Check out our friends at Good Growing and their blog on No Mow May
Welcome to another episode of Spotlight on Natural Resources where we shine some light on what's going on in your environment. I'm your host, Erin Garrett.
Amy Lefringhouse: 00:14And I'm your cohost, Amy Lefringhouse.
Erin Garrett: 00:17And today, we are here with Abigail Garofalo, who's usually one of our hosts or cohosts, but she's in the hot seat. And we're gonna be chatting about No Mo May. Abigail, welcome.
Abigail Garofalo: 00:28Thanks for having me. I love chatting with you all, so it's always a good time.
Erin Garrett: 00:32Awesome. Well, we're gonna dive right in. Can you tell us a little bit about No Mow May? What it is? When it started? Give us all the details.
Abigail Garofalo: 00:42Yeah. This is a great question, and honestly, a hot topic right now. So May is upon us, or as we're listening, as you're probably listening to this right now, it is May. And there's this campaign that's very quippy, very cool sounding, and it's called No Mow May. And it's exactly as it sounds as you abstain from mowing in the month of May. And the idea behind it is, hey, there's early spring pollinators that come out, and so let's let the the kind of weeds of our lawns flower and feed those pollinators. So that's really kind of what the idea behind it was, and they say the the concept is is in the month of May, they need that food.
Amy Lefringhouse: 01:28So why would one wanna participate in this campaign?
Abigail Garofalo: 01:34Yeah. It's a really great question. So the idea is behind the pollinators, so I wanna help the pollinators. In the early spring, those food resources are scarce. There's not a lot blooming, and they're coming out as soon as those temperatures reach, I believe it's it's 52 degrees. Help me out if that's a different about 50 ish, 50.
Erin Garrett: 01:54Usually, it's like, above fifty, fifty five is usually what I hear.
Abigail Garofalo: 01:57Yeah, above fifty, fifty five, and so there's not a lot of blooming plants around then, because it's early spring, and so when we do have those early flowers, a lot of the times there are our lawn weeds. And so if we abstain from mowing, we're not mowing down the weeds, and that's helping our pollinators, which in theory sounds really, really great. So that's that's a lot of the times why somebody wants to participate. Another reason people might participate is maybe they're like me, they're like a lazy gardener, and they're like, great. An an excuse not to mow in the month of May sounds awesome. And so that is that is another reason that sometimes people choose to participate in this campaign.
Erin Garrett: 02:33Awesome. So we're chatting, of course, about pollinators and how this benefits them, but are there other environmental benefits to doing No Mow May?
Abigail Garofalo: 02:43Yeah. There are a few environmental benefits, and I just wanna give a little disclaimer for you all who are kind of yelling at your your your speakers right now, like, but it's not right. We're in Illinois. We're gonna get to that. We're gonna talk about the drawbacks of No Mow May, but we're just gonna kinda lay it all out there first to make sure we understand the benefits and why this campaign exists.
Abigail Garofalo: 03:02So to get back to your question, Erin, other environmental benefits, one of our our major contributors to greenhouse gases that is non car related, non transportation related is lawn equipment. So a lot of our lawn equipment, a lot of our landscape equipment is powered by gas, and that releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And so by not mowing for a month, you're you're taking however many mows you would normally do in in that month, and you're not releasing those greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And so that is that is another benefit, is we're we're helping to prevent that greenhouse effect that we're seeing adding carbon into the atmosphere and accelerating climate change. So so that is another benefit that we we can see as well.
Erin Garrett: 03:47Literally, as you said that, I could hear the neighbors next door in my office start the lawnmower. It was, like, on cue exactly when you said that. So, yeah, that's something that we don't think about, right, when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions. But when you think about it, definitely makes sense, contributes to that.
Amy Lefringhouse: 04:05So you mentioned this, Abigail, but what are the drawbacks of No Mow May? What are things that we need to think about when we're trying to make a decision on, this is what I'm gonna do to help the environment. I'm gonna do No Mow May. So tell us, like, what we need to be aware of.
Abigail Garofalo: 04:22Yeah. It's a really great question, and honestly, one of the reasons that we're talking about it on a natural resources podcast. People may be listening and are like, this is my natural resources. We talk about mussels. We talk about ecology.
Abigail Garofalo: 04:34But this is the ecology of your landscape. And so the nuance, the drawbacks of No Mow May are that we're not really thinking about our ecosystems as a whole when we just say, let's just stop mowing in May. It's good for the pollinators. It feels logical at first, and then you dive a little deeper into the ecology of Illinois, first of all, of our climate in the first place. Our growing season starts way before May. If you're waiting until all the way through May to mow, you're waiting till June 1, your grass is a nice little jungle or whatever you wanna call it. And I'm in Northern Illinois, so, you know, if I waited all the way through May, it would be a little crazy. Erin, I mean, what are what what would it be like if you waited all the way through May to mow?
Erin Garrett: 05:18I think the city would come and have some words with me, because my grass would be a little too tall. But I think so just comparing across Illinois. Right? Very different. Abigail in the north, Amy in central, and then me all the way down in the south. But I think it's also important to look at year to year seasonal variations. Right? We're having a very early spring. And, also, if we look at where No Mow No Mow May originated, right, it started in The UK. So if you think about location, timing, climate, that month makes sense. Right? But not necessarily, especially southern Illinois, and especially this year with such an early spring. It would have been No Mow March for us, and maybe a little bit of April, but that timing fluctuates. So while I think the concept definitely has value, it's hard to just put, like, a time constraint on it and say, May, that's it. I think we need to be a little more flexible with that, and pay attention to that broader ecology and climate.
Abigail Garofalo: 06:23Yeah, and that's what I always encourage people, like, look at the ecology of what's going on here, you know, people are like, well, what day does spring start? Well, it kinda starts when the plants say it starts, when when the climate says it starts. Mhmm. And it's and there's reasons that we we track that from year to year because that's a good indicator of, you know, our growing season and and when to plant things, and and when to start things like mowing, and to so reading our landscape to understand, because it could change and and shift from year to year. And so people, a lot of the times, think of their turf, their grass, as just like this set piece on their landscape, but it is a living organism. It's a plant. It has needs. It has requirements. It gets stressed and becomes susceptible to diseases and weeds and things like that. And so when we aren't reading the needs of our of our organism that we're growing in our yard, then we are making it susceptible to problems, and also breaking a few ordinances in our town, for example.
Abigail Garofalo: 07:25And so waiting all the way through May, and anywhere in Illinois, honestly, because look, we got the whole run-in this in this room right here, is simply too long. If you wait until June 1 to mow, you're cutting way too much of the grass blade off. So it is recommended when you mow to only mow a third of your blade, a third of the grass blade off, a third of the height. And that is because the the part that you are cutting is the photosynthesizing part of the plant. It's the food producing part of the plant. So when you cut off more than a third, you are cutting off its food supply, cutting off its food source. And so that is that is one reason, and that stresses the plant out a lot. So in the spring when already, you know, we're talking about bees being stressed, about pollinators being stressed. Plants are under a little bit of stress too. There's a lot of fluctuating temperatures that are happening in the spring. I know last night we just had a freeze warning, and so when we're putting I know. Erin's looking at me like that's the most crazy thing in the world because she's in southern Illinois.
Erin Garrett: 08:2580 degrees today. That's all I'm gonna say.
Abigail Garofalo: 08:28My goodness. Stop it. So because of that, we're already highly stressing our plants out like that. We're really causing them to be highly susceptible to issues and to be unhealthy for a season in which we we do want, them to be we're not setting them up for success for the the the larger growing season. And so waiting too long to mow, if you had to mow at that point, you should be mowing in, like, small increments.
Abigail Garofalo: 08:52Right? Like, really high increments, and then, like, between with, like, a few days, if not a week in between, it's gonna take you the whole month of June just to get your grass back to where you want it to be in a healthy way. So in northern Illinois, waiting until April, or No Mow April, can sometimes work. But again, it's about reading your landscape. You know, we had a couple of really wet days, followed some wonderful, beautiful weather, some nice temperatures, that grass shot up. And if we waited too long to mow that, that's gonna cause again that stress on the plant.
Erin Garrett: 09:26Yeah. And I'll say for us too, we we really warmed up. Sorry. Again, a few weeks ago in mid April, we had a whole week of 80 degree weather. So the grass, I mean, it was going and we had to mow at that point.
Erin Garrett: 09:41But for us too, it kinda depends on the flowers that are blooming at the time, and a lot of them are, like, lower growing ones that if you mow high, you won't necessarily also impact them. And that's one of the things I know at our well, it's starting now, but our violets at our old house, I would always tell my husband, like, you can't mow. The violets are everywhere. But since we mow so high, right, a lot of them would make it and be fine. So that's something to think about too is, like, your mower height, and then you may be able to start mowing to keep the grass in check, but not, like, get rid of all those pollinator resources too.
Amy Lefringhouse: 10:20Yeah. Reading your landscape is the fun part. Right? You get to go outside and be like, well, what's blooming? Like, looking for blooms is the most fun thing you can do in your lawn. So just reading that and and seeing what's out there, taking, I guess, the opportunity to do that is is the fun part.
Abigail Garofalo: 10:39Exactly. Now let's talk about those blooms for a second too. A lot of people really are like, yeah, No Mow May. You know, I add chemicals and stuff to my lawn. I have my pristine turf. You know, I don't get weeds, things like that, but I wanna help the pollinators. Let's do No Mow May or No Mow April or March or whatever, you know, you now have decided to do now that you're informed about the appropriate timing. But when we talk about the ecology of our insects, of the pollinators that you're trying to help, the intention is to feed them. Right? So if you have pristine turf that has no, and I'm gonna use big quotations around the word weed here because here on the Spotlight on Natural Resources podcast, we know that weed is very subjective. If you have none of those flowering, early flowering quote weeds in your lawn, you you're just growing grass? Like, you're just you're just farming grass at that point? And so you're not actually doing the intention behind no mome anyways, because you're not feeding the pollinators. There's nothing for them to eat in your, essentially, food desert for your pollinators. It's it's a monoculture.
Abigail Garofalo: 11:46And so if you are thinking about, well, I wanna help the pollinators, there's other options that that you could do. But if you're not gonna have any any violets, any creeping charlie, henbit, dandelions. Spring beauties, clovers. I have grape hyacinths, which are not native either, that have naturalized in my yard. They're beautiful. And so, like, just things like that. If you're not gonna have, quote, like this bee lawn concept or this natural lawn care concept, you're adding chemicals that are systematically being taken up by your weeds and your other grass species, things like that, you're not really feeding the pollinators anyways. So you might you might as well mow. You might as well. So so that's kind of the other thing to consider is like, you know, the ecology of the grass and the actual ecology of the thing you're trying to help. What does it need? What food does it need? Is it growing there? Then why am I mowing? Why am I not mowing if it's not?
Erin Garrett: 12:44Yeah. And I think it's important too to in scouting out your lawn, I just love this because it just shows how not pristine all of our lawns are, because we're like, it's so fun to go out and look for all the weeds, but
Amy Lefringhouse: 12:57Right.
Erin Garrett: 12:57There's like a natural progression of what will bloom too, and it changes. Ours is just a patchwork, especially because we had work done, so we had some lawn reseeded. Whatever dirt we had brought in had a whole bunch of weed seeds in it, so we have, like, henbit and deadnettle galore. Those came up first. And then the spring beauties bloomed, which we just have all over southern Illinois.
Erin Garrett: 13:20Full lawns will be covered in spring beauties, which is just it's stunning. And then, you know, we'll start to get more of the violets. We'll start to get the clover. So it is like a matrix and timing, so it depends on which ones you have in your yard and the timing of your mowing and, like, how much do you wanna let, and then, oh, well, the grass is getting too high. So but it's kind of fun to, like, watch that progression of the weeds as they bloom.
Abigail Garofalo: 13:44Yeah. The the, like, I'm throwing everybody back if you all are like, how do I do that then? Go back to the phenology episode with Peggy because she talks all about documenting, and that's right there. That's something that you can see in your yard and watch nature happen as it goes, and you might remember, oh, the spring beauties are coming out. Spring must really be starting, you know? Like, that's a great way to to just really document, and just kind of take a little interest in your yard.
Erin Garrett: 14:11Okay. So if you do have a pristine lawn, or even if you don't, and you still wanna help the pollinators even more, and you're open to, like, adding other plants into your landscape, I know you have suggestions of others early spring bloomers. Abigail, what do you got for us?
Abigail Garofalo: 14:30Yeah. So definitely plant those early spring bloomers, put them in other parts of your landscape. Do I love they've been having a hard time establishing in my landscape, but Virginia bluebells are just, like, my favorite. I think they're so pretty. I love when, like, a bunch are in an area, and they're, like, between pink and purple, and, like, just kinda showing that variation between them, and they're a great early bloomer. I also think Columbine is a great bloomer. Be really careful because it is kind of a prolific seeder, but I kinda chop the seeds, and I collect them, and at the end of the season. If you're looking for kind of a tree or more like shrub, like woody species, serviceberry is really great, lovely bloomer, and then I always just recommend oaks. I I like, my favorite is the white oak because it's the state tree, but I I say any old oak will do, in my opinion, when I tell people. And so if you're looking for trees, there's lots of options, but you I mean, you all are planting amazing things in your yard too. What are your favorites?
Erin Garrett: 15:33So for me, for trees, there's so many great options. Redbud is a favorite for sure. We just added one
Amy Lefringhouse: 15:42The only tree that I have in my yard is a redbud.
Abigail Garofalo: 15:44And it's it is a spring shower. Like, it is it is drop dead, people drive by it, people see it, and they go, oh my gosh, how did you get that, where is it? And then you're like, it's just a redbud, right? Like us in this group are like, it's a redbud. Powerhouse tree.
Erin Garrett: 15:59I love them. Love them. Early spring interest, love the leaves, they've got fall interest too, I love them. For us two down south, the white fringe tree is an absolute stunner, doesn't look like it's native, it looks like an ornamental, and it is really, really great. And then dogwoods are another one of my favorites, so those early spring bloomers, I feel like the dogwood blooms last, they're pretty hardy, I feel like they last for a while, and they hang around, so that's a good one.
Amy Lefringhouse: 16:30I would say that I do I come from I'm western Illinois, and and we have a dogwood festival. So our town of Quincy is there are lots of a lot of cultivar varieties, but, yeah, the native dogwood would be a good spring food source for our pollinators.
Erin Garrett: 16:50For sure. I live on a dog dogwood trail too, and there aren't any in my yard yet, so just wait. They're gonna be added. But then, you know, for other herbaceous plants, any, like, spring ephemeral is a great option. So for me, my favorite is Celandine poppy.
Erin Garrett: 17:09So that's a native plant. Don't confuse it with greater Celandine, which is invasive up further north. We don't have it down here that I've seen so far. Celandine poppy
Abigail Garofalo: 17:17We got it up here.
Erin Garrett: 17:17Beautiful yellow blooms, and it will spread over time, so that one does really well. My alum root bloomed like a month ago. I've never seen it this early, so that is doing really, really good. Tons of little flowers for pollinator resources, and then I have to plug the phloxes. Downy phlox, wild sweet William, your woodland phlox, sand phlox, all of these really great. I have one plant, and I kid you not, it probably has, like, 200 blooms on it from a single plant, and it has done that year after year after year, and it's just a stunner. And I've already seen Red Admirals on it, so it's really exciting that they are out and visiting. So lots of really great plant options.
Abigail Garofalo: 18:00Yeah. Those phlox are just like stunners in the landscape, and that's what I love about native plant choices too, is you see them, there can be those beautiful stunners that people walk by and get really jealous of. You're like, yeah, I'm happy to share it. You want some seed? Go ahead.
Erin Garrett: 18:16Well, here's the thing. There's tons of phloxes at the garden center. Right? Like, that's a plant that people are familiar with. You might have it in your garden. Go for the native one, and see how that works in your landscape. Alumroot is coral bells, right?
Amy Lefringhouse: 18:30That's just what I was going to say. Yeah, I have mine are budded, not blooming yet, but buds.
Erin Garrett: 18:36It's insane, they're going crazy. So there are a lot of things, right, where we have the non native version of it in our garden, so we're familiar with that. It's, like, easy to just make that quick switch, right, and add it in.
Abigail Garofalo: 18:46Yeah.
Erin Garrett: 18:47But, yeah, that fox is a stunner. Every time I drive past my house, I see that bright pop of pink, and I'm like, it looks so good, and I love it.
Amy Lefringhouse: 18:54So here's a question because I don't know. This might be a silly question. But are there any, like, ground cover or even, like, seeds that you could in the lawn portion of your lawn. Is there anything in that area that you could help diversify that turf that doesn't that helps, but doesn't I don't know. That's easy to maintain along with the turf. Is there any options there?
Abigail Garofalo: 19:19So there are, like, some turf species you can buy that have, like, clover in them. Right? Like, they'll have, like, clover as part of the lawn.
Amy Lefringhouse: 19:26Mix.
Abigail Garofalo: 19:28I also think it's, like, I always tell people, you know, they ask me their lawn questions. They ask me, how do I avoid this? How do I do that? And my question for them first is, well, what do you use your lawn for? Why do you want your lawn? Because if they're telling me, like, a good example is, you know, oh, I actually, and this is maybe my example too, I have two kids and my neighbor kids, and they love to just like run around and play, and they need a space to kick balls and and do stuff like that. And so that's my reason for a lawn. Some people really like the look or something, or really want, you know, a space that's like a pathway kind of breaking point thing. And so ask yourself that question first, because honestly, there are a lot of people who haven't asked that question. They have their home, they bought it, they were like, well, this is just the way it is.
Abigail Garofalo: 20:16We're not asking ourselves, yeah, why does that lawn exist? And if the answer to that is I just need a low growing thing that's like, not gonna look that horrible. Right? Like, it's gonna be
Amy Lefringhouse: 20:26Mhmm.
Abigail Garofalo: 20:26Then, you know, managed, and it's for like what I need for my kids to play in, then, like, allowing weeds to kind of populate. They will populate eventually. Right? Like, if you're not treating, we live in a world where this is what's gonna happen, because they have found ways, because we we are maintaining really weak monocultures in our landscapes everywhere. And so if we're we're just kind of allowing that you're those those kinds of things will come in. There are things that you can plant that I'm I'm sure Erin has a little bit more experience in talking about than I do, because I know she's been reading some good literature on that. But I know people who will just throw like yarrow seeds, and like, they'll be like, oh, have random seeds and things like that. So stuff like that. But, yeah, it's it's really about the why, and if you really are just like, I just need a flat surface for my kids to play, then it's it's just allowing it to populate eventually. It'll get
Amy Lefringhouse: 21:21Sure. And maybe you want your front yard pristine. Maybe your backyard's not as, you know, maybe you don't have kids anymore. The backyard can be a little bit more naturalized or
Erin Garrett: 21:31Yeah. And I think for me, a lot of the low the low growing natives that you would add or pollinator resources are really hard to seed or to plant. So I wouldn't necessarily try to, like, actively add things, but what I would do is if you have that pristine lawn and you're okay with letting it go, just stop the, like, chemical treatments that you're doing, see what comes in.
Amy Lefringhouse: 21:56What happens?
Erin Garrett: 21:56I know for me, like, the easiest thing is to embrace what you already have. So, at our old house, at our current house, it violets, which is great, I love them in the lawn. They drive me nuts when they get into my flower beds though,
Abigail Garofalo: 22:07Yes, what is that
Erin Garrett: 22:10They the, I just I'm like, I want you here, and I don't want you here, right? And that's what makes a weed, it's a plant growing in a place that you don't want it, so I love it in the lawn, most people look at me kind of weird, but maybe not anymore after this podcast episode. Love it in the lawn, but, like, I don't want it everywhere because I'm trying to put other plants in. Right? So I'll take a few, but, like, they just spread like crazy. Spring beauties is a thing for us in southern Illinois. Everyone's lawns are full of them. They're hard to transplant because they have bulbs, right? That's difficult. So I wouldn't plant it, but embrace what you have. And those are both native, right? Violets and our spring beauties are great.
Abigail Garofalo: 22:52Ours is the Siberian squill, which we're trying to deter a little bit because they do, if my understanding is correct, they do cause problems in natural areas, like replacing our our native ephemerals. So we're trying to discourage those, which again, part of the nuance. Right? Like, there are certain, quote, weeds that are we don't care. Like, I actually love that you have your dandelions. Don't call my dandelions invasive. Again, I will come at you. No. Just kidding. But my the Siberian squill, you know, take a minute, and this is why, again, it's important to understand the living organisms that are growing in your landscape. These aren't just set pieces, they're not just inactive things. These are growing organisms that interact with the world around them. And so, knowing, like, taking the time to be like, oh, this plant is blooming right now.
Abigail Garofalo: 23:41This plant is coming out, and I have a lot of it, or I've noticed it. Taking a little bit of time to look into it, research it. You can't find it, I'm sure if you reach out to your local Extension group and say, what is this plant? Or your local Master Gardeners, they'll either tell you or they'll tell you how to figure it out. You know? There's there's that's the interesting part about our natural world is to research and look into that, and it's important to kind of know those things and to to look into them. So
Erin Garrett: 24:05And it's not just herbaceous plants too. I'll put it out there. We're in, like, honeysuckle blooming time already here. There's a lot of bush honeysuckles in people's yards as, like, a landscape shrub, and that one, you know, we know we have so much data on where it is. It's in our forests. It is a huge problem, and you might think it's in my yard. I don't see it spreading. It's because the birds do a really great job of eating those berries and then moving it other places. So you might not see it in your yard. Right? You might see some pop up. I know with our privets, that's another one. That was like half my lawn was privet because it dropped so many berries, but the wildlife is coming. They're taking that resource out into the woods. It could be out into the little scrub area that's all weeds between, you know, your neighborhood and the next one, but that still is a spot that we want to, you know, try to encourage native plants there, and then it's taking all of those seeds out and those berries.
Erin Garrett: 25:04So think about too, you know, that broader connection to the bigger environment. The squill might not be spreading in that way, but think about the wildlife connection too with the berries. And there's so many pretty shrubs, you can replace that honeysuckle. We can find something for you.
Abigail Garofalo: 25:20So I have one more kind of like tip for alternative to No Mow May, and it again has to do with ecology and thinking about our pollinators as a whole. So, you know, we're we're like, great, let's feed them. Let's also think about what other things they need to live and survive. So let's think about their habitat as a whole. A lot of us in the fall do a straight big cleanup. We're like, great, it's the fall. It's getting cold. It's time for me to chop everything down and put it somewhere else. And that's actually taking away a lot of really important overwintering habitat. You maybe have taken the time to do these beautiful flowers that are all native and things like that, but then you're chopping it down in the fall. Great. You fed them, but now they have nowhere to live. And so leaving your stems up in the winter, it's actually really beautiful. They create these really beautiful winter interests. Probably talked about it before.
Abigail Garofalo: 26:11But leaving up those stems, maybe leaving a little bit of uncovered soil, so that way, the ground nesting bees we actually have a lot of ground nesting solitary bees in Illinois. A majority of our native bees are ground nesting and solitary. They're not the typical bee that you're thinking of.
Erin Garrett: 26:28They're very docile, and it's not a problem to have them near your home. If you're worried about that, with having bee nests all over the place, they're good ones to have around.
Abigail Garofalo: 26:38Well, if you, again, think about the ecology of them, think about their behavior, they live alone. So they actually don't have a lot of resources to spare worrying about you, and they have their own things to worry about. They gotta get that food, they gotta get that water. They gotta be able to reproduce. And if they're wasting a lot of energy attacking things that aren't bothering them, they're not they don't have the energy to do the things they need to do to reproduce. And so, from a from that kind of standpoint, remember that. If it's solitary, it's probably not interested in you, is most likely kind of the way I try to remind people. But, yeah. So leaving these dead leaves, you know, in your garden beds, leaving things up over the winter, and even in the spring, you know, if there's something that, like, doesn't really need to be cut back, maybe it's your backyard, or, you know, you can leave a, like, a couple inches of stems, even like a couple feet, or like a foot or two of stem, if you are chopping things like that, that's still leaving some habitat for those insects, which is gonna be better overall if you're trying to go with that goal, right, of No Mow May. You're you're out here. You're you're No Mow May. It's great. We're helping the pollinators. Let's think about those pollinators as a whole. Let's think about their ecology what they need to survive, and part of that is habitat.
Erin Garrett: 27:53Well, I think that's a good point too with a lot of what you leave and that depends what it is. Right? If it's leaves, if it's stems. For a lot of the stems, you're leaving them over the winter so that in the spring, they can be habitat. Cutting them down but leaving like eight at least eight inches, you're creating that opening then that a bee can come and lay its eggs in that stalk. It stays then the whole season. And then usually by year two, right, it's gonna naturally, like, break down into your soil below. So it's not that we wanna, like, hard cut all the way to the ground after the fall because, like, while you did provide some habitat, like, nesting habitat wise, you didn't really do much during that time span. Right? We're waiting for the spring then for them to use that, but there's always, you know, middle ground. Like, my grasses, I leave over the winter, but then I cut them all the way down hopefully, before the spring growth emerges, which I'm usually too late, and then I'm chopping. Like, oh, I cut some of that new growth off. I don't even think I cut any of it. I didn't cut any of it down this year, so that's that's just what it's gonna be because I was too late. But just another piece to think about. Right? There's always certain spots, or if it's right in the front, right by your front door and it looks really unruly, that's fine. Like, cut it back, but think about what's the contribution to the broader ecology and environment in the whole system.
Abigail Garofalo: 29:11That's a really good point, Erin, how, you know, a lot of people think, well, if I don't do it all, if my whole landscape isn't perfect for the environment, then I'm clearly not do it, like, then I shouldn't do it at all. And it's really much more nuanced than that. If we're gonna think about our our pollinators as wholes, as as a whole, as an eco in their ecosystems, we need to think about our landscapes as a whole in the ecosystem. So, you know, maybe I don't have the most perfect pristine natives everywhere, but I have a, like, 20 species or something like that, or, you know, a few. I have that diversity of habitat. I'm leaving it in the fall. The the biggest issue with, like, all or nothing is kind of usually chemical use. Right? So if you're gonna use chemical use on your lawn, you're, like, you're probably causing issues throughout your whole landscape. But if you're cutting back a few things that are in the front to kind of make the look the way you want, these are still managed landscapes.
Abigail Garofalo: 30:05You still have neighbors, you still want it to look good, you want maybe the value of your home to stay good or whatever. So it's not all or nothing. You can have I have a little like stick pile of things that I'm like, great. I picked up sticks from my yard, I'm not gonna give them to the city. I'm gonna keep them in my yard for other things. And then two, when I have to cut down my front yard, that's all going in there too. That's the ugly part of the corner of my house that no one has to worry about. So these are not all or nothing campaigns that you have to feel like you failed if you did cut back or if you did mow in, you know, March or April or whatever.
Erin Garrett: 30:39Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Abigail, for sharing your knowledge with us on No Mow May, which maybe we should not call it that anymore. We should just call it No Mow Spring in your lawn. But we really appreciate you being on. We do have a few minutes left that we're gonna do some special spotlight. So this is the point on the show where we're gonna shine a spotlight on something cool we saw in nature this month. I feel like we've already chatted about tons of different spotlights, but we'll go ahead and give space to maybe highlight some different things. So, Amy, I'm gonna pick on you and ask you to go first.
Amy Lefringhouse: 31:16Sure. Absolutely. I was fortunate enough, maybe last weekend? Oh, the day before Earth Day, my sister and I visited Nachusa Grasslands, which is up in, I think it would would you call it north central Illinois, I believe?
Abigail Garofalo: 31:29Depends on where you are in Illinois.
Erin Garrett: 31:33Isn't that the truth?
Amy Lefringhouse: 31:34But Nachusa Grasslands near Oregon, Illinois, we were able to see, you know, we went to this 4,000 acre prairie in the springtime. It might, for some people, be like, oh, well, there's nothing growing. There's nothing out there. But we got to go out. We got to see the bison. We got to see a couple baby bison, which they call red dogs. And we got to go to an area where we did see some spring blooming plants on the prairie. We saw prairie smoke. We saw shooting star. So it was a really good time, a really good way to celebrate Earth Day.
Erin Garrett: 32:13Okay. So, prairie smoke is my all time favorite of all time plant, which is really hard for me to say, but prairie smoke
Abigail Garofalo: 32:21Wow, I was gonna say, that is she's got a lot of native plants and plants in general, to know about.
Erin Garrett: 32:25My absolute favorite. I there's something about it. I just absolute stutter. I love it. So I'm really jealous, because we don't have it in southern Illinois, but anytime I'm up north, I always make sure to try and find it. And I did not know that that is what baby little bison were called.
Abigail Garofalo: 32:44I also didn't know that.
Erin Garrett: 32:46I love it. Alright, Abigail, what's your special spotlight?
Abigail Garofalo: 32:51Mine isn't as uplifting as Amy's. So recently up here, know we're, like, I'm in northern Illinois, so this is the time for it, we're on the the end of this, of the blooming of the callery pears. I call them the trash trees, and so it has become even more prevalent that, like, if you see a white flowering tree anywhere, it is most likely callery pear. And if you're not familiar with this species, this is a ornamental species that has now naturalized in many of our natural areas, and causing monocultures, and and disrupting native ecosystems. It especially has made its way into certain grassland areas as well, so now, like, places that are grasslands are now becoming like savannas, but like invasive savannas. And like and so it's it's completely altering ecosystems. It's a classic story of a ornamental plant that has now escaped into the wild that we're seeing in real time, and it is a store a plant that you can buy right now.
Amy Lefringhouse: 33:53Still on the shelves.
Abigail Garofalo: 33:55Still on the shelves, hasn't been banned, and so usually how this kind of thing goes is, like, you know, it takes a few years to grow a tree, and so if you ban a tree, it actually usually has, like, a three to five year rate before it's actually not sold in stores anymore. So like, even if we ban it tomorrow, it's still gonna be sold for at least another three years, and it's just the more you see, like, soon as you recognize it, you see it everywhere. It's right it's right behind me right now in front of my office building. It's in, like, just like ditch areas as you drive down the expressway. It is, in front of libraries. It it was the go to, and still is sometimes, for communities to plant in their parkways and in front of their their, like, community buildings. And so, I take this as the PSA to inform your communities if you're in a position to talk about it, you know, a, don't choose it for your parkway or for your own landscape, and b, you know, talk to your talk to people about it. Talk to people about how this is causing problems, because it is you you see it, you walk down the street, you walk down you drive down the street, and you see it everywhere, and you're like, what's that beautiful white flowering tree? It's not beautiful, it's a trash tree.
Abigail Garofalo: 35:10Note it. So that's my PSA, and that's all I'm seeing right now, is just these callery pears everywhere, and so
Erin Garrett: 35:17Are they blooming right now?
Abigail Garofalo: 35:19They're just past their bloom now, so like, they're now, yeah, they're just past their
Erin Garrett: 35:24What does that say? We were full bloom March, end of February first week of March, but for me, what's amazing is there were certain stretches of my drive home where you see them in the person's yard, and then I'm on right the interstate driving home, and all you see along it is I see it in the yard and right across the fence, they're all popped up. Or you go to the shopping center and you see them all planted and then you see that little scrub area, they're all popped up. But also, your point about the grasslands, that too, I've seen there are, like, vacant lots, right, that was like a grassland that could have been sold, but now there's thousands of callery pears, do you know how much that lowers that? If you wanted to develop that, you'd have trees then, they would have to completely go. So definitely something to think about, be aware, and then yeah. And and make your voice known too. If you want a different tree and it's not at your nursery, say, hey. Do you have dogwoods? Do you have serviceberries? I love these plants instead of pears. I would buy them from you. Sometimes we don't wanna, like, ask that or ask for the native. You know, there's ones I go to and I say, do you have any native? I don't want cultivars. I want, like, the straight native species, the wild type. Do you have that? And the more people that do that eventually, right, that will send a message that that's where we wanna put our dollars so.
Abigail Garofalo: 36:48Yeah. And that's I mean, and there's been stories of success that have communities that have have taken it off their preferred planting list. Right? So in Orland Park, the Orland Grasslands is a huge grassland up there. Erin actually gave a a talk at it a couple of years ago. And they had Callery Pear. They still do. They're fighting it all the time. And they start it came up. It creeped in slowly. Like, they were like, what is this? And then all of a sudden, it was everywhere. And they couldn't find a single area that it wasn't existing, and they found out that it was the preferred Parkway Tree in Orland Park. And so because they have a really active volunteer community and volunteer base, they went to their local legislators and and said, hey, like, don't think it should be built or should be here. So this is we're not certainly advocating for you to, like, vote one way or another. We're just telling you, this is something that's a problem in our natural areas. Do with what you want with that information. So.
Abigail Garofalo: 37:42Well, Erin.
Amy Lefringhouse: 37:43You're up, Erin.
Erin Garrett: 37:45Alright. So usually, I'm much better about hiking to look for spring wildflowers. It didn't happen this year. It didn't happen until this week, which if you've I mean, we're basically done with the ephemerals here in southern Illinois. We're in full leaf out mode, but I still got to go and see some of my favorites. So for me, that's the nodding trillium or the white trillium, which I don't know what it is, but every trail that you walk on, it's always blooming and it's facing the opposite way. I, like, every time, so it's so hard to get a good picture and I finally got, like, my stunner picture of that flower, which I haven't had yet, so I was really excited about that.
Erin Garrett: 38:23And then for us too, the pawpaws were blooming and we were hiking on a bluff line, so we were able to see them at eye level, which is really cool. Absolutely love seeing pawpaw flowers. If you're not familiar, they're like a burgundy brownish color, and then they're pollinated by more of our flies and beetles. So really awesome to see those. Unfortunately, I did also for the first time see a princess tree in bloom, paulownia, which is on our invasive list. We found these big couple inch long purple tubular flowers and we're like, what did this come from? And we looked up and sure enough in this area that's like one of my top places for wildflowers, there's a very mature princess tree that, you know, they kind of blend into the background. If you don't, I have never seen it in bloom. So we're gonna share the word that that one's there in case those folks don't realize it's on that property, but interesting to see that one too. So lots of fun ones, one that, you know, I had never seen in bloom before, but now I know it's there.
Erin Garrett: 39:21Alright. Well, this has been another episode on the Spotlight on Natural Resources podcast. Thanks so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time.
Matt Wiley: 39:46University of Illinois Extension