Environmentally-Responsible Landscape: Part II of my 3x3 Course

Fall is the perfect time to implement environmentally friendly practices in your landscape that support local ecosystems while reducing your workload. We explore part two of our 3x3 program on environmentally responsible landscaping, focusing on practical steps that make your yard more sustainable.

• Leave fallen leaves in place to provide essential overwintering habitat for pollinators and return nutrients to the soil
• Keep hollow plant stems standing through winter as they house native bee eggs and larvae
• Use the PlantNet app to identify what's growing in your yard and remove invasive species
• Pull weeds properly by removing the entire root system using tools like a weeding fork
• Recognize when selective use of chemicals might be necessary for persistent problems like thistles
• Join our free masterclass on Tuesday, September 9th at 8pm to learn three things to stop doing this fall in your landscape

Check out the complete 3x3 program with videos, workbooks and photos at MinnesotaGardening.com while it's still available for free.

Want to switch to more environmentally-responsible landscape and lawn care practices but don't know where to start?

Join our movement bringing together Midwest homeowners so that we can to make the world a better place for our kids and grandkids by building up strong local ecosystems for songbirds, pollinators, and our families to thrive.

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello and welcome, my friend, to the Minnesota
Gardening Podcast.
It's awesome to have you here.
And, holy cow, leaves arestarting to turn, fall feels
like it's in the air.
I think it's supposed to getwarm again here in the middle of
September, but it is definitelyfeeling chilly and fall-like
right now.
So make some soup and have somefun with this.
So with that, we've got part twohere of our 3x3 program, which

(00:32):
is nine things that you can doto help make the world a better
place in your landscape, beingmore environmentally responsible
.
So these are action items thatyou can do right now in your
home lawn and landscape.
So this is part two of three ofour free course over at
minnesotagardeningcom, so youcan go over there and check it
out.
There are videos, there areworkbooks, there are photos a

(00:55):
lot of things that you can do asa free part of Minnesota
Gardening.
So this course will not be freeforever, so make sure to check
it out today so that you can getthe most value out of that.
And then, before we start withthis episode, which is the audio
from the part two environmentallandscape video, I want to make
sure to let you know that onTuesday of next week, so Tuesday

(01:17):
, september 9th.
So if you're listening to thislive, tuesday, september 9th
2025, we are having a livemasterclass.
So it's our monthly masterclasswe have at Minnesota Gardening,
and this is totally free aswell.
So it's three things to stopdoing this fall.
We're going to go through falltasks and what you should not be
doing that most people in theirlandscapes are doing.
So head over tominnesotagardeningcom and click

(01:39):
on events and RSVP to join us onTuesday at 8 pm.
All right, we are in our secondfull lesson here, so thank you
very much.
If you haven't been through yet,my name is Brad Tabke here,
host of Minnesota Gardening andFounder, and I'm just really
excited to have you here, wherewe're getting nine things maybe

(01:59):
more again, stick around to theend.
That are ways that you, as ahomeowner, can make sure that
you are becoming moreenvironmentally friendly in your
lawn and landscape practices,and so we are now moving on.
We did lawn care and now we'redoing landscape practices, and
the fourth item that we havehere is leaving the leaves, and

(02:19):
so we're going to broaden thisout a little bit further here.
We want our landscapes to again, as we said, emulate nature as
much as humanly possible, andthat means that when the leaves
fall under a tree, they're meantto stay, or generally stay, in
that area.
Those leaves are broken down,they're recycled, those
nutrients go back up into thetree for the next growth cycle,

(02:41):
and so we want to make sure thatwe're emulating that as much as
possible.
For whatever reason, folks wereconvinced that all that needs
to be gathered up and removedand we have to have these
perfectly tidy, very neat andclean landscapes, and that's
just not true and it's actuallyreally against what our local
ecosystems need, because many ofour pollinator friends, many of
our songbird friends, they needthose leaves to overwinter so

(03:05):
that caterpillars and otherthings can overwinter in those
leaves.
There have been shown to be asignificant number of insects
and pollinators that overwinterin that leaf material and we
want to let that fall and wewant to let that stay where it
is in general and be there.
So we want to leave the leavesin the fall.
Do not rake them up and takethem out, just leave them

(03:27):
basically where they land.
If you need to have a cleanerlawn area, if you're worried
about them blowing around inyour neighbor's area, you can
blow them into your landscapebeds, and so you're going to
have beds that are going tocatch those leaves and hold them
where they are, and that'snatural mulch, so you don't have

(03:49):
to pay for mulch.
You can just leave those there.
You can add leaves to it andlet those uh, let those be.
You can just mow over them once, twice, that kind of thing, and
let those, those leaves, soakinto the ground.
But generally leave thoseleaves where they are as much as
possible.
Same with this is a lawn careside of things.
But leave the clippings in yourlawn.
Always do not remove theclippings, because that's just
nitrogen that those plants arelosing and so it's more
fertilizer petroleum-basedfertilizer that you'll need to

(04:11):
use.
So let those stay there.
So leave the clippings, leavethe leaves and also leave the
stems.
There are a significant numberof especially native bees here
in the upper Midwest thatoverwinter and lay their eggs in
the hollow stems of the lastyears, of the previous year's
plant growth.
And so what happens?

(04:32):
They're really cool studiesthat follow deer around as they
browse in the woods and all thenative bees that follow those
deer around, and then, after thedeer chomp off a top of a stem
and then that hollow stem isopen, they go in there and they
start to lay eggs in there andthey leave food in there, pollen
in there for their futurelarvae that emerge, and so it's

(04:56):
really important as a part ofyour local ecosystem and a
support ecosystem a huge numberof native bees and wasps and
other friends that we leave thestems on our plants and so leave
those there through spring, andyou can clean them up in the
spring a little bit if you needa tidier area, and again, this
is another thing that we go intodepth with at Minnesota

(05:16):
Gardening as a member.
The next thing is know whatplants you have in your
landscape.
You want to make sure you'reremoving all the invasive plants
so you don't have any of those,and my favorite plant app that
you should download is it'splantnetapp, and so it's
available for Apple, android andon the desktop, and you can
find it at plantnetorg, and soit's just a really, really great

(05:39):
app that I've tried a lot ofthem and it is really good with
identifying weeds, withidentifying native plants, with
identifying helpful plants andgoing through.
So this is just a coupledifferent things here.
This is what the interfacelooks like and you can add a
picture.
You can take a picture wheneveryou want, and then you identify
that picture as to what part ofthe plant it is, and it gives

(06:01):
you really good recommendationsas to what that plant is.
So PlantNet is my favorite appfor identifying plants in your
landscape.
And number six here is makingsure that when you are weeding,
you are pulling the roots out ofthe ground, and so this seems
like a really simple one, but alot of people don't do it.
It always amazes me how manyfolks don't.

(06:22):
So you want to make sure thatyou are pulling the entire root
system out of the ground,because what happens is, if you
don't get that root system, alot of times you pull the top
off and then there are fivedifferent new plants that come
up, and those are even moredifficult to pull out.
So when you're taking the timeto pull out weeds, make sure to
use a tool like this.
Weeding fork is my favoritething to use.

(06:45):
There's a resource section inminnesota gardening, so if you
scroll into the main menu,there's my favorite things and
those are my resources, andthere's a link to weeding forks
here.
But you push in the ground, youwiggle it around a little bit to
loosen up that soil and thenyou can get the entire root out.
90% of the time it's not goingto be perfect for you, but most
of the time you can get theentire root out.

(07:05):
90% of the time it's not goingto be perfect for you, but most
of the time you can get thoseout, and so plants regrow.
If you don't pull that entireroot out, so this will save you,
your future self, a lot of timeand energy and help with that,
and so make sure to use a toolif you have things that are hard
to pull or susceptible toregrowing, like different weeds

(07:27):
with different grasses andespecially thistles.
And a little caveat here thatwe talked about with lawn care
as well, is that sometimes youneed to nuke it, so, like this
has some thistles in there andyou just have to kill those with
chemicals.
There's really no way that ifyou have a thistle problem, you
can get ahead of it just bypulling, and so sometimes
chemicals are necessary, but wewant to reduce that as much as

(07:50):
humanly possible.
The third section that we've gothere before our conclusion for
you, and number seven, eight andnine, are plant helpful plants,
and so head to the next lessonand we will get to the plant
helpful plants section of thisthree by three free course.
Thanks again for being here.
See what I mean.
I hope that you enjoyed thatthe audio from that video at

(08:12):
Minnesota gardening on three bythree.
And so this is all aboutenvironmental landscape in this
episode, and then next week wetalk all about a different topic
and we will be going over whatis next with planting helpful
plants, and so there's also abonus action item, uh, involved
with that one.
So planting helpful plantscomes up in part three, which

(08:32):
will release next week with theaudio, and again you can get the
video for all these over atminnesota gardening.
And so, while you're there,make sure rsvp for next uh
tuesday's event where we have afree masterclass for you on
three things that you need tostop doing right now for this
fall landscape.
So I will see you soon and havea great day, thank you.