We're slowly learning to leave nature alone to do her thing. Something most indigenous peoples have always known. (lol and we believed we were the smart ones. ha)
@@donnavorce8856 Indigenous peoples had plenty of affect on landscapes and eco systems. They just had better standards of natural observation and did not F everything. Here's to getting back to that.👍
Joey, I don't know if you'll see this or not, but if you do I'd like you to know how thankful I am for what you do. Today I was hanging my head low after hitting a brick wall in college and feeling like I really wasn't seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for my conservation degree, as well as the workloads for STEM degrees. However; I put your videos on and its like I get this completely new energy of "What the fuck am I thinking? I'm learning how to save some of the coolest shit on Earth for a career". You vicariously instill me with the deep appreciation for mother nature that I can't experience 95% of the time unless I'm lucky enough to get out of the classroom and do some fieldwork. You're like God's greatest smack in the face, a wake up call to appreciate things. Thank you.
You mean, bash your head against walls, until it (your head, not the last wall) will inevitably break and left you with a asocial personality? Sound like so much fun at the job😏
As a landscaper, I’ve noticed the uptick in people wanting to incorporate native plants into their yard over the years. If I’m picking plants for someone, I will try my best to at least do a quarter to a half natives. It’s really exciting to see.
It pains my soul knowing how many Euonymous(winged burning bush) are out there in the world spread it their seed all over the country side because of my hands.
1/4 to half? Why not 75-100%? Baby steps are for babies. We need fast change at scale - which means “everyone doing everything all the time”. It’s not enough if some people recycle, sometimes, and some people use native plants, mostly…. We all need to do everything we can, 100%.
All of your videos preaching the righteous cause of native plants, especially the Midwest prairie stuff, hits close to my heart. Some of my favorite stuff on UA-cam.
THANK YOU for the reference. I'm going to let Pizzo know you were the guy who steered me to them. I've already made email contact with them. My wholesale order to Pizzo will be entered this week. Thanks so much for everything you do. For sharing your knowledge. For encouraging everyone to create a spot of pollinator friendly ground. FYI: I'm hosting a kid workshop next saturday for native wildflower seed bombs. I'm secretly hoping to create a bunch of guerilla gardeners. lol - Cheers from Nebraska
I wish that the pay and benefits for restoration workers would go up along with the increased interest. I didn't work for Pizzo, but I did work for a couple other restoration companies in the Chicagoland region of northeast IL over 9+ years (I did work with a number of people over the years who either came from or went to Pizzo as we all went through our churn in the career trying to make a living), and the pay was depressingly low with mediocre benefits no one on those wages could ever afford to actually use. It is a career that demands education, repeated certifications, and is physically grueling with quite a lot of hazards, and you barely earn more than someone working at a Starbucks.
My favorite part about working the nursery trade is getting paid the same as a McDonalds fry cook but working next to people who constantly scream "I don't get paid enough for this ****! I should just go work at ****ing McDonalds!!!!" but they NEVER EVER LEAVE because in people's hearts a lot of them know they'd rather deal with the grueling outdoor conditions, mediocre pay, and danger, in exchange for doing a job that doesn't feel like the final moments of death dragged out over an 8 hour shift. There is so much stuff that sucks ass about working in agriculture, but at least my day to day work actually has some sort of meaningful influence on the world around me. You'd have to shoot me dead and fist fight my skeleton if you wanted to get my ass behind the cash register at a Starbucks.
@@MostlyAlone I know what you mean. Some of my former coworkers languish there to this day. However, like me eventually most of them found their breaking point and abandoned the job for something else. One went to IT, another to lab work, I think one now works for a library, one now works with Urban Rivers and was in Joey's vid about their work on the Chicago River, another became a vanlifer who does carpentry work or some such thing, another just went back to retail... I started my own auto detailing business; I now make more money for less work which both affords me the time to enjoy life the way restoration never allowed me to and still leaves me time to do some restoration work on my own or with volunteer groups from time to time.
Second comment. Yes, Tony is correct about a gateway to nature through teasing the psychoactive properties of plants. I'm old, so back in the day, I was labelled being a bad apple at school. This led to some damage, which led to self medicating when I reached adolescence. Since, grass was very illegal and stigmatizing in the 1980s, I started growing. This led me to want to understand the plant. Which then led me to appreciate the plants all around me. When I was 19, I moved from the country to the city. I did not like it, and it wasn't until I filled my apartment with potted plants, I then knew what I was missing. Nature. Once, for seven years, I had the gift of living in the far north and really embracing the wilderness. Oh, nature not only makes my life better, nature saved my life. Not that long ago, I was on my knees begging the "experts" for relief from my severe depression. I was begging them for ketamine since I had heard it provided temporary relief. But, since the drug had no clinical evidence, I was being denied any real help. So, I said to myself, "Why am I so stupid? Why don't I get some magic mushrooms (which I hadn't had in decades) since they are hallucinogenic just like ketamine." Well, long story short. mushrooms worked for me. I was blown away when I finally met a doctor to discuss ketamine, and he told me that mushrooms were not just anecdotally therapeutic, but were in fact clinically beneficial. It was weird, I showed up at the doctor's office to be fixed, but I wasn't broken anymore. I only showed up because I am a dedicated person and didn't want to miss the appointment. But, I wasn't the only one with their mind blown. The doctor was dumbfounded when I told him how I weaned myself off opioids with no help from a "professional expert'. It's all in your head. Everything is in your head. Nature is beautiful. Nature is ugly. Nature can kill. Nature can save. It's all connected. Abolish everything. peace and love. Have a nice day.
My hope is more straight species, less cultivars. If Pizzo is having trouble getting seeds, it gives me hope that people will buy straight species. I planted Maryland Senna by seed, plant is about four inches tall and I’m seeing Sulphur Butterflies for first time in our garden. 💛
I generally disdain cultivars unless they are just a smaller or more manageable version of the straight species. That said, sometimes the cultivars can be the gateway to people getting access to the straight species, and it's a learning experience that betters everything.
Very encouraging to see a botanist who isn't using his knowledge in the production of the ultimate cash crop. The amount of land devoted to lawns in the USA is equivalent to the size of West Virginia. This is a herculean battle to restore the native ecosystem.
"Interest in native plants is so high we're having trouble finding seeds" Love to hear that from these guys, awesome video, I'd love to work at/run this sorta thing in the northeast by Boston.
I live in Southern Ontario and started planting natives the last couple of years. So many of these plants are the same and I'm discovering some new ones that range up here too!! Love the longer episodes!! Thanks Joey!!!
Drugs got me into botany as a youngster. Doing those drugs got me into nature. Spending time out there got me fully connected to the topic. No harm in starting with the most interesting factoids first.
Fun fact about switchgrass; the military found it's a much more efficient source of fuel than corn based ethanol: it generates biomass like 8 times faster.
A childhood friend's mother was in the eyes of land developers at least from the beginning years of the 1970's (my awareness) until her passing away... and always upfront about saving native plant species (almost militant) just to the North of were you are at now, including those along the Great Lakes. I didn't grasp it back then... but I appreciated her yard, it was not like the rest of the neighborhood. Her husband collected Model T fords and others I cannot identify as well.
I've managed a grow shop for the last 2 decades, one of the cooler things is watching my customers realize they have actual plant skills, and they start actually gardening. You aren't wrong about getting them hooked on the psychoactive plants. Weed is a gateway plant 8)
Thank you so much to Tony and Pizzo Native Plant Nursery for this video! It's always cool to see how nursery production is done. I live in the Midwest, so this video is extra interesting. :-)
so cool so cool to see this occurring. i'm 65 now. My father & i were doing this when we were young. He started when he was a boy. Still actually have seeds from the wilds of my locale. The junkies, thieves & so on just wouldn't let us succeed. Pop died at 83. i ended up going postal, employed by corporate america. Did not belong there! i'm a grower. A seeder. With everything taken from us, jobs created by society's child was the virtual death of me. But this is wonderful to see happening. It's now or never cuz "when the legends die" the children better have a clue
Thank you so much for this stuff. I live in in western IL near Iowaand lways appreciated our native species and these videos are a phenomenal showcase of them.
St. Louis, Kansas City, and much of Missouri are really seeing increased demand for natives. As far as the living retaining wall systems, visit St Louis for more examples. There's an excellent 'vertical Prairie' along 370 in St Charles.
Seeing the tiny little Verbena hasta plants chock full of roots is entertaining. I learned about Verbena hasta when I had to deal with it for a custom planting in my line of work. It looks like hell by the end of the season, but it attracts an ocean of pollinators and it doesn't seem that picky. The plants want a lot of moisture to germinate because it's usually a marginal plant near bodies of water, but once the seedlings get going in the spring they can reach maturity and be in flower by mid summer. It does better with more moisture but it can handle pretty average garden conditions. Also seems to have pretty forgiving nutrient requirements in a healthy ecosystem. Upside: Produces a TON of seed. Downside: Produces a TON of seed.
looking the root growth in those plug flats I thought no wonder then early settlers on the prairie made houses out of the sod. In my mind and from my experience I saw domestic turf sod now it is much clear what was happening and why.
I've been working on a bunch of jobs in this prairie suburban community and I've been taking seeds to put in my shitty townhouse "garden" Killing my lawn slowly, and removing the crappy 2000's era landscaping
Thank you for your videos! I appreciate how much time you give the nursery to show what they are doing and the excitement you two share about native plants. I´ll be in canada soon on the working holiday visa (I´m from germany) and as a gardener who fell in love with perennial plants I´d love to get a chance to work and learn at a nursery like this. Maybe somebody has a good address for me? ;D
Lmaoooooo "that's how you get the kids caring about ecology" ngl that's how I got into morning glory family and then the world of plants opened up from there! ☠️
You can start with a pot on the windowsill. Asclepias tuberosa would love naught more than a 5-gallon bucket in a sunny spot, which includes an apartment balcony, and the Monarch butterflies will thank you.
So I took a look into Dalea purpurea, it seems to work on opioid receptors, if ur saying its like coffee that is really interesting because that could mean it MIGHT have some kind of similar effect to Kratom, which is especially baffling to me because the isolated compounds look extremely fucking differently (tho Im pretty new at this nerd shit). But that is absolutely fucking wild that there can be a locally sourced Kratom alternative that might not damage the Asian continent as much from illegal farming! Edit: also might maybe be salvia lite as seems to enjoy antagonizing the Kappa opioid receptor.... maybe idk Im pretty dumb
@23:00 " People underestimate the value of texture...." So true! When I get home, most evenings, that is the thing that is most evident . I try to tell people (I'm in the biz), but 95+% of them don't care. & most that do , do so after I point it out, never having considered it before, though being dissatisfied in their landscape, & not understanding why.
I was just eating some popcorn and thought there was something nasty in the popcorn… I was just spreading penstemon seeds around 🤔🤔🤔 never knew(or realized I guess) the seeds smelled bad.
I've been watching the Tephrosia growing here in north Georgia. The foliage stays so interesting all season. Busy spreading it further 😊 Love seeing this nursery, thanks guys!
Super appreciate the tour! I hope Mr. Pizzo doesn't ban you from da germination chambers. It was very insightful seeing a large-scale operation. I'd love to see them working more on the seed preparation / germination side of things.
24:56 it's funnyi used to only care about plants for the psychoactive quality but through you and just hiking and learning more about native plants in my area that has become so far from my focus. Thank you for sharing all that you do.
Thank you so much for this midwest series. I don't have a lawn to kill, just a large 3rd floor balcony at an apartment. I adore native prarie gardens though. My old college campus had them and one was just added near my office building. Most of these plants aren't suited to containers but I'll keep trying.
As a laymen but an enthusiast of gardening in general. Looking at the seedling plug roots, it seems like "air pruning" some of the more modern designs of seedling pots have openings in the sides allowing airflow around the root ball and eliminating the root binding you generally see in pots. Definitely looking healthy. Hopefully one day you'll head up to Ontario Canada and highlight sonw of our native habitat, like the Carolinian or the Boreal (I think we have so little Carolinian and the former native range of it is primarily urban, suburban and farm land so we could definitely use more folks planting some of the natives in their gardens, or even restoring a portion of their lawns.
I'm that person - I found blue eyed grass near my compost piles so I moved them out into a short plant area of my mini meadow in CT - they are thriving! And I can't wait for my coreopsis tripteris to reach 9 ft!!!
Re Iliamna remota, I mixed some old charcoal from the (last used 3 yrs ago) fire pit into the soil I put in the plug trays (Nov '21) , & soaked some charcoal in a watering can, overnight, with which I watered those trays. Almost all came up last spring . All that I kept [gave 1/2, or more away] flowered this year.
Those retaining wall stones have been around quite a while, now. They're called Löffelstein, or "spoon bricks", and can hold back quite a high bank of soil (using roots as "reinforcing wires", I think). If you just build an old "brute force retaining wall" there's a whole iceberg below what you see poking out in the front. To hold back soil the old fashioned way, you have to build "castle-thick" walls. They taper, so the tops don't give any indication of how much money (in concrete) is down at the base of the wall. The Löffelsteins can be stacked just about vertically, create space for things to live and grow (lizards seem to like them where I'm from), and hold back as much soil as the stupid lumps of olden times.
That's really cool. I bet the pavers heat up in the sun and would be really comfortable for lizards and other cold blooded species, especially with shade cover and cool soil only a few inches away.
Does Pizzo do much of restoring land from invasives? I do some noxious invasive weed removal for my municipality, and I noticed when walking along a river chopping and pulling invasive Lythrum salicaria that like, the other dense river grasses themselves already did an incredible job choking out the Loosestrife. It made me feel on top of pulling the root balls of invasives, one should almost carry a mix of their native riparian zone plants and plant in loosestrifes place. Seems likea great strategy to overwhelm invasives after you've physcically treated for them (chopping/bagging flowering heads, I figured, then physically removing the plant rootballs themselves). Really wishing I'd researched what to plant in riparian zone place, but they seemed genuinely in hard competition with the other reed grasses and flowers and so on growing right there (growing zone 3a) edit: also love seeing all that beautiful Golden Rod :) edit2: For the roots / babies etc, you germinating seedlings in any kinda nutrient agar then seeding? All the babies look so strong! Is it because the trays are so deep? Allows like a pretty strong plant at transplant? Lol I realize im asking Tony as though he is Pizzo lol
The Pizzo Group consists of the nursery and its sister company the restoration work. I worked for a couple different restoration companies in the area--never worked for Pizzo, but worked with plenty of people who had.
@@phasmata3813Yea I've been curious myself about a nursery for similar reasons, but just have no idea what kind of school background to look into pursuing for it, or whether to even bother given you could really just do it, too lol. Having worked in other nursery settings I at least have an impression of work flow and stuff, and am mostly curious about it because I wonder how the region of aspen and boreal parkland im in kinda rebounds and reacts to a climate drying and hitting more hot and cold extremes faster than it typically used to and if there's merit to having provincial seed / gene banks and nurseries propagating out stock fast and wilding new land or reclaiming what land you can and always inputting new genetic stock from the land too to keep a cycle of material in and out of the nursery flowing. I've kinda been warned by other greenhouses here against doing trees too, but I really think bulk orders for farmers and such planting new tree lines / covers and so on would be a means to get stock out while also doing something about our crop and ground cover issues created when farmers tear out old treelines and stuff too. But idk, it's just an idea, dont know if worth going to school for or just starting and trying with what I know, don't know how to 'monetize' and I'd think what I want to do is more in line with what ought to be a provincial research program rather than like, a private business haha.
When i watch too many of your vid'ya's i start talking like you in my gardening oriented story posts on Instagram. Only takes a cuppa two tree vid'ya's and I'm ready to run over to Berkots for some sausage and a Green River.
Re Coreopsis tripteris "...afraid of the height..". Yeah. I've been in the biz for 30+ yrs, & I've seen that change. People's expectations have gotten much smaller. Now a "HUGE" plant is anything 3' tall or more. 2' is frequently "Big" , even for shrubs. "I want a tree...no more than 5-6' ..deer resistant...evergreen if possible." :PPPP Me, in my head "TREE ? 6' or LESS? WTF?" I am often asking "How big is 'BIG' ?"
The lengths of the root systems on some of the plants, if you want to understand why a lot of countries are suffering from flooding on a large scale you need to understand why the water is running OFF the land so fast and why the land is slipping so much...
Such a great tour, the plants were phenomenal! Wish my area had an exclusive native plant nursery. Amorpha canescens, Dalea purpurea, and Dalea villosa - three plants that have been a challenge to grow by seed. I know an inoculum plays a big role in germination, it can be pricey to buy for each species. I get a high germination rate with lead plants but they fizzle away after transplanting. Has anyone had success in growing these using a general inoculum for legumes? if so, some pointers would be appreciated.
Growing natives everywhere, every country, should've always been a global priority.
Good to see,👊🇦🇺
100 % mate, 👊 AU
We're slowly learning to leave nature alone to do her thing. Something most indigenous peoples have always known. (lol and we believed we were the smart ones. ha)
@@donnavorce8856 Indigenous peoples had plenty of affect on landscapes and eco systems. They just had better standards of natural observation and did not F everything. Here's to getting back to that.👍
Exactly !@@raclark2730
Go back to whatever dingy backwater you came from then lmao. YOU are an invasive species to the continent as well buddy
Joey, I don't know if you'll see this or not, but if you do I'd like you to know how thankful I am for what you do. Today I was hanging my head low after hitting a brick wall in college and feeling like I really wasn't seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for my conservation degree, as well as the workloads for STEM degrees. However; I put your videos on and its like I get this completely new energy of "What the fuck am I thinking? I'm learning how to save some of the coolest shit on Earth for a career". You vicariously instill me with the deep appreciation for mother nature that I can't experience 95% of the time unless I'm lucky enough to get out of the classroom and do some fieldwork. You're like God's greatest smack in the face, a wake up call to appreciate things. Thank you.
Director of Fire has to be the coolest job title ever
My mind goes right to Beevis & Butthead. 65 year old adolescent 😂
I just wrote and deleted that because you said it already 😂
Thank you to Ologies for teaching me what that means.
It's definitely up there.
@@katiekane5247fire. heh.
You mean, bash your head against walls, until it (your head, not the last wall) will inevitably break and left you with a asocial personality? Sound like so much fun at the job😏
Even if Pizzo doesn’t want you to do a commercial, you just did one. Thank you!!
As a landscaper, I’ve noticed the uptick in people wanting to incorporate native plants into their yard over the years. If I’m picking plants for someone, I will try my best to at least do a quarter to a half natives. It’s really exciting to see.
Ty for encouraging your clients to do the right thing
Very encouraging. Nice to see folks working for balance and restoring health. Eff the stiffs.
I'm so glad to hear you say that! We have some really well behaved natives that look great in the home garden.
It pains my soul knowing how many Euonymous(winged burning bush) are out there in the world spread it their seed all over the country side because of my hands.
1/4 to half? Why not 75-100%? Baby steps are for babies. We need fast change at scale - which means “everyone doing everything all the time”. It’s not enough if some people recycle, sometimes, and some people use native plants, mostly…. We all need to do everything we can, 100%.
All of your videos preaching the righteous cause of native plants, especially the Midwest prairie stuff, hits close to my heart. Some of my favorite stuff on UA-cam.
THANK YOU for the reference. I'm going to let Pizzo know you were the guy who steered me to them. I've already made email contact with them. My wholesale order to Pizzo will be entered this week.
Thanks so much for everything you do. For sharing your knowledge. For encouraging everyone to create a spot of pollinator friendly ground.
FYI: I'm hosting a kid workshop next saturday for native wildflower seed bombs. I'm secretly hoping to create a bunch of guerilla gardeners. lol - Cheers from Nebraska
:~) keep up the great work!
That’s super cool! 🌸🌻🌼
I wish that the pay and benefits for restoration workers would go up along with the increased interest. I didn't work for Pizzo, but I did work for a couple other restoration companies in the Chicagoland region of northeast IL over 9+ years (I did work with a number of people over the years who either came from or went to Pizzo as we all went through our churn in the career trying to make a living), and the pay was depressingly low with mediocre benefits no one on those wages could ever afford to actually use. It is a career that demands education, repeated certifications, and is physically grueling with quite a lot of hazards, and you barely earn more than someone working at a Starbucks.
Preach
My favorite part about working the nursery trade is getting paid the same as a McDonalds fry cook but working next to people who constantly scream "I don't get paid enough for this ****! I should just go work at ****ing McDonalds!!!!" but they NEVER EVER LEAVE because in people's hearts a lot of them know they'd rather deal with the grueling outdoor conditions, mediocre pay, and danger, in exchange for doing a job that doesn't feel like the final moments of death dragged out over an 8 hour shift.
There is so much stuff that sucks ass about working in agriculture, but at least my day to day work actually has some sort of meaningful influence on the world around me. You'd have to shoot me dead and fist fight my skeleton if you wanted to get my ass behind the cash register at a Starbucks.
@@MostlyAlone I know what you mean. Some of my former coworkers languish there to this day. However, like me eventually most of them found their breaking point and abandoned the job for something else. One went to IT, another to lab work, I think one now works for a library, one now works with Urban Rivers and was in Joey's vid about their work on the Chicago River, another became a vanlifer who does carpentry work or some such thing, another just went back to retail... I started my own auto detailing business; I now make more money for less work which both affords me the time to enjoy life the way restoration never allowed me to and still leaves me time to do some restoration work on my own or with volunteer groups from time to time.
Yes this is me
Sameeeee
Second comment. Yes, Tony is correct about a gateway to nature through teasing the psychoactive properties of plants. I'm old, so back in the day, I was labelled being a bad apple at school. This led to some damage, which led to self medicating when I reached adolescence. Since, grass was very illegal and stigmatizing in the 1980s, I started growing. This led me to want to understand the plant. Which then led me to appreciate the plants all around me. When I was 19, I moved from the country to the city. I did not like it, and it wasn't until I filled my apartment with potted plants, I then knew what I was missing. Nature. Once, for seven years, I had the gift of living in the far north and really embracing the wilderness. Oh, nature not only makes my life better, nature saved my life. Not that long ago, I was on my knees begging the "experts" for relief from my severe depression. I was begging them for ketamine since I had heard it provided temporary relief. But, since the drug had no clinical evidence, I was being denied any real help. So, I said to myself, "Why am I so stupid? Why don't I get some magic mushrooms (which I hadn't had in decades) since they are hallucinogenic just like ketamine." Well, long story short. mushrooms worked for me. I was blown away when I finally met a doctor to discuss ketamine, and he told me that mushrooms were not just anecdotally therapeutic, but were in fact clinically beneficial. It was weird, I showed up at the doctor's office to be fixed, but I wasn't broken anymore. I only showed up because I am a dedicated person and didn't want to miss the appointment. But, I wasn't the only one with their mind blown. The doctor was dumbfounded when I told him how I weaned myself off opioids with no help from a "professional expert'. It's all in your head. Everything is in your head. Nature is beautiful. Nature is ugly. Nature can kill. Nature can save. It's all connected. Abolish everything. peace and love. Have a nice day.
My hope is more straight species, less cultivars. If Pizzo is having trouble getting seeds, it gives me hope that people will buy straight species. I planted Maryland Senna by seed, plant is about four inches tall and I’m seeing Sulphur Butterflies for first time in our garden. 💛
Cultivars are terrible
I generally disdain cultivars unless they are just a smaller or more manageable version of the straight species. That said, sometimes the cultivars can be the gateway to people getting access to the straight species, and it's a learning experience that betters everything.
Its awesome to hear that sales of native plants are blowing up. Great video, I love this stuff.
I love this! You are a legend, I even bought my son who is in horticulture your "kill your lawn" T-shirt! Thank for all you do!
Very encouraging to see a botanist who isn't using his knowledge in the production of the ultimate cash crop. The amount of land devoted to lawns in the USA is equivalent to the size of West Virginia. This is a herculean battle to restore the native ecosystem.
When he said it’s growing so fast, man, tears in my fucking eyes! I’ve been a broken record to my friends for years. Finally people are listening!
This episode is epic. Lots of seeded thoughts. Tons to learn!
Those two dudes totally rubbed off on each other by the end of the episode. Nice horizontal gene transfer, guys👌🏼
@@patrickkish6662🤣🤣🤣. 👍👍
What a fantastic video. Operations like these should be supported and started all over the continent. Let's fix this. ❤
"Interest in native plants is so high we're having trouble finding seeds"
Love to hear that from these guys, awesome video, I'd love to work at/run this sorta thing in the northeast by Boston.
Tony: Asks a million questions
Evan no matter the question: It depends on the species 😏
Thanks for this vid! Im in Kentucky and I started this year with transforming my yard to all natives and this is a great resource for me 💚🐝🐦🦋🌻
What a treat for Sunday morning! Thank you!
I live in Southern Ontario and started planting natives the last couple of years. So many of these plants are the same and I'm discovering some new ones that range up here too!! Love the longer episodes!! Thanks Joey!!!
Check out the remnant prairies in Windsor and Walpole Island.
Drugs got me into botany as a youngster. Doing those drugs got me into nature. Spending time out there got me fully connected to the topic. No harm in starting with the most interesting factoids first.
Fun fact about switchgrass; the military found it's a much more efficient source of fuel than corn based ethanol: it generates biomass like 8 times faster.
"Wal-fart!" 😁 Super interesting. Thank you for taking us along.
A nice, long Sunday morning video. Better than church.
My favorite plant daddy is helping the earth. 🥰
Its fascinating to see behind-the-scenes of a grower. I grow as as a hobby & enjoy seeing how someone else harvests, stratifies, propagates, etc.
A childhood friend's mother was in the eyes of land developers at least from the beginning years of the 1970's (my awareness) until her passing away... and always upfront about saving native plant species (almost militant) just to the North of were you are at now, including those along the Great Lakes. I didn't grasp it back then... but I appreciated her yard, it was not like the rest of the neighborhood. Her husband collected Model T fords and others I cannot identify as well.
I've managed a grow shop for the last 2 decades, one of the cooler things is watching my customers realize they have actual plant skills, and they start actually gardening. You aren't wrong about getting them hooked on the psychoactive plants. Weed is a gateway plant 8)
Thank you so much to Tony and Pizzo Native Plant Nursery for this video! It's always cool to see how nursery production is done. I live in the Midwest, so this video is extra interesting. :-)
so cool so cool to see this occurring. i'm 65 now. My father & i were doing this when we were young. He started when he was a boy. Still actually have seeds from the wilds of my locale. The junkies, thieves & so on just wouldn't let us succeed. Pop died at 83. i ended up going postal, employed by corporate america. Did not belong there! i'm a grower. A seeder. With everything taken from us, jobs created by society's child was the virtual death of me. But this is wonderful to see happening. It's now or never cuz "when the legends die" the children better have a clue
Pizzo Nursery are legends ✌️💚
Thank you so much for this stuff. I live in in western IL near Iowaand lways appreciated our native species and these videos are a phenomenal showcase of them.
St. Louis, Kansas City, and much of Missouri are really seeing increased demand for natives.
As far as the living retaining wall systems, visit St Louis for more examples. There's an excellent 'vertical Prairie' along 370 in St Charles.
I would love to work with plants all day.
And get paid for it. Hell yeah
5:58 Illinois rocks & minerals poster, respect!
Seeing the tiny little Verbena hasta plants chock full of roots is entertaining. I learned about Verbena hasta when I had to deal with it for a custom planting in my line of work. It looks like hell by the end of the season, but it attracts an ocean of pollinators and it doesn't seem that picky. The plants want a lot of moisture to germinate because it's usually a marginal plant near bodies of water, but once the seedlings get going in the spring they can reach maturity and be in flower by mid summer.
It does better with more moisture but it can handle pretty average garden conditions. Also seems to have pretty forgiving nutrient requirements in a healthy ecosystem.
Upside: Produces a TON of seed.
Downside: Produces a TON of seed.
looking the root growth in those plug flats I thought no wonder then early settlers on the prairie made houses out of the sod. In my mind and from my experience I saw domestic turf sod now it is much clear what was happening and why.
I've been working on a bunch of jobs in this prairie suburban community and I've been taking seeds to put in my shitty townhouse "garden" Killing my lawn slowly, and removing the crappy 2000's era landscaping
24:12 awww, gushing about his big bluestem tattoo
Thank you for your videos! I appreciate how much time you give the nursery to show what they are doing and the excitement you two share about native plants. I´ll be in canada soon on the working holiday visa (I´m from germany) and as a gardener who fell in love with perennial plants I´d love to get a chance to work and learn at a nursery like this. Maybe somebody has a good address for me? ;D
Chipmunks ran back and forth all summer collecting Blue Eyed Grass seedheads with stuffed cheeks. Doves love seeds too.
What a wonderful tour of a really badass place! Loved everything about this. 👏👏👏
This place is so cool.
Awesome to see that people are doing this!! Cool as Feck!!❤
So cool ☆ thanks for sharing Midwest peeps
I know Leland from my Shabbona days. Good to see FIBs doing good work.
This is a great video. Learned a lot. More please.
Love what you are doing!! Praying for your success
Lmaoooooo "that's how you get the kids caring about ecology" ngl that's how I got into morning glory family and then the world of plants opened up from there! ☠️
Great video! let it be natural. Love it ! From a Canadian Arborist and sciences and Carnivorous Grower.
If I only had a yard, I would 100% have all native plants, so much nicer than a manicured lawn.
You can start with a pot on the windowsill. Asclepias tuberosa would love naught more than a 5-gallon bucket in a sunny spot, which includes an apartment balcony, and the Monarch butterflies will thank you.
Shared on twitter for a little change of scenery over by dare. My little contribution to maybe stopping WW3 who knows.
🤭 funny
So I took a look into Dalea purpurea, it seems to work on opioid receptors, if ur saying its like coffee that is really interesting because that could mean it MIGHT have some kind of similar effect to Kratom, which is especially baffling to me because the isolated compounds look extremely fucking differently (tho Im pretty new at this nerd shit).
But that is absolutely fucking wild that there can be a locally sourced Kratom alternative that might not damage the Asian continent as much from illegal farming!
Edit: also might maybe be salvia lite as seems to enjoy antagonizing the Kappa opioid receptor.... maybe idk Im pretty dumb
@23:00 " People underestimate the value of texture...."
So true! When I get home, most evenings, that is the thing that is most evident .
I try to tell people (I'm in the biz), but 95+% of them don't care. & most that do , do so after I point it out, never having considered it before, though being dissatisfied in their landscape, & not understanding why.
I was just eating some popcorn and thought there was something nasty in the popcorn… I was just spreading penstemon seeds around 🤔🤔🤔 never knew(or realized I guess) the seeds smelled bad.
what a great start to the day...thanks to everyone involved
Thank you so much. Love Pizzo. Phenomenal insight.
7k+ views! Nice!
That website for native plants gunna be busy, busy busy!!!
Love my lawn and natives
They been putting them in the bag.
I've been watching the Tephrosia growing here in north Georgia. The foliage stays so interesting all season. Busy spreading it further 😊
Love seeing this nursery, thanks guys!
Super appreciate the tour! I hope Mr. Pizzo doesn't ban you from da germination chambers. It was very insightful seeing a large-scale operation. I'd love to see them working more on the seed preparation / germination side of things.
Love this return to chicago series, Tony- I'm gonna be slaughtering my lawn this winter thanks to your inspiration 🫡
us prairie fans love ta see it
That was great! Thanks!
Looking forward to part 2!
That's Adam Connover (Adam Ruins Everything) in this video, and you can't convince me otherwise.
24:56 it's funnyi used to only care about plants for the psychoactive quality but through you and just hiking and learning more about native plants in my area that has become so far from my focus. Thank you for sharing all that you do.
“Walfart” This guy is hilarious loved stumbling upon your channel!
Yall are giving me faith in my startup! 👍
I’m calling Pizzo now too
Fantastic video. Your knowledge is inspiring!
"A medieval whac'em tool" 😂 fukn love it.
If you can you should try to visit Missouri Wildflower Nursery! They’ve got an awesome set-up and their soil mix seems pretty unique
very enjoyable episode, thank you, i am already looking forward to part 2
so wonderfully nerdy
I have Blue eyed Grass in my yard here in coastal Maine, clumps like a sedge
Thank you so much for this midwest series. I don't have a lawn to kill, just a large 3rd floor balcony at an apartment. I adore native prarie gardens though. My old college campus had them and one was just added near my office building. Most of these plants aren't suited to containers but I'll keep trying.
As a laymen but an enthusiast of gardening in general. Looking at the seedling plug roots, it seems like "air pruning" some of the more modern designs of seedling pots have openings in the sides allowing airflow around the root ball and eliminating the root binding you generally see in pots. Definitely looking healthy.
Hopefully one day you'll head up to Ontario Canada and highlight sonw of our native habitat, like the Carolinian or the Boreal (I think we have so little Carolinian and the former native range of it is primarily urban, suburban and farm land so we could definitely use more folks planting some of the natives in their gardens, or even restoring a portion of their lawns.
crazy how many of these species are native to my neck of the woods too! Love me some blue eye grass and joe pie weed
I'm that person - I found blue eyed grass near my compost piles so I moved them out into a short plant area of my mini meadow in CT - they are thriving! And I can't wait for my coreopsis tripteris to reach 9 ft!!!
Re Iliamna remota, I mixed some old charcoal from the (last used 3 yrs ago) fire pit into the soil I put in the plug trays (Nov '21) , & soaked some charcoal in a watering can, overnight, with which I watered those trays. Almost all came up last spring . All that I kept [gave 1/2, or more away] flowered this year.
Great vid Joey! Thx! GFY:D
I have fantastic results with Compost Tea, my plants really exploded with growth this year. Loving the native selection I'm seeing in this video! :D
Those retaining wall stones have been around quite a while, now. They're called Löffelstein, or "spoon bricks", and can hold back quite a high bank of soil (using roots as "reinforcing wires", I think). If you just build an old "brute force retaining wall" there's a whole iceberg below what you see poking out in the front. To hold back soil the old fashioned way, you have to build "castle-thick" walls. They taper, so the tops don't give any indication of how much money (in concrete) is down at the base of the wall. The Löffelsteins can be stacked just about vertically, create space for things to live and grow (lizards seem to like them where I'm from), and hold back as much soil as the stupid lumps of olden times.
That's really cool. I bet the pavers heat up in the sun and would be really comfortable for lizards and other cold blooded species, especially with shade cover and cool soil only a few inches away.
❤ Awesome Information!!
Thank You!!❤
@@AndreaDingbatt Glad to hear it was of some use or interest to you. :D
You may enjoy a couple 'retaining wall' vids over at this channel.(Mike Haduck Masonry) He shows a few examples that were meant for hundreds of years.
@@wadestanton Now that's what I call a nice big selection of retaining wall videos! Looks like I'll need to visit there occasionally. Thanks.
Can’t wait for part 2❤🎉
Very little lends me hope these days, but this did. Thanks, Tony.
Amazing! Thanks Joey
ahaha - where do you go after you've been told to go kill your lawn - classic CLASSIC Tony
Nice
Does Pizzo do much of restoring land from invasives? I do some noxious invasive weed removal for my municipality, and I noticed when walking along a river chopping and pulling invasive Lythrum salicaria that like, the other dense river grasses themselves already did an incredible job choking out the Loosestrife. It made me feel on top of pulling the root balls of invasives, one should almost carry a mix of their native riparian zone plants and plant in loosestrifes place. Seems likea great strategy to overwhelm invasives after you've physcically treated for them (chopping/bagging flowering heads, I figured, then physically removing the plant rootballs themselves). Really wishing I'd researched what to plant in riparian zone place, but they seemed genuinely in hard competition with the other reed grasses and flowers and so on growing right there (growing zone 3a)
edit: also love seeing all that beautiful Golden Rod :)
edit2: For the roots / babies etc, you germinating seedlings in any kinda nutrient agar then seeding? All the babies look so strong! Is it because the trays are so deep? Allows like a pretty strong plant at transplant? Lol I realize im asking Tony as though he is Pizzo lol
The Pizzo Group consists of the nursery and its sister company the restoration work. I worked for a couple different restoration companies in the area--never worked for Pizzo, but worked with plenty of people who had.
@@phasmata3813Yea I've been curious myself about a nursery for similar reasons, but just have no idea what kind of school background to look into pursuing for it, or whether to even bother given you could really just do it, too lol. Having worked in other nursery settings I at least have an impression of work flow and stuff, and am mostly curious about it because I wonder how the region of aspen and boreal parkland im in kinda rebounds and reacts to a climate drying and hitting more hot and cold extremes faster than it typically used to and if there's merit to having provincial seed / gene banks and nurseries propagating out stock fast and wilding new land or reclaiming what land you can and always inputting new genetic stock from the land too to keep a cycle of material in and out of the nursery flowing. I've kinda been warned by other greenhouses here against doing trees too, but I really think bulk orders for farmers and such planting new tree lines / covers and so on would be a means to get stock out while also doing something about our crop and ground cover issues created when farmers tear out old treelines and stuff too. But idk, it's just an idea, dont know if worth going to school for or just starting and trying with what I know, don't know how to 'monetize' and I'd think what I want to do is more in line with what ought to be a provincial research program rather than like, a private business haha.
Great work 👏 Portugal only have the seeds of native plants to sell...is the begin of native plants in each country
Exciting! I’ll definitely be checking out their website!
When i watch too many of your vid'ya's i start talking like you in my gardening oriented story posts on Instagram. Only takes a cuppa two tree vid'ya's and I'm ready to run over to Berkots for some sausage and a Green River.
Re Coreopsis tripteris "...afraid of the height..". Yeah. I've been in the biz for 30+ yrs, & I've seen that change. People's expectations have gotten much smaller. Now a "HUGE" plant is anything 3' tall or more. 2' is frequently "Big" , even for shrubs.
"I want a tree...no more than 5-6' ..deer resistant...evergreen if possible." :PPPP
Me, in my head "TREE ? 6' or LESS? WTF?"
I am often asking "How big is 'BIG' ?"
The lengths of the root systems on some of the plants, if you want to understand why a lot of countries are suffering from flooding on a large scale you need to understand why the water is running OFF the land so fast and why the land is slipping so much...
This guys organized.
"just big enough for a little bumblebee's ass to be stickin' out of..." Precisely.
I love this video!!!🤘🤘🤘🤘
Such a great tour, the plants were phenomenal! Wish my area had an exclusive native plant nursery. Amorpha canescens, Dalea purpurea, and Dalea villosa - three plants that have been a challenge to grow by seed. I know an inoculum plays a big role in germination, it can be pricey to buy for each species. I get a high germination rate with lead plants but they fizzle away after transplanting. Has anyone had success in growing these using a general inoculum for legumes? if so, some pointers would be appreciated.