the leaves need to be eaten are one thing. Um feeding the butterflies with flowers um is another thing. So um the we want to make sure that gardens have host plants um as
well as nectar sources. Um and these nectar sources of course get also used by wasps, by bees, by flies. Um and this is where we get to enjoy the uh garden also, right? For their beauty um when we look at the flowers. Um but again, not
all flowers are created equal. Um it's about timing when they flower. It's about shape and it's about size and that depends on each insect. So there's also a lot of science to look into um to make find to make the right plant choices. Next slide, please.
So now you may be wondering which plants support wildlife in your garden. Uh and how can you find them? The Native Plant Society of New Jersey has a great resource page. Um so does the National Wildlife Federation. And I think my
favorite tool is um that um plantfinder by zip code. If you go to that, you enter your zip code and you will get a whole list of plants with the um corresponding relationships to insects, butterflies, caterpillars, which are host plants. Um so that is a great tool
where you can find um what could work in your garden >> and that tool will be in the resources that we >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's all on the two page. Um next slide please. But as much as um I am sure you're
interested in uh knowing the plants that you should grow, I want to highlight how important it is to know which plants you should not grow. Uh there are the friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space has a great
list, the do not plant list, because you can still find a lot of plants that are considered invasive in the nursery trade. So, uh you should not be buying them. you should not be bringing them into um your garden. They also have a species watch list. Those are plants that are not considered invasive yet,
but are considered to soon be. Um if a black and white list is not really um what you want to work with, these two um publications um are great um colorful bourses that you can download as
download as PDFs that show you the plants in their different stages with flowers u berries and leaves um look alikes. um on the right hand um the the publication on the right is really great at showing you um where you can mix up the plants that you can be sure um to
identify them correctly on your property um if you have them uh and to make sure that you don't bring them um into your garden. Next slide please. So now that we I spoke a little bit about larger context, I want uh to uh
zoom into a single property uh you are for you or empower you to zoom into your property and think about uh look at your property in terms of what you can grow there. Uh if you look at the topography where are you know little high points where is it dry where is it wet? This is
a photo um taken in the woods behind u close to my property and this little micro topography right the tree is growing on a dry null whereas the skunk cabbage is in the little um depression right next to it you see a little bit of reflection of standing water there. So
vegetation are an expression of the place of what of the growing conditions that you have in your garden. Um as I said topography water flows downhill. So if you have a perpetual wet spot, um that's where you might not want to grow lawn anymore. Instead, skunk cabbage
instead um shrubs like the clethra that actually uh grow and your the parks near your property can give you um ideas of what would work in your garden. I'll skip the other points. Move to the
next slide, please. Yeah, go ahead. I want to focus a little bit on soil in particular because that is where the plants grow, right? It's pretty obvious that's where they put their roots. That's where they're going to stay for the entirety of their life. So each soil
type has a particular structure that dictates how much air, how much water is in the soil, what nutrients are available, how many nutrients will be available. So the kind of soil you have um will determine what uh plants you can
grow successfully. Um go ahead please. These three books are a fantastic deep dive while super e super easily understandable into soil. I can only recommend them. I actually read them at
night and I'm not that geeky when it comes to soil but that Jeff Lovenfelds really um brought it home. Um, and go ahead. Next time that you're in your garden, uh, I would, uh, encourage you, urge you, suggest to you to do a soil
ribbon test, uh, and the soil jar test. These are two notion or two, um, terms that you can easily Google. It's a quick test where you wet your soil and then just feel what you have with explanations of what that means. It'll just give you a sense of what you have in your garden. And it may explain once
you look a little bit into it why the lavender keeps failing um or why um the dandelions keep growing and spreading in your garden. Uh and then finally of course Ruters is a great resource to send in your soil. Um their website
explains it very well and get more detailed information on um what the nutrient situation is in your garden. Go ahead. plant behavior. How do the plants grow? What kind of growing traits do they have? How do they
grow within the community? It's all about competition, adaptation, and survival. These two pictures are not from New Jersey. I apologize. I didn't have a good one of a New Jersey woods. This is in Vermont when we were hiking with my family. Uh um on the left and on
the right is a picture of um um a main coast. But you can see that the vegetation, the community is very different. Um, and the I I like to think of the plants almost playing like an orchestra, like a masterpiece, right?
Uh, they grow with each other. Um, they when they when one pauses, uh, other ones jump in in a spatial um in spatial terms as much as in time terms. So um all of this gets expressed in plants
habits in their root structure in their seed produ production in their life cycle and in their longevity. So taking all of this in un studying the plants in their wild environment will give you clues on how the plants may behave in your garden.
Next please. And then how do you distill this into um a design? Um I really like this um layered approach that Thomas um Reiner and Claudia West um have promoted um where you um have a structural layer
that is these are the highlight plans, a seasonal uh seam themed layer and then the ground cover and that is um Claudia West was the first person who I talk heard talk about um the green mulch. So, uh, the ground cover, the green mulch replaces the brown mulch. You plant the
plants once they're low, they are, uh, covering the ground and they're doing what the mulch does, except for it's a living thing. It um is as um it shades the soil. It suppresses the weeds. It um feeds um caterpillars and other critters
that are in your garden. Next slide, please. So, these are two designs. If you remember back a slide back, I showed you a woodland uh and a really uh desolate place. These are now applying those
strategies um the three layer strategy in a client's garden. He had a really shaded um wood lot uh um lot. So we turned the lawn into kind of a green matrix planting. The shrubs uh the structure giving plants and uh the
taller perennials haven't grown in yet. And on the right hand side that is the beginning of my health strip conversion. As you see the lawn is not doing well in the front. I just work started with a little strip and I used salt and draw tolerant plants. So drawing from um the
natural environment where the plants grow naturally um and I planted them there and so far they're looking pretty good. Um this was right after planting so I don't have a follow-up photo yet. Next one please. Now, plantings featuring native plants
can often look a little bit wilder and grow a little bit taller than what is customary in the suburbs. So, how can we make sure that they fit in and get accepted? Um, and that's where Joan Nasau's cues for care come in. Um, it can be as simple as using branches that
uh you have on your um property to line the beds. this client uh and friend um is making her beds, you know, bigger kind of, you know, one foot at a time by just simply moving the logs, applying some cardboard and mulch, and then
transplanting plants um from her garden into this newly gained plant space. Um this uh the next photo over with a pr trimmed boxwood hedge um is um from Mastri when I was visiting visiting there last year and uh they just simply
instead of planting an annual they just planted a perennial sunflower within the boxwood border and all of a sudden it works but at the same time provides much more life um or place for wildlife. a
fence top right um is a cue for care and gives intention to this wilder looking plant. Note also that the plants are not falling over the sidewalk. Um they it's questionable if that 6 in strip of lawn needs to be there but that's another
discussion. Um it can also be a very clearly you know geometric form. Um I'm not sure that everybody's planting bed needs to be square but this is what um they chose. And then at the bottom is the Brooklyn Museum where Rebecca McMacken did a fantastic diverse um wild
planting pretty tall. But the artwork placed there and those uh really stock um walls give a really good uh contrast and show that this is a cared for place. Next, please.
Okay. Yep. So, I think I've talked enough now about right plan, right place. Um I uh need to speed it up and we'll just briefly say please also plant them right. So how big the hole is that you plant your plant into is really
important. It needs to be twice as wide as the root ball that the plants come in. Uh and just as deep, not deeper than the root ball is after you expose the root. >> Um and then plant them in the right place. Right. The bottom the top left
image. I don't know why that tree is planted right on the cables. That is just a disaster to happen in the next couple of years. It's really sad. Remove the burlap. Don't leave stakes in. Why is the plant at the bottom left planted so close to the sidewalk? In a couple of years, it's going to be in a mirror
image of what is in the bottom right. So, choose where you plant your plants correctly, please. And think ahead. Next. Um, gardening is the slowest of the arts. I love that quote. Um, because when you
garden, you not need to have patience, right? Plant coming up with the plant design, installing the plants is just the beginning and then you have to bring patience to it, right? Then comes the growing and gardening. Next, please. Where um there are two phases or two um
when it comes to caring for your gardening. In the beginning when the plants are small, you have to water regularly. Native plants also also when they're draw tolerant the first year like you can't let them dry out. Um you need to make sure that weeds don't take over or there little um and you start
with building the so the soil. Uh and then when it comes to the long-term care this garden, these two images are the same garden. Um this the chair kind of gives it away a different angle, but the ground is completely covered, right? So it's a matter of now uh editing which
plants have spread that I don't want to continue spreading which plants are not doing as well and why is that and then filling in those gaps. When it comes to pests, diseases, um I like Doug Talami's approach of the 10step rule. Are the is the plant really
looking so bad when you take 10 steps back? Where are the nibble leaves actually okay? Because they are a food source um for a caterpillar. Um if you employ integrated pest management, you um take care to identify
the pests or the bugs the that you see like the diseased leaves first um and understand by using those tools either plant net, I naturalist or the um bug guide if those are um if they are truly pests, if they are
putting your plants in danger. Um, so identify them and then monitor them if they really are. And if they are not, then just let them be. Often times parasitic wasps move in and take care of it. I've watched it also in my garden plenty of times, but I didn't catch it on photos, so I can't show it to you
tonight. Next, please. So, in summary, ecologic ecology based gardening, I hope I showed you, um, means know your property and the context of your property. Know your plants, the ones that you want to keep, that you have, um, and the ones that you don't
want, um, that you don't want to keep, that should be removed. Know your garden aesthetic, right? What are you comfortable with? How wild can it be? How can you keep the garden in check? Um, and also understand your skills and your means. How are you going to take
care of the garden? Um, if this is all too overwhelming, just start small. It's okay. Um, and then have fun with it. Um, and now I have I think two more slides left because Charlie also asked me to talk about green infrastructure. Um,
maybe we skip that. >> Yes. All right. Then um that would be it for now and I say thank you. >> Okay. Next up, we're going to have Lois Krauss, who's going to talk to you about
one of our favorite topics, gas powered leaf blowers. >> Boingbody. >> No, but recording needs it though. All right, now you can really hear me. Um, show of hands. So, this will help me. How many of you are from Morris
Township? >> How many are from Madison? How many are from somewhere else? And what other towns are this? Somewhere else is from >> Morris Township. >> Morristown. Okay, good to know. Anywhere else? >> Jefferson Township.
>> Yep. Okay. >> Township. >> Okay, awesome. And now, how many of you do your own landscaping? And the rest of you have a landscaper. Yeah. Okay, good. So, um, as Charlie
said, I'm going to talk about gas leaf blowers. My name is Lois Krauss. I am from Westfield and, um, on the green team there and, uh, four and a half years ago started a group called Advocates Transforming Landscaping in
New Jersey. Next slide, please. So, we are um a volunteer group that includes many people from your town, many people up here that have been working together to help one another get uh gas leaf
blower bans, whether they be full or seasonal in our communities as well as advocating for statewide legislation. And anybody is willing to join us. We meet by Zoom quarterly and have worked with, you can see there's towns that
have ordinances. Right now there's eight towns in the state. I think they're all up there. Uh yeah, Manalo that have some sort of ordinance whether it's full band like Maplewood and Montlair or a
seasonal band Princeton South Orange Milbour most recently Glenn Ridge Manaloken and Mars >> Township Township Mars Town Marstown. Sorry, got it wrong. Okay, so that's
what our group does. Next slide, please. So, as Charlie mentioned, the average lawn is not sustainable landscaping. It's a monolith. He talked about all the reasons why it is not good. And then we're left having to maintain this
aesthetic that doesn't make sense. So, how many of you remember Levittown? Like hearing about when Levittown came up after the war, that's what established this the beautiful green manicured lawn, the postage stamp of green. That is not
a healthy lawn. But that is what we've come to accept is beautiful. And you go by and you see the mulch, the brown mulch bed and the nice shrubs and everything is neat and organized. And in our mind, we think that that's beautiful. But from a sustainability environmental perspective, it's really
not a healthy lawn. So we have to break that aesthetic because we have that. That's what the landscapers give us. So they have this mob blowandgo mentality that they want to give us what we think is beautiful. So I'm here to try to persuade you why you shouldn't want
that. Next slide please. So it's gas leaf blowers bane of many of our existence for these reasons. They are number one a public health issue which I'll get into in a minute. They environmentally are not good for plants,
animals, um quality of life. All of us know whether you knew before with COVID or you know today how annoying it is when you're outside or even in your house and they start blowing like now how annoying they are. And then from a social justice point of view they're
also the people who are our landscapers often don't have proper headgear they don't have insurance and they're the ones who have to use these things for their living. So, um, gas leaf blowers, most of them, so I'm going to talk about
backpack or, um, the handheld. I'm not talking about the big turbine buffalo blowers. Most of them are what we call two-stroke equipment. That means it's a separate oil and gas compartment. And when they burn together, the combustion is what's problematic. And it would
apply to also weed whips, edggers, um, as well, um, chainsaws as well. There are other um gas sleep blowers as opposed to those other tools are highly annoying because they're used all the time. So you don't edge all the time.
You're not edging for hours at a time. The neighbor across the street from me, I swear one leaf falls and he's got landscapers out there blow blow blow. So it's just like we don't do that with other tools, but with those we do it. And there's other alternatives out there
that are um doing the job and I'll talk about when and where there's some nuance there. Next slide please. So major source of air pollution. I don't know if uh you can see the picture. So the cross that's hairs. The
rocky thing is a grain of sand. Those little red circled dots, that's showing you particulate, teeny tiny, that comes when we burn that gas and oil mix. So tiny and we're breathing that in and
that goes deep into our lungs and is known to cause all kinds of cancers, respiratory issues. Really, really toxic and not really just by the operator within a range. So, if you are walking
past a landscape or blowing and they don't have the courtesy to turn it off, your pet, your grandchild, I'm looking around the room, I'm making a judgment call. Sorry. Um, and you are breathing in all those kind of toxins. So, there are all kinds of benzines and um
chemicals that are coming up in addition to whatever is on the ground that's being blown up. So, that is a problem. It's problem for um pregnancy a litany of diseases well documented. Next slide please. I do this a lot so
I'm I'm the on our team to get us back on time. So the the in addition to the respiratory issues and breathing in the particulate is the noise. So it's the noise we hear but more importantly or as
importantly the noise we don't hear. So the slide on the top is showing you sort of the logarithic scale. So gas leaf blowers are they're supposed to be calibrated that it's safe, but they really go over. So they're anywhere from
85 or more dB. That is damaging for your ears again at the operator level within minutes. How many of you know landscapers who have hearing problems? I definitely do. But even if you're near them, if you are hearing and you're near that noise, that will damage your
hearing. Much like, you know, loud sirens, rock concerts, there's a group called Quiet Communities that I suggest you look at that deals with, um, educating the public about noise pollution overall. Um, super helpful to
know about. So, that's what's showing you when we're operating them. Next slide, please. But the low frequency waves are even worse. So gas leaf blowers also have a low frequency range which goes very very
far. You don't hear it but you feel it. So when you are irritated by a gas leaf blower, you might not realize this. It's not just the noise, but your body is getting those vibrations and that's what makes them so darn irritating.
Especially for pets, for people who are highly sensitive to um all kinds of stimuli, they are they damage our central nervous system. It's that constant wave and attack and they go very somebody I see somebody shaking the back who recognizes this. They travel
really far. So this is a picture that I showed of Westfield. So my house is on the edge of the circle. The one in the center happens to be my board of health director. If he had one gas leaf blower operating, he's about six houses away
from me and across street 800 feet, I would be able to hear that. That covers 40 homes in my area. It's about um 46 acres. If you're 800 feet in all different directions, that's
why you hear them all the time because they could be anywhere. Think about 800 feet in any directions. you feel like they're going all the time because you're hearing them all the time. And that's one. So again, my neighbor, he's got two out there every single time. So like, and I bet a lot of you, you like
multiple landscapers going. Next slide, please. uh environmentally. So the slide on the right is showing for a traditional gas leaf blower and a traditional lawn mower, all of the cans of oil, the gas,
the spark plugs, there's dripping on the lawn, there's all the waste from all those plastic containers, which I could talk about another time with plastic that just a lot of waste versus electrical battery operated commit um equipment doesn't have that leaking onto
the ground. So that's part of the environmental issue. But in addition, because they are blowing our lawn and they're blowing up pesticides, they're blowing up feces, they're blowing up all herbicides, all that stuff is also going
into the air, but they're also when they're blowing away all the leaves, they're blowing away all the good nutrients. They're blowing away the pollinators. Um, and they're denuting the soil of all the good things that you're going to hear about from Bridget in a minute. So we don't want to do that. They also blow diseases. So like
if there's rust or molds that you have on like think about the spotted lantern fly with the city mildew and then you start blowing and then it's blowing everywhere. So you really don't want to be blowing everywhere if you don't have to. Next slide please.
There are alternatives that are available particularly I'm going to knowing this crowd I know you have heavy deciduous cover. So I I am of the philosophy that you blow when you have
to and you blow wisely. So let's take fall cleanup separate from the rest of the year. So I'm going to use the rest of the year for a second. in the uh winter, in the summer when you don't have mounds of leaves going on, you
could use the electric battery operated blowers work just fine. In addition to just leaving the leaves, which you're going to hear about from Bridget, it is totally fine. In the fall, can you use them? You can. It depends on
your lawn. Um it depends. So we we advocate for in towns where it's it's very heavy with leaf fall that you have sensible leaf blowing and different people have different philosophies. Some people say never should be using them. I
have a philosophy you have to sort of work with what you have. So you want to use them wisely. So in in my yard I do have battery operated I have tarps. I blow onto the tarp. my neighbor across the street who's got like uh I don't
know 250 feet back. He blows his landscapers blow all the way from the back all the way to the front all the way across the property sometimes into the storm drain. That's not smart. That's not wise. So you want to use things as limited as you
can. Next slide please. There are two pieces of legislation that our group has worked um with Senator Smith and Assemblywoman Swain to advance that would give landscapers some rebates
that would encourage the transition off of gas leaf equipment to battery operated. They've passed through the environmental committees. They are um on hold now. They will be re-uped next year. They will not pass this year because we have a litany of bills to
pass. But there's definitely a recognition there. And your towns and my town, so Madison, um, Morris Township, Westfield are all working toward what I call a seasonal
ban. The more towns that get seasonal bans, the more you all advocate at your towns to say you're tired of 365 days of blowing, the more likely a statewide bill will pass. Next slide, please. Okay.
How'd I do? 13. >> Perfect. No, that was Lois. That was great. And you know, I I just want to personally just say that, you know, this summer, for instance, I was biking down a road, and I'm sure many of you have seen this. They cut the grass.
Some of the grass ends up on the road. I'm talking about a road road. This is Lake Road here in Morris Township. Some of you are familiar with it. and landscapers are out there with blowers blowing the grass off the road. Like it's it's literally insanity. And I
bike past and all I'm breathing in is the fume. So So So I think that, you know, as Lois said, um they may be an evil uh necessity for many of us and and probably are where we live, but it's a matter of when you use them and how you
use them. And we can get into more of that later. All right. Uh, next up is Bridget, who is going to talk about why leaving leaves can be important. So, she's going to talk about spring and fall cleanups. >> Thank you, Charlie. Um, I'm Bridget
Daly. I'm a member of the Madison Environmental Commission and I'm a certified Rucker Environmental Ste like some other people here. Um, I've been an avid gardener for 20 plus years and I've become a complete native plants nerd. Um, I recently also started offering
native plants garden coaching services. This is um a shot of the walkway to my front yard which I'll talk about a little bit further. So today I'm going to talk next slide please. Today I'm talk going to talk about
leaving the leaves and the plant stems. Uh not just the why but also the how. Um, I'm I know I'm sure many of you here already know the why behind leaving the leaves, but we often get questions like, "How do we how do I do that in my yard?" So, I'm going to talk about why leaf
removal is harmful and how you can implement different gardening and land care practices that are much better for butterflies, birds, bumblebees, and for you. Um, they'll not only save you time and money, but also add joy and beauty to life in your yard. So, let's start
with the why. Next slide. Uh in a nutshell, there's life in those leaves um in the form of not only living creatures that rely on the fallen leaves for shelter and food um but also themselves as life-giving nutrients for
the soil and your trees and your plants. Next slide. So a few reasons why to leave the leaves. First one is uh pollinators. um aside from native plants and no pesticides, one of the most valuable things you can do to support pollinators
and other vertebraes in vertebrates is to provide them with the winter cover they need in the form of fall leaves and standing dead plant material. Um for example, bumblebees at the end of the summer, the queens burrow just below the soil to wait out the winter and the
leaves give them extra protection like a blanket. Next slide, please. Um this is really interesting. The the red band and hair strength butterfly lays its eggs on fallen oak leaves which then be those leaves become the first
food for its hungry caterpillars when they hatch. Um next slide please. So when we send leaf leaves to the curb and remove them from our properties, we're literally throwing away the next generation of
pollinators. Um these are just a few colorful examples of what is likely to be among your um fallen leaves that are being disposed of uh or that should be overwintering fallen leaves. Um lightning bugs are also in there as well.
Next slide please. Another reason to leave the leaves is birds. Um as Bianca touched on, butterflies and moths are not just pollinators. Their caterpillars are vital baby food for birds um because they're squishy and they're protein richch and they can be stuffed bound
down baby's throats. Baby birds don't eat seeds. Um one you've many of you have probably heard this statistic. One pair of breeding chickies needs 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to feed just one brood of young. Next slide, please.
And so those uh caterpillars are often among the the the leaves overwintering or uh not ready to emerge until a certain time of the year. Um and then birds birds also flip the leaves in search of food year round. Not just uh we often talk about
overwintering but it's year round that the leaves are needed on the ground because the leaf cover improves their odds of finding proteinrich food such as beetles, earthworms, millipedes um which are seeking shelter under the security of leaves. And then also don't forget about acorns and other seeds and nuts
because when you're blowing away those leaves, those acorns and those seeds and nuts are going with them. Next slide. Another reason to leave the leaves, healthy soil and healthy plants. Um, fallen leaves actually provide greater benefits than expensive wood mulch, and
they're free. Um, you get soil moisture retention, nutrients that build better soil, insulation, the roots are protected from extreme temperatures, weed suppression, erosion control. It is the most natural process. Um, and to me,
this is gorgeous. This is to me so much more beautiful than wood mulch. Next slide, please. Another reason to leave the leaves as Lois talked about um reduce pollution. I won't go too far into this because Lois already discussed this, but I mean gas
leaf blowers are destroying the environment and they are very harmful to human health. Um electric blowers may not produce as much noise or the the carbon emissions, but they still stir up that harmful dust and damage natural habitat. You also want to consider the
fossil fuel emissions from gas and diesel powered vehicles that are taking the leaves away elsewhere. Okay, so you may be thinking, there's too many leaves in my yard. I can't leave them. They'll kill my lawn. So that's what we're going to talk about now is the how. The problem is not too
many leaves. I'd like you to shift your thinking, but it's too much lawn. So, I'm going to give you five different strategies you can use to keep leaves and the wonderful life within them on your property. Next slide.
Um, the easiest, keep them in your garden beds under shrubs and around perennial plants. Less work, less wasteful, saves you money. Don't shred them. That would kill the insects that are among the leaves and also eliminate naturally occurring air pockets. You
want that in your leaves. Um, that's good for your plants. Um, a little tip, closely spaced plants, um, and leaving plant stems will hold the leaves in place and keep them from blowing away. Um, we don't often have closely spaced plants, so that's something that you want to rethink if you've got 36 inches
in between individual plants, which is what we're often taught to do. And don't remove the leaves in the spring. Next slide, please. Um, so I have a little handout over there which you're welcome to take which
is an excellent infographic that explains how um you can leave the stems all winter. You the seed heads are there as bird food and then in the spring you're going to cut them to a certain height um to create what's called stem stubble and that is habitat for stem
nesting bees. So I'm not going to go into detail on that but um that handout is really really helpful. Um, so why not relieve remove the leaves in the spring? Um, I'm sure you've probably heard the 50 degrees rule. Popular belief is that all insects will emerge from the fallen
leaves and the dead plant stems after a certain number of days above 50°. Um, so people start removing the leaves and stems based on that rule. Next slide, please. But the 50 degrees rule is an urban legend. Um Doug Talamy, who many of you
have probably read, points out that species of moths, butterflies, bees, beetles, including lightning bugs, um emerge all season long. Some in the spring, some in the summer, others in the fall. That is because the food they they and their larae need is not already
at the same time. Um think about plants blooming at different times of year, for example. Um, so this example is an eastern firefly which spends one to two years as larvae in moist leaf litter which it needs year round and then they emerge as adult
lightning bugs in June or July. So if you got rid of all those leaves, you're getting rid of all of the um lightning bugs. And then certain minor bees are ground nesting pollen specialists that gather pollen only from um late blooming plants like golden rods and aers which
bloom in the fall. Next slide please. Okay. The uh another way to um leave the leaves is to uh shrink the lawn and add more native plants. We already talked about how much lawn there is. It's and how it's the large the the most highly
irrigated crop in the United States despite the fact that it feeds nothing and no one. Um, so and every square inch of lawn, you think about it this way, it replaces a diverse habitat for wildlife with a
monoculture of non-native plants and we keep it going with fossil fuels and chemicals that are toxic to most living things. Next slide, please. Um, so here's a great example of uh one of our neighbors who uh shrunk the lawn
and added more native plants. So, you want to increase the amount of flower beds, including shrubs, and that's where the leaves go. Um, instead of wall-to-wall carpet with your lawn, rethink lawn as area rugs, walking paths, areas for activities.
Um, there's handouts over there that can help you get started or keep going. Um, the getting started guide and the, um, going native brochure, and you can do that. The simplest way to do it is just expand whatever beds you already have.
Okay, this strategy is a bit more Oh, next slide, please. Um, this strategy is a bit more work, but it has beautiful high impact results. Um, create plant beds under your trees. Why? The problem is that um p caterpillars
and well caterpillars of butterflies and moths grow on trees as well. Trees are also host plants. And after feeding on native tree foliage, many of the moth and butterfly caterpillars then drop to the ground and spend their next life cycle stage pupating among the fallen
leaves or in the soil below the tree. What do you see here, though? There's nowhere for them to do that. This is pretty common. Um, regularly mowed lawn under trees lacks this necessary habitat, so they can't complete their life cycles. Um, and also frequent mowing also leads to
compacted soil, which leads to runoff. That's a whole other topic. Um, so the solution, next slide please, is to create what are called soft landings. Those are diverse native plantings under native trees which pro provide this
critical um shelter and habitat for these insects. And so how do you do this? You can start by leaving leaves where they naturally fall under the drip line of trees. You can use this is great time of year to get some temporary fencing that you just stick in the ground. Be careful of the roots to
corral the leaves that fall so they stay in place and keep them from blowing away. Again, careful not to damage the tree roots. And you can weigh the leaves down with twigs to help hold them in place. Next slide. Um, and then in the spring, the summer,
and the fall, you can start adding native plants. And you want to use seeds and small plants like plugs among tree roots so you don't damage them. Um, and you can get instructions for how to do this, how to prepare it, what kind of plants to use at um, this website
address which will be part a handout uh, that'll be sent to you. So, I'm going to just zip through a few examples. This is one here that's another beautiful soft landings um, example. Next slide, please. And this is uh, at the corora heartshorn
arboritum and bird sanctuary right here in uh, Milbour in not far from us. Next slide, please. Okay, another strategy. Let's say you've done all of the above, but you still have leaves piling up on your lawn. You can make your own DIY leaf compost bin such as this, or you
can buy a pre-made one. Um, you're going to want to keep try do everything possible to keep the leaves on your property, but relocate them off the lawn as needed without gas leaf blowers. Um, so you can contain some of them uncovered um to use later as mulch or for compost. You can see that this is a
wire fence around it to keep air circulating. No, one note, a deep pile is going to reduce insect survival. Um the insects are not necessarily going to get the natural cues to such as temperature or light to know when it's time to emerge. But so that's a
trade-off. Um but on it does keep biomass on your property. It's less wasteful. Um it reduces um environmental impact and again you don't have that carbon footprint of removing the leaves and transporting them. Next slide.
And then this is a last resort. Uh if you really must um you can mulch mow the leaves in place. And again this is please try to do all that other stuff first if you can. Um if you mulch mow the leaves in place it um it returns the nutrients that are in the leaves to the
soil. it it'll help your lawn be healthy. Again, keep in mind you'll be chopping up pollinators that are among the leaves. So, that's why I say it's a last resort. And don't wait until all the leaves have fallen to mulch mow because a that increases the likelihood that someone's among those leaves and
also it's going to be a lot harder to mow. Next slide. So, in conclusion, I want you to love the leaves, not just thinking it as it of leaving the leaves because there's so many benefits to leaving the leaves,
shrinking your lawn, and planting native species. >> And then um this is a little uh view of a piece of my garden. We have a little recap for you um for when you get the PDF of this, you have a handy action steps checklist. And then in before we
wrap up, I just want to read this. I I read this over the weekend and I just wanted to emphasize something that I think we can pro probably all relate to right now that it's not this is a quote. It's not just politicians and CEOs who have all the power. We as individuals
also have a lot of power in the choices we make. Thank you. [Applause] Just real quick, if anybody who's standing in the back is not comfortable standing anymore, we do have an overflow
room behind us. It's the room where our environmental commission meets. We have a very large screen in there and anybody could can go into that other room if you wish. >> Room up here, too. >> And there's some room in the front, too, if anybody again who's standing wants to
find a seat. Um, and and before I I move things on to Susan Lando, I just want to mention that Bridget and I had a a a lengthy email exchange uh while we were getting ready for this where I explained that I do use that all of the above approach. So, I I take leaves, I put
them in beds as much as I can, I take other leaves and I put them in bins for later composting. And then finally, I do mulch some leaves into my lawn. Um, I try the one thing I try to avoid doing is the leaf blowing. So, you know, often
it's an all the above approach because as as as Bridget mentioned, we live in an area where many of our properties have a lot of deciduous trees and it really wouldn't be practical for us to put all the leaves in our bed. We just don't have that much room for beds. But,
you know, and the other thing is there's often areas in your property that are along the fence line or sort of in a no man's land. Another great place to drop to jump your leaves. So, all the above. All right. Susan is now going to talk to
us about um soft landings under trees. >> Yeah. All right. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for setting me up. Okay. Well, everybody that's spoken before me has beautifully set me up. I have about eight minutes to try to advocate for a
personal pocket forest in place of some of your lawn that you don't actively use. We all know about personal pan pizzas because they're fun and they're cute and they're customized just for you. So, I'm talking up personal pocket forests because they're also fun and customizable.
I'm going to stay on this slide for a little bit. Um, I'm going to argue that one of Oh, I did I say that? So, one I'm going to argue one of the best things you can do with a hunk of your lawn is to turn it into a little forest. Most of New Jersey was forested. We can give
some of that back. A pocket forest is highly enjoyable. It feels wonderful to walk through and it can be beautiful. And I really love flowers. They find homes in the shade of the pocket forest
and along the partly sunny edges. It's super low maintenance. There's no mowing. There's no raking. There's no blowing. There's no mulching once it's established. And I'm so lazy. I don't even cut back the flower stems in the ground layer. It's rich in habitat
services that everyone has talked about. It provides a big biomass of native leaves for our our insects and caterpillars to eat and a leaf layer on the ground, a soft landing that's been so well described here where they these insects can live through the winter,
have a home through the winter. Am I not loud enough? Sorry. Um, and that leaf layer, as has already been said, it regulates the soil moisture and the soil temperature. It's a blanket for everyone living there. A pocket forest provides
shade. It manages water for flood control right on your property. And in these days of climate change, carbon is certainly sequestered. Another important consideration is that when you plant trees close together, their roots interlock and they're stronger together
and they're less likely to blow over in the wind. We all plant one single tree in a bunch of lawn and it grows for 50 years and then we worry about it falling on our houses so we cut it down. But if we plant three or five trees together, they're much less susceptible to to wind
throw. So a pocket forest kind of does all the things. Oh, there is a delay. So, our this is our little forest was lawn just like our neighbor's lawn in the foreground about four years ago.
Over time, we planted about 14 trees, shrubs, a mosaic ground layer, and it is bordered with a a stacked blue stone, little tiny uh layer, two layers of blue stone that run the periphery, a cue to care as as uh Bianca mentioned. So, next
slide. So this is two weeks ago. It's early fall sciness essence. There's not much going on, but this is the view from our walkway to our front door. And if you can imagine just walking down that little pathway. Next slide.
And standing in this little canopy of trees with the ground layer. It feels really wonderful to stand in and really wonderful to walk through even with the traffic of James Street right there. Now, ours has a super wild feel because
we have planted every species of plant that might want to live in that area. Number one, we love the biodiversity, but also we're learning about all these native plants. So, I want to plant everybody who could live there, so I could watch how they grow and and work together. But I'm going to show you at
the end the way to do a little pocket reforestation in your lawn that looks like a garden forest that's very neat and tidy. Next slide. So, spring is always spectacular. Now, we're going to see if this mouse works.
So, the big picture on the upper left, you can see it's not working, Brian. It's there. So, there's lots of um Oh, I shouldn't move it. There's lots of space between the plants because we planted these about a foot apart and they
haven't all filled in yet. But you can see the blue Jacob's ladder in on the floor is blooming at the same time as the red bud tree. It's pretty cool. But over time, you'll see in the upper right one, the foam flower is starting to fill in. And this little inset of uh of um
coline, the coline is starting to seed in. And this lower right area, it's a very dense mosaic of plants. And there's no room for mulch there. There's no room for weeds. We do have some weeding, but
it's it the forest floor is completely covered. Next slide. And then in the summer, there are so many deer resistant flowers that grow in the summer shade. So on the left, there's a woodland sunflower with some volunteer cardinal flower. The white in
the middle is turtle head. And even uh wild bergamont will grow in quite a quite a good bit of shade. I have a little note for myself to remember Pensammen because that is spectacular white flowers that blooms in the late spring, early summer when nobody else is
really blooming and it does really well at the site. Go ahead. Thank you. So on the left, those were the spring bloomers that were so spectacular. This is late summer, but it's lush, it's
green, it's beautiful, it's dense. It feels great to just stand out there. And then on the right in the fall we get our our our shade loving golden rods and aers. They have a moment in the late fall. Next slide.
So if you have a grove of mature trees and you want your insects that eat those the the all the leaves in the tree canopy all summer long to survive the winter. You can easily create soft landings under your mature trees. So, this is a neighbor who's beginning to
build soft landings under her trees. I guess I should try this again. It's not working right. There it is. There it is. Okay. So, you can see she's got a very defined border and she's planting flowers and sh and shrubs
under there. So, she has no more mowing there. She doesn't need to rake it and she doesn't need to mulch it cuz her she's going to use the leaf fall to to mulch it. But, she's got a defined border. That's her cue to care. Behind it, she's planting more baby trees. So, she will slowly year after year expand
this to a larger lawn replacement of just soft landings of of beautiful native plants for the understory. Next slide. And then Jean, who is in our audience, was generous enough to share this picture with me. This is her pocket
reforestation, and it's been accepted by her HOA. You'll notice she's got, it's hard to see, but she's got a beautiful little walking path that goes through it, so it can really be enjoyed. She's got these gorgeous round stones around the periphery that really mark that this
is intentional. This is my cue to care. Um, and and it's so lovely that it's flying in an HOA, which is pretty impressive. So, next slide. So, I promised you that I would tell you about how to do it so that it's really neat
and tidy and really like a forest garden. Gene Epipan is our Ruters County Extension Agent and she she invented ornamental reforestation. So, she uses a very limited pallet of species. She one or two species of trees
or shrubs and maybe two or three in the ground layer. So, you're not looking at a mass of all different plants. you're looking at a very cohesive um easy to view look. So, next slide. So, here she has these little gray birch
and they're going to have beautiful gray stems when they mature. They're all one species and they have a filtered lacy light light uh shade and underneath it she's used a cultivar of little blue stem because it's very vertical. It's got beautiful colors all year round. Um,
and it's so that's all you're looking at is a tree canopy and one species on the ground layer. It's very garden-like and acceptable. Over time, that's going to spread and cover the ground and she will only have mulch on the edge, but you'll see the very defined uh cut of the lawn.
So, that's your cue to care and that border of mulch says this is intentional. This is on purpose. For her flower, she's used nodding onion when it's not in bloom. Nodding onion has a foliage that looks a lot like grass. So, it's a very cohesive easy
uh easy area to look at for and it should be acceptable in almost any situation. So, next slide. So, I hope in these few minutes I have convinced you that a personal pocket forest is easy. It can provide wonderful habitat services that everybody set us up for.
um and beauty for us and dare I say a spot of tranquility. On a day when I'm feeling a little blue, if I just go stand in my little pocket forest, I feel better. Um and you can you can start start small like Bianca and and um uh
Bridgette, thank you. That's who you are mentioned. Um you can do this. You can start with just three trees. you can start um doing soft landings under one tree and add some extra little trees so that they have some community of trees and roots to lock with. Um, so start
small, start simple. And uh, for Jean's reforestation, she did a beautiful lecture and there are handouts in the back with her lecture um, recorded. And if you choose just a few species, the pocket forest is
even easier to plant and enjoy and and to plan it, too. So, next steps are just to start small and have fun. So, thank you very much. Susan, you'll be happy to know that was exactly 10 minutes.
You were That was perfect. That was perfect. Um, I love Susan's pictures. I think those pictures are fantastic. They really uh they let you know what you can do. So, we spend all this time telling you how bad lawns are, right? But we're
realistic and we know that everybody has a lot of lawn still. This this is not going to happen overnight. Even if you wanted to get rid of all of your lawn, it would take years. So, in the meantime, how can you care for your lawn in the
most sustainable way? Brian is going to address that next. >> Thanks, Charlie. I'm Brian Monahan. I uh a master gardener and I'm on the Madison Environmental Commission. And while you're converting your lawn into these incredible sustainable plots, let's talk
about what we can do to maintain it and be a little bit more uh careful about how we do it. Organic lawn care. What do we want? We don't want any synthetics, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides. We don't need them, right? What we want to
do is we want to concentrate on the ground. We want to build the ground, the soil. And in that soil, the first 18 inches of soil, it's an incredible biota of fungi, of bacterium, of invertebrates, vertebrates. And what are
they doing? They're creating these carpal tunnels that water can flow east to west, north to south. They're allowing minerals and nutrients to be moved throughout the soil. Microfase which is a huge fungal mass
can stretch for acres and acres. It can deliver water from areas to areas that are dry. So we want to promote that because what happens here is as we feed that system with carbon and we'll talk about that in a second. It takes the carbon, it takes the nutrients, puts it
in the correct form for our plants and it literally feeds it to our plants by injecting hy which are little filaments into the roots of our plants and and feeding them. So when you hear this you somebody say if you feed the soil to feed your plants that's what we're talking about. So that's what we want to
concentrate on. So how are we going to do this? We're going to figure out what's and this is going to get very fast very quick because it's an hour presentation into 10 minutes. So so try to bear with me here. We're going to go and we're going to look and see what our soil looks like. And how are we going to do that? We've mentioned before, you're going to get a soil test. And what you
do is you go to the Rucker soil lab site. There's a video. It shows you exactly how to take a soil test, where to send it, and they're going to send something back. Next one, please. That's how you do it. Okay? It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the basics. It's very simple.
Next, please. What you're going to get back is this report. And what does this report do? First, it tells you what your pH is because the pH of the soil will help determine whether a specific plant can utilize the various elements and the various nutrients that it has at its
disposal. Wrong pH, can't use it. Wrong pH and something else can happen. So, we want to know where our pH is. If it needs to be adjusted, then they're going to tell you how to do that. Lime if too acidic, uh, uh, sulfur if it's too uh, basic. Okay. Next, it's going to tell
you nutrients, macronutrients, micronutrients, how much you have, how much you need, how to correct it. And once again, we're only going to use organic materials. What's an organic material? Something you can picture in your mind. It's bone meal, it's cotton,
it's feathers, it's all these materials that you can picture in your mind. Synthetics are a bunch of it's a lot of syllables with a lot of nomenclature on it, and you can't pronounce any of it. Right? So, that's what we're going to do. Next, please. Once we get that done, we're going to talk weeds. What are
weeds? Weeds are the plant that are in the wrong place. So, a weed to you is probably not the same as a weed to almost everybody up here on this pan panel, right? But if you have to, let's say you have a huge huge huge area of
crabrass, crab grass brought to this country in 1851 by the patent office for forage. What a great idea that was, right? So now Scots has spent have made billions trying to get rid of it. Well, we're going to get rid of it without using turf builder or whatever we call
it nowadays, right? How do you do it? First, you pull as much as you can. This can be a great activity as the sun's starting to set, right? And you just keep working on it. A little bit here, a little bit there. Take out what you want. Take out what you want, don't want there, right? Next, there are systemics
that we don't ever want to use. Pre-emergence, we don't need those. If we continue to pull when we can and we cultivate our grass to a certain point in a certain way, we can start to crowd that out and you can get the result that you want. Once again, you're only doing
this while you're you're getting your lawn back to a small carpet, as Bridget said, an aerial rug, right? But next thing we want to do, the one thing that constantly comes up when I give this talk is what about broadleaf weeds and what about creeping Charlie? Creepy
Charlie is a very difficult plant to remove. It's invasive. It's non-native. How do you get rid of it? Well, if you really want to go to the edge on organic, inorganic iron chilates. Iron was iron last with you know the element and chilate is a
molecul attached to it so it can easily be absorbed by things. Iron chilates are used for iron deficiencies in animals. It's used for iron deficiency in agriculture and they're all considered organic. If you increase the strength, you then get a weed killer, a broadleaf
weed killer, which is not considered organic. So, if you were going to go to synthetics, this is an alternative. All right, I know it's it's it's kind of like, oh, what do I do? But that's one of the situations that we run into from time to time. Next, please.
All right. In order to get air circulating, to get minerals circulating, get nutrients circulating to increase the vigor of our plant so we never have to use pesticides. We never we can really cut down on fertilization, right? Then what we want to do is we
want to get a thatch layer out. A thatch is something that's built up. It's not the clippings from your grass. Those clippings that you leave on your grass, those are de decomposing within 7 to 10 days. And that's N adding more carbon to the system that we want to promote as well as certain nitrogens. All right,
you do this. It's very simple. It's a uh deatchcher or a power law power mower and it just brings this thatch up and it you just pick it up and you compost it. Simple as that. If you've had your lawn has now been the playground for the last 10 years and the kids are now gone and
you've been parking cars on it or they've been running a tractor over to cut it, then what you want to do next, please, is maybe take core aeration. And this means you're going to pull plugs out of the soil. And what does that do? That decompose decompacts the soil. It allows nutrients to get back in, gets
air back into the root system. Right? This is good for all plants, by the way. as well as uh it then will allow you if you want to seed your lawn with something, let's say you want to go to a pollinator lawn where you're going to just plant flowers in your lawn that are very low cut, then you can do this
because the seeds will go into these holes and then that makes it easier because your great the soil contact will make it better uh germination and you'll have a better result. Next, please. If you want to, you have to reed with the correct uh seed. There are lots of
species. None of them are going to be native except for nimblewill. Okay? You're not going to have native grass in your lawn. All right? Not over the last hundred years anyway. But you can get various species that will reduce the amount of water they need that will reduce the amount of harm that index
insects that now have uh and Ruters is very big on this. They're breeding grasses that have resistance to diseases and require less water. So you want to get the newest of the species and you want to get the right species. Plant the right species in the right place. Right?
If it's shady, use fine fescues. If it's sunny, you can use tall my favorite which is turf type tall fescue. Right? But get those mixtures and you'll only get mixtures when you go to the store. You're going to you'll never find one variety in a particular seed. So and
plant it what it requires. Okay? If it says shade, put it in the shade. Get the shady. If it's sunny, da da da da. All right. Next, please. All right. When we cut, cut at 3 in. We don't want to cut any lower. Some people say 2 and 1/2. Well, that's a little low. The higher
you leave your grass, the more uh vigor that plant will have, the longer that root system will have, the less water it will require, and it'll also start to shade out and out compete those weeds that we want to get rid of. So, we never have to use a a weed killer, right? We
also want to make sure that uh we leave the clippings on as I said because that's about a quarter of the nitrogen requirements for any typ typical kind of grass and the rest of the nitrogen requirements. You can actually fulfill some of those by putting in some of the
uh legumes like a clover or something which actually fixes nitrogen. So you would need less nitrogen. my grass. I have a well everybody if you have had a lawn for 50 years, you have about maybe 60 or 70 different varieties of grass in there because everybody's always throwing some sort of grass on grass
seed on there. But what I have is a situation now where I put one pound of nitrogen per thousand square feet. So of my 5,000 square feet, I use a little bag of fertilizer. Now, now why do I put any nitrogen down? Because if I don't,
what's going to happen is I'm going to get a certain there's about two or three different fungi that you're going to get in the spring. You'll get red thread. You'll get uh some of the snow molds and then that will cause problems down the road because you'll then start to destroy what you have and you have to
add more to to recoup that. Right. Also, if you add too much nitrogen, you're going to then attract and it's going to promote uh various insects to destroy what you have as well. it's going to promote some sort various other types of fungus, right? Last thing you want to do
after you ra your your leaves under the bushes, you've put them in your compost piles, you've done everything you can, and as Charlie says, in our area, we have too many leaves for our the size of our our landscape.
What's left, don't put it in the gutter. As Bridget said, you mulch it. You just keep going back and forth over it. Each week after you've gotten leaves to the correct place, the whole leaves, then you start cutting these. What's that doing? Now, you're going to start adding more carbon into the system. You're
keeping that carbon there. You're not going to transport those leaves, you know, hundreds of miles away to someplace that will never be used, right? And you're those little particles of leaves will now start to fill those little areas that don't have a grass plant in your lawn where the weeds
actually germinate from. So now you're again eliminating weeds and it didn't cost you anything. And as Bridget says, they deposit these right on your lawn every year like clockwork. It's fantastic. Next, please. This is what it looks like. This was covered. This was not too long ago. I
cut it twice and that's just for the photograph, right? Um and you can see you you do have clippings you of leaves, but it doesn't it's not something that's going to blow around and you're not going to get complaint from neighbors and things like that. Right. Next one, please. Finally,
this is August 31st of 2023. >> It had not rained in a long time. Like almost every summer now, it seems. Right. This lawn, this is my lawn. It looked a lot worse than it looks now. But it was dormant. And I was happy with that. Don't have to cut it. You don't
have to do anything. You don't water it. In Madison, we use a million gallons of water a day except for June, July, and August when we use three million gallons a day. Our water table has now gone down at least 30 feet over the last 40 years, right? And we use our groundwater as
that is drinking water. So, we don't want to water. You don't have to water. It's always going to come back. And if it doesn't, we've got much bigger problems than whether your lawn's green or not. Right? So, this is August 31st. What happened on September 1st of that year, it's we got a half an inch of
rain. The next week we got about a quarter to a half and then a couple days later it rained again. So what next one please? So on September 20th that's what the same loan look 18 days later with a little bit of rain never been watered.
>> Last slide please. And as everybody says let's reduce our lawn. This woman uh is wanted to reduce her lawn. Her husband as you can see does the the lawn mowing is a big grass fan right? So they compromised. They
reduced it by 525 ft. She planted perennials, annuals, shrubs, trees. He still gets to cut the lawn. Everybody's happy and we're much more sustainable. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. >> Wow. Thank you, Brian. That was actually really, really great. Um, I just made a
little note when he said frequency of cutting. So, you know, many of us, and we'll talk about this a little bit when I talk about the handouts at the end, many of us use lawn services. It's just, you know, it's unrealistic for us to cut our own lawns. Uh, but what I've noticed about the lawn services is that they
come every week and cut your lawn regardless. Regardless of whether your lawn needs it, regardless of whether your lawn is dormant, I have a neighbor who lives across the street from us. Their lawn guys are cutting his lawn even if there's no grass, right? Because they've been paid to do that. And so
that's where I think we have to be more um proactive and bold about communicating with our landscapers and telling them, you know what, I'll pay you this month the full amount, but I don't want you to come and cut my lawn every single week in August
if we haven't had any rain because they're doing more damage to your lawn. And then later on, you're going to be like, "Why does my lawn look so bad? let me do all these other things that are bad to make it look better. Right. >> Can I piggy back on that?
>> Um, on a related note, your landscaper should not be mowing the lawn when it's raining or right after it rains because that is going to compact your soil and it's going to cause runoff and it's not good for your lawn. But I see that all the time.
All right, >> we're going to start the Q&A portion, but before we do, when when all of you registered, um, we asked, uh, if you had any questions in the registration form, and many of you did give us questions. So, I wanted to just go through a couple of those first to get those out of the
way in case you're sitting in the audience, you're going to ask this question anyway. And I think some of them are very good. And anyone on the panel who wants to take these questions can. The first question was, somebody said, "The deer read pretty much everything. It's so frustrating." It wasn't a question so much as a
statement. So, um I I'll just say this though. Uh I live behind Butterworth Field and a few years ago I got a grant to plant a native pollinator garden in Butterworth Field, which is a 20 acre uh field of grass and deer come through
there all the time. Susan Lando, in fact, helped me design the garden. She chose the plants. Those plants have not been touched by the deer. It is unfenced. It's in the middle of 20 acres
of grass and they just don't touch it. So, there are many plants that the deer do not eat. So, anyone want to just take that question about deer? So it it is it is important to know that when plants come out of the nursery,
they have been babyed and nobody has eaten them and they're not making these bad tasting defensive chemicals. So the first year that we plant ground layer plants, non-wy ones, I would highly recommend using some deer repellent or a
little temporary fence because if they're going to get them, they're going to get them the first year, even the deer resistant ones. The other thing you can do is plant a lot uh co-plant. So if you have some lovely aster you want to to to grow, plant it with some mint.
They don't like the mint. They don't like the bergamont. So you can fool them when they go to get a bite of something delicious. They're going to get a bite of something very aromatic that that's going to stop them. trees um we have to cage or protect until um because they'll
buck rub the stem of the tree and rub all the the bark off and girdle them and kill your trees. We've lost a lot of trees that way. Um so they have to be protected and I use my phone. So they when they get as wide as your phone, you can take the deer protection off um
generally. Um and when so the deer will eat to about four to five feet. So once they're once they've got some good mass that's up six seven feet, you can remove the deer protection, but it is a battle out there.
>> Uh, someone else asked, "What are the best sources of native grasses and shrubs in our region?" I I I assume they might mean nurseries and do we have some specific recommendations? >> Okay, I have a really big mouth, you
guys. I'm sorry. So, um, Pineland's Nursery, um, has Pinelands Direct. They're all seed grown. They're New Jersey ecotype plants. Their seeds are also all New Jersey, locally collected, all New Jersey ecoype. So, Pinelands um,
has great seeds and shrubs and trees. Gino's nursery in Pennsylvania has fantastic stuff. Um, there are lot The Native Plant Society of New Jersey. >> Yeah. What' you say again? Great. >> Great swamp. Well, we do this this sale
every year of plugs, right, for the Great Swamp. >> The Great. >> So, the the Great Swamp um watershed association does a native plug sale every year, and you can just go on their website and sign up to get information, but we sell 27 we sold 27,000 plugs,
native plugs last year. Um, so that's a great resource. And the Native Plant Society of New Jersey has a whole list of of uh of nurseries. >> Bridget's gonna shine. >> I was just gonna say real quick, if you register for our newsletter, we advertise that quite vigorously on the
EC and Morris Township, we participate, there's volunteers that we make sure to keep the price down and help it be a fundraiser for Great Swamp and to encourage native plants. The volunteers are very active. So you order online and then you come pick it up and we have the trays ready for you so that they can just take them and just go drop them in
your >> And that's every spring. >> Bridget. >> Yeah. And if I could just add to that, um Toad Shade Wildflower Farm, who I'm sure many of you are familiar with, they're a mail order um native plant nursery in Frenchtown, but they're often out and about at events, including in
Madison a couple times a year. Um Wild Ridge Native Plants is another one that's uh mail order, and you can also drive out there. that's in western New Jersey. And then recently, as a lot of you may know, um Wildstead in East
Hanover is a new um native plants um garden center, which is great. Uh someone else said, "We have an acre and a half. I don't know how it would go over in our neighborhood." And I assume they meant taking some of their lawn and
converting it to non- lawn. And someone on the panel mentioned an HOA. I think Susan you mentioned so we do know that you know okay maybe your neighbors so first of all either you live in an area that's an HO where there's an HOA or you don't if you don't you're free to do
whatever you want with your property and how your neighbors react is you know how they react and how you want to talk to them about it is how you want to talk to them about it. Um, any thoughts on this? >> Cues to care. Like Bianca said and Bridget said as well, if you put a sign
out explaining what you're doing, if you put a distinct border like Jean Stones or my flat uh blue stone or a little fence, there's a lot more acceptability. I mean, people walk by our yard and ours is a wild crazy place. I I think I don't
have complaints because people think they know I'm crazy, but also because there is a very there's a grass strip and then the wildness starts. So, it is it looks intentional like we're doing it on purpose. At least that's what I hope. >> Well, and start small, right? You don't
have to go for the whole acre and a half right away. So, start with a small corner and then um build off of there. Uh, and you know, if you start with a little group of shrubs, a couple of trees, doesn't have to be a pocket forest right away, but it would be ideal, but start small. Um, and as soon
as there's some flowers blooming, um, in the spring um, in the summer, I think, uh, the beauty will convince everybody. >> Exactly. I think so much of what we do is, um, habit, right? It's what we've always done. And once you make a change,
a change is always difficult, but then your neighbors see that change and maybe it even affects their minds and they say, "Huh, maybe I could start thinking about something like this." So sometimes change can also be infectious. So I think having the um uh just the
willingness to start is what's most important and then deal with your neighbors as those issues come up. Uh let's see. I just want to give one or two more and then we'll open it up to you guys. Uh, someone said, "I need help figuring out low sun alternatives.
We often have a lot of shade on our property. Any thoughts about that?" >> Look at the uh going native brochure to get some ideas. Jersey friendly yards and there are great filters on iselplants.com as well. And the you're
you mentioned the the what are your resources you took? So, the Native Plant Society has um plant lists um and um >> wildlife consideration. >> Correct. Exactly. >> There are many many many plants that do
not require full sun. In fact, there are many that actually prefer almost full shade. So, it's just a matter of finding the right plant for the right place as Bianca said. Uh, and last question I'll just sort of put out there is someone asked, "What are the best native plants
that will attract different types of bird species?" >> Any thoughts on that from anyone? >> Um, if you were to go on to.com, the Tochay Wildflower Forum site, and you dig into the plant lists, um, plants by
species or plants by common name, there's a sidebar there, and there's a list of plants that attract hummingbirds. So, that's super cool. I've also I love and they're very popular crowd-pleasers. Um, purple cone flowers and um, Rebecca uh, Fulgoda,
blackeyed susans attract um, >> goldfinches. Yeah. And that's like a a perfect reason to leave up their seed heads all winter because you will see them all winter. They're not as bright. They get more drab in the winter time, but they're still here. >> The goldfinch is our state bird, by the
way. And you can also think about berries on shrubs because they really do use those all winter long. >> Okay. Now, I'd like to open this up to any questions we have from the audience. Um, I don't know. >> Ask just repeat questions. >> Okay.
Yes. >> Do do you guys ever have a problem with too many in your garden? Like, does that smother your plants or >> I had a problem this summer. Some of my stuff didn't come back up and I think I had too many leaves.
>> Repeat the question. >> Oh yes. So the question was, can you have too many leaves in your garden? Can you smother the plants with too many leaves? >> So um yes, when the wind blows them together, right? So I don't think uh
that it really I've seen it happen when they just fall and they stay put, but that's not what happens throughout the winter. So it is advisable to kind of have an eye in the spring on where the leaves are left. You have a probably you know where the
corners are on your property where the leaves tend to uh corral unvoluntarily, right? And then spread them pull them away a little bit. Yeah. Just bring them store them in a corner for later composting use or just maybe there is an
area right that is wind swept and empty of leaves. just put them back there. And then as you leave the stems, what Bridget was describing, that seriously is the easiest uh leaf corell. If you leave this le the stem standing, they will hold the leaves in place. I don't
have that issue anymore. >> Thank you. >> I would Oh, I would just add I think it also depends on the types of plants that you have. Like native plants in the right place are pretty tough. The one exception that I have found is um
loilia, blue lobilia or cardinal flower. They have a an evergreen rosette that doesn't like to be covered up. So I just make note of where those are with markers or by leaving their stems up. I can recognize them. And I'll go around throughout the winter and just kind of make sure they're not drowning in leaves.
>> So I I just want to add that my picture that had the golden rod and aers in it. We have a school across the street with huge oak trees and it all blows in our yard. Those came up through 12 in of leaf litter that I was not able to remove.
So some of them are real heroes and some of them are real wimps and don't want to be covered. Anybody like Pensamman and the loilas that have a low basil rosette windswept areas, you know, you just have to kind of know the plant. >> But I have heard that that about a foot
is about the max that you do want. >> Yeah. And you don't want that to be again shredded, compressed. >> That should be the fluffy leafy leaves which again will trap air inside and allow the insects to detect when it becomes warmer, when there's more
sunlight, etc. >> What? So when you started to convert the grass at the curb between the sidewalk, is there a consideration that you have to make for the salt during snow removal and also dogs that you may have in the
neighborhood that use that stopping? >> Dogs were the reason that I was inspired because the grass there just kept dying and getting destroyed. Um, so I've not had an issue with dogs since I've added the plants themselves. And I have um planted specifically plants that are um
salt tolerant and drought tolerant um because where my health strip is is pure full sun very dry conditions very rocky um and they're they're doing great there much better than the grass was from one of the other websites you mentioned to
or where you got the plants >> where I got the plants I got them from a variety of sources pretty much all the ones that were mentioned I also you know we have neighbors who have native plants too that's also a great source. Get to know your neighbors who have native plants and they'll be happy to share plants with you.
>> And there are conventional nurseries like um Great Swamp Green Houses and the Farm in Madison who do have native plant sections. And if we visit them and buy their native plants, they're likely to get more. So, it's nice to support local, too.
>> I want to make a plug also for your libraries. Many of our libraries now have native seeds libraries where you can get seeds and learn how to do cold stratification and grow your own and then you could start swapping with your neighbors. >> Hi, we're in the process of
transitioning to a pollinator garden. We've made a lot of progress. But in in as as a result of that, we've had a lot of Japanese stilts grass crop up, which is one of the most invasive species I can imagine. And you were talking about pulling up by hand that is keep pulling
and you keep pulling and sometimes you just cause it to self-pollinate and it just perpetuates. So any thoughts on how we can organically eradicate that species? >> So that blooms basically the from the first week of August through the third week of August.
>> Right. Um and if you were to cut at that point down to the ground, it does not have enough time to regenerate and then seed itself. Now those seeds last 5 years. So you have five generations in the seed in the soil itself because it's you know soil is a
seed bed right a seed bank. But if you keep doing this it's very easy and you eventually will win out and you're also replacing as you take that away you're replacing with other plants which now form competition for those and that will also help uh
reduce the uh the silk grass. It's a tough one, but uh yeah. So do it. >> Nancy Lawson is a great resource for you. She has a whole thing on fighting plants with plants. So if with still grass, if you have a canopy layer and you have a second shade layer and you
pull them before they seed um late August, you if you stay on top of it, you can do it. It's hard though. >> I hear I feel your pain. Karen has a microphone. She's going to pass you the microphone so we can all
hear. >> Thank you. >> Um, can someone recommend a um wild flower for underneath a tree? So it would be all shade. >> Sure. Um, so um I would encourage you to
consider ses. They are not wild flowers but they are a great ground cover and they um love dry shade and they will do well. Um um my favorite one is Carrick's albocans. Um there is also the um
broader leaf um sear stucker um >> sedge. Um those two are great in combination. Uh >> sedges. So s e d ges s edges >> carrots elbeans
is the first one um because that stays like a nice bunch um and it looks very uh ornamental and then I would combine it with golden ragweed um that has a great um ground cover uh great broad
leaf so it's a nice contrast uh for leaves um you said dry shade or wet shade dry >> colines for sure. >> Coline. Yes. >> Yep. Colines for sure. Everybody sh chime in.
>> And colines will spread themselves. >> The golden rods, they are the lower golden rods, the >> wreath golden rod >> wreath golden rod and zigzag golden rod >> and whitewood aster. So, if you go to the websites, the Toad Shade or Isel, they have filters and you can put in dry
shade and New Jersey native and you'll get a whole selection. If you go to Isel, it'll open up the plant under characteristics and tell you how tall it is and all the stats. But if you click on descriptions, you're going to get the gossip. It's really helpful. Um, one
example is I planted uh kind of clean blue mist flower and Thelma who's here was walking across the street and she said, "You know, that's really aggressive." And I said, "Good." I planted it in sun. It took over. It took me three months to get it out. But I moved it to shade and it's weaving
itself in among everybody else in a really nice player in the shade. If I had read Isel, I and if I had listened to Thma, I would have known that. Thank you. >> Question on behalf of a neighbor. She just texted and wants to know, "Is there a species you recommend that you could
mix in the grass or even replace the grass that will tolerate being tread upon preferably that's native?" >> So, is a warm weather grass. Warm weather grasses are fine. The problem is they will then go dormant
during the winter. So something like zoa which turns brown is a warm weather grass. Nimblewill is a native. It's fairly tough. It does tolerate some shade and it does well with drought. Now it doesn't flower the way you might
want it to. Um if you're trying to find something to put in your grass that would flower that's fairly tough, there's creeping time. Unless you're going to, you know, if you're playing sports on it, then you don't want to do that. Then, you know, that would be difficult in any case. But those sort of
things will will actually start to to help out. And, you know, quite honestly, clover, there's only one species that's native New Jersey. It's not easy to get. Uh, but there are other five that will. They're fairly tough and they do add in the sense that they add nitrogen, though they're not great for they don't
actually help that many species of bees, but uh, you know, it's another another idea. We have one more up here. >> Yeah, just a statement of question. Um, in terms of grass, 20 years ago, I I put recorders blend in for grass. I've never
watered it and it stays great all year round. >> It's pretty it's pretty weak. >> Yeah. >> But at what point are towns going to say enough with water and grass? >> If you get up early and run in the morning, you see all the >> So I think of a raintorm. So what I've
heard is there are there is one particular town that's considering homeowner gets so many gallons of water and then when you get above that threshold, you now start to pay two, three, four times the amount that you would for the same gallon before that
threshold. So I think that would be a statement. Um I think you know as word gets out that you can leave it. The problem is you have to, as we've all said, you have to do your own lawn in order to leave it because otherwise, you know, you're going to have people that
come, you know, contractors will cut it regardless whether it's alive or dormant, right? So, there's not much you can do there. But, as you start to do that, I've noticed on my street there are other people that haven't turned their sprinklers on because they feel comfortable enough letting theirs goes
dormant because they see mine. And I think if you continue that, that actually could catch on. But I I think towns are going to have to start charging for it. Especially those towns that use water as the groundwater as their drinking water. >> Yeah. >> I love the idea that 20 years ago you
got probably tall fescue and it really is amazing stuff. >> I don't know what it is. >> Yeah, it's great. Low input. >> Yeah. >> Very sustainable. Yeah. >> Okay. We can do I think one more question, Karen. And and I just want to be mindful of time.
>> Is she's coming back around to you. Hold on. She's bringing the mic. >> Oh, just to follow up on the watering. Um, our local utility SMC runway, they do have a tiered rate structure. So, if you have sprinkler systems in there, you exceed a certain number of gallons per
billing cycle, you will kick into higher tiers, just FYI. >> Your town does that? >> Yes. >> And what town is that? >> It's Morris Township. Smua, the local water utility. >> Oh, for you guys. Okay. Yeah. Great. >> All right. So, folks, I I want to be
mindful of time. We've taken up a full two hours and I just I I I am so gratified to to see the interest and to um see that there's a thirst for this knowledge. Um so just a couple of quick
notes as we close. Uh first of all, we will be emailing a recording of tonight's discussion to everyone along with links to the presentations and additional resources such as the ones Bianca put together. if you could please share the email we send you uh and what
you learned tonight with family, friends, and neighbors so we can make an even bigger impact. If each one of us tells three or four people about it, we've had a much greater impact. Um as you leave, please take a look at all the handouts we have on the tables here. Um,
there are seed packs and I especially want to call your attention to the landscapers checklist that you'll see there which empowers you to ask your landscaper to adopt some of these practices we've talked about because as we recognize landscapers end up actually
controlling a lot of this and it's sometimes very hard for us to talk to them. Maybe we're not even home when they show up. With this note, you can actually check off what you want them to do and then leave it for them and then you can have that conversation uh later.
Um, and I just would like to conclude uh with the words of the uh renowned anthropologist Margaret me who once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing
that ever has. and and I see you all as uh thoughtful committed citizens. And once again, I just thank you for coming out and uh let's go change the world.