05/31/2026
Sunday Spotlight
Let's talk about native plants!
If you have visited the stand, you'll see we have add native plant starts. Maybe this is a new term? Maybe an old term?
We wanted to take a moment to introduce the concept of native gardening/landscaping.
First, a little background...
When we bought our acreage, our goal was to convert as much of the space into native landscaping as we could. So far, we have created several garden beds, a 3 acre native meadow, and last fall we seeded the pond berm with native plants (ugh...pesky thistle is our current battle).
What are native plants?
- Native Indiana plants are the trees/shrubs/forbs(flowers), grasses, and sedges that existed on this land prior to European colonization.
- Natives are adapted to our environment so they require minimal care. Thankfully for us and our busy lives, they thrive on neglect ๐
- They are the food and habitat source for the bugs, butterflies, bees, animals of our area. They are essential in pollination. Without pollination, we lose our food chain so supporting pollinators is an essential need.
Are they w**ds?
- NOPE! Unfortunately, many of them contain the term "w**d" in their name. This is unfortunate because it has a negative connotation when they are beautiful options for garden beds.
Aren't they tall and unmanageable?
- Some are more aggressive growers but there are MANY options for lower lying, less aggressive growing plants that can easily fit the landscape needs of HOA rules.
Why is it important to us?
- Well, we may not be able to change a lot in the world, but this is an area where we can make simple changes that have HUGE impacts on the world we are leaving our children.
Feel free to check out our family page Fig's Farm to see how we incorporate these plants on our land.
Over the summer and fall, we will have native plant starts. They seem small but keep in mind, they will grow immensely over the next few years.
Year 1- they sleep. The plant focuses energy on developing deep root systems.
Year 2- they creep. The plant slowly begins to expand.
Year 3- they LEAP1 The plant takes off, growing abundant flowers, spreading to full size. They can even be divided into new plants.
There are a lot of local resources for native plant sourcing. Let us know if we can help you find local sources for additional plant options. Purdue Extension program and DNR have great information on plant needs for optimal sites (ie wet/rain garden, full sun, shade, etc).
Later this fall, we will have seed packets as well when we start collecting.
We obtained our Indiana nursery dealer/seller license specifically so we could offer this and look forward to growing our little passion project more and more every year!!!
Please see photos for some examples of the gorgeous plants we have along our place.
Editing to add one very important piece: We do not use chemicals on our farm other than organic natural based fertilizer! When we bought the land 4 years ago, we unfortunately had to have a company come in to kill off the insane invasive w**d burden. Since then, we are all natural :)
Any plant starts, vegetables, eggs, etc have not been exposed to chemicals.
