Hello and thanks for joining us for this special episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain, and we are back at Lake of the Woods in Mahomet now, if you remember, we were here earlier in the spring, we hung out with site supervisor and one of our panelists, Rusty maulding, and he showed us this new pollinator bed that they put in full of native plants.

So we came back toward the end of the summer to see how things were growing.

See what I did there.

Let's get an update.

You rusty, thanks so much for letting us come back.

It's a beautiful morning.

So far, it's going to be a hot one.

Today, it's going to be a hot one.

That's why we scheduled this shoot in the morning.

So we came out earlier in the spring and we looked at this exact bed that you guys put in native plants.

And now I thought it would be a cool idea to come back towards the end of the summer and see how it did, what lessons you learned, what did well, what didn't do so well, and just kind of show people the progression of a new flower bed and how it kind of grows in and what it looks like.

Sure, sure, absolutely.

Well, we have lots of things that we can talk about here today.

Okay, so let's start in on what's sort of underneath our feet right now.

Yeah, I noticed the crunching we walked up.

So every time you do a new installation and under an existing tree is you're oftentimes going to be damaging the roots.

So this particular hackberry above us did suffer some root injury.

We had some mechanical removal of some soil that also kind of added that.

And we're in a dry period right now, and so what's happening is we're getting some early senescence, some early leaf drop.

That's a stress response.

Interesting.

We have not watered this at all this year, until yesterday.

So in response to this, one of the best things that you can do is go out and water.

Don't focus on fertilization, just strictly water and mulch and doing some of those cultural practices that are sort of in best, best practices for plant care.

Gotcha, I noticed that, and I noticed that they weren't like autumn color.

They were just fallen leaves.

They just straight up fell off because the trees said, hey, you know what?

I don't have enough water to keep and support these leaves, and so the benefit of the food production they're doing was outweighed by the lack of water too.

Gotcha keep it viable.

So if you are putting in beds or installing things under a tree, expect this is what you're saying, If you disturb the root system.

So this happened to one, well, I guess it did happen a little bit to the other two as well.

This went a little bit more acutely, so you can anticipate a little bit.

We also did a lot of plugging.

Here we were plugging about once every 15 inches, or maybe maybe 12 inches, gotcha.

And we did some soil removal.

So there was definitely it was invasive, gotcha.

Normal planting, you won't see quite this response, but you can expect a little bit of leaf loss early.

And does that create competition, I'm assuming, between everyone trying to vie for a drink here?

You know, it's actually a little bit more resembles what would happen in nature, because typically you go out into the woods and you don't see trees with just nothing around them.

So it's actually kind of restoring a balance.

Gotcha so that it, it's it a native planting under a tree is way better than turf.

Got it noted, yeah, okay.

And, speaking of natives, this was intentional.

This, this median bed here are mostly, almost all native plants, correct, which ties into what we've been talking about.

You've got the native plants of the Midwest book, yeah, and that's got 500 native species in it.

And I are all 500 in this media.

You said you did a lot of plugging.

We did a lot of plugging.

And some people would say there's, this is species rich.

We didn't get 500 in nice No.

One of the things I really like about this book is he, he does a nice job of setting it up by sort of ecosystem.

So there's a woodland area which is going to speak to kind of the plants in this space, and then there's a prairie area which is going to speak to the air, to the plants in the full sun area here, right next to us.

Okay, so let's talk about some of the the progress that you've seen this summer.

Yeah.

So one of the things that most gardeners are after is, what do I plant in dry shade?

And so, you know, the native Illinois plant scape, if you will, has some solutions.

We ended up finding or using this zigzag Goldenrod Zigzag is kind of in reference to the nature of how the stem will oscillate back and forth.

Or does it create a zigzag?

It's a great ID feature.

This is a zigzag golden rod.

And unlike sort of, it gets a bad rap occasionally as being aggressive and also causing hay fever.

It can be aggressive with.

Certain species.

This one is not this one is very tame, does a great job in shade.

Only gets to be about two to three feet tall, and stays put fairly well.

So one of the chief benefits of Goldenrod is it's a late season nectar and pollen feeder for all of the pollinators and insects that come through that rely on that.

And this is, this is really the thing that kind of helps get them through the winter, or get them to their final destination, if they're in migratory like the like the monarchs, one of the last food sources that they'll have, right?

Exactly, just to, yeah, dainty little flowers.

So that's another one.

It's a shorty eyes Aster.

Or shorts Aster does really, really well in in a shady and dry location, this guy is going to do a little bit better, probably, if it has a little bit more moisture, but the the shorts Aster, straight up dry shade, it's going to do well.

These are one year plugs, so we installed these almost a year ago, well, in like, a couple of weeks.

So what you're seeing next year will be a lot more robust.

We're just a little early on the on the flowering time we're, you know, sort of late August, early September, is whenever they just start to get going, and then they'll flower reliably for the next month.

And, you know, everything we plant doesn't always take off.

You know, that's just the way it goes.

Is there anything that you put in this shady bed that perhaps didn't work, and maybe you'll try something different next year.

Or, you know, I just, I think it's important for people to know that everything you plant is not always going to make it Sure, sure, no, absolutely.

There was a species of Aster.

It was a longifolium.

And I apologize, I'm not going to remember the common name, but we planted that in sort of this area over here to our left, and upon my inspection today, we only found two that happened.

So that's part of the reason why, whenever you're planting native spaces, getting a right mix, sometimes things do really well, and sometimes things maybe get out competed or just aren't as happy in those spaces.

And so you plan a broad spectrum, and it's survival to fit us a little bit.

Okay, so now we move into this one of the sunny sections.

Sure, this has filled in a lot in the past few months.

It has, it has.

This has really done well this.

The whole thing is, this exceeded my expectations.

Nice.

This is, this was planted last May or a year ago, last May, so just it's had two summers now.

And this showy Black Eyed Susan has really is doing what it says it's showing.

And we've got some nice liatris behind here.

There are in and amongst all of this, some various sedges and grasses.

So there's some little bluestem, there is some spiralus or prairie drop seed that's in here.

It's all kind of helping hold everything up.

And so it not, it's not all showy right now, and that's part of that's part of the goal, right?

When we visited and talked this spring or early summer, we had quite a bit that was showing Yes, three, four months later, we still have lots of great things that are in color.

It's just different.

And that's the idea, right to keep something in bloom absolutely at all time to have something to look at.

Would you consider this established?

Is this bed?

Or would you add more to it?

No, this, this bed right now is what I would consider established.

I am.

I was considering trying to plug in a few additional things in the in the shady areas, but I think I'm just going to let that go.

It really the plant per square foot is about right?

It just, just need a little time to grow.

Just need some time to fill in that the patience we talked about of letting the beds develop.

What worked really well in here?

Is there anything besides the the black eye?

Susan, sure.

What else worked really well in this bed, early season, we had a lot of pins tongue that did really well.

The the liatris has done well.

There's another plant.

It's back up in here.

I'm going to try to get find one, as I'm on the move, try to find one that's in flower.

Well, I'm not finding one, all right.

This is the stiff goldenrod.

And this is going to have kind of a flat flower.

It's not quite there just yet.

There's just a few peeking up here and there another Goldenrod family.

This one.

One of the things that branigan said in his book is that this should not be planted in fertile garden soil, because it will self sow so it does like competition, that will help keep it at bay.

And also don't amend your soils, or if you've got a clay patch or a sandy vein, this is a very adaptable goldenrod, and that will also help, kind of keep it at bay.

So this is another great one, that it's not as aggressive as some of the golden rod is that people fear don't make the environment too hostile.

That's right, that's right, the Echinacea, one of the things that we saw earlier, these were the seed heads from the Purple coneflower, and we saw some gold.

Inches feeding on those before we are getting ready for this shoot.

So that's that's always a welcome addition to anybody's garden.

I think, very nice.

And then so as far as maintenance goes, when a frost comes through, or when will you cut this down?

Will you leave it?

How do you maintain a native flower bed?

Sure, if this is in at my house, I'm going to wait until spring, and then I'm going to go through, I'm going to cut most things back to about a foot, okay?

And some of these stems you can see are rather large, and what that's going to do is, if there, if it's if it's a has a hold on the center, if the pith is hollow, that will create a natural nesting spot for some of our native bees for next fall.

So if you leave those that then becomes some an overwintering spot for some of our native insects, that's bringing it totally full circle, right?

Because we're attracting the pollinators, creating that environment for them, and now they've got a place to overwinter.

Yeah, absolutely.

If this is at the front of your house, and maybe you've got some shorter version of this.

You can do it like in November or December.

You know that that's perfectly acceptable.

It really becomes down to an esthetic taste.

I would prefer that you try to cut back again about a foot high, and that again you're creating some some ground.

You're leaving the material on the ground, creating some overwintering space, leave the foliage, though.

Okay.

Now I asked Alan this on our interview, and I'll ask you as well.

Yeah, when people say, Oh, natives are just they're not real showy, they don't do it for me, what is your response to that?

I mean, come on, not all natives are showy, not all ornamentals are showing they all have their own unique niche and at different times of year, and it really is a matter a matter of finding something that's going to fit your esthetic preference.

I think any of these could be showy, for sure, better in context than all alone.

A lot of times, I think one of the departures from native landscaping, I should say, from ornamental strictly like traditional gardening, is that in there you tend to have more sweeps and large masses natives, certain ones will lend themselves to that others do not.

All right, Rusty, always a pleasure.

Thank you so much for letting us come out.

And I hope that you got some use out of that book.

You said that you were familiar with it before I even brought it up.

I was some of my staff have, this is in a personal collection, and I'm looking at getting a copy for our staff collection there at the office.

Wow, you might just have to call in.

Yeah, there you go.

Become a friend.

Become a friend.

All right, always a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Say.

So divine.

I'm Erin lippitz, the major gifts director at Illinois public media, and with me today is Amanda Hill, our membership manager.

And as you notice, we're not in the studio today.

We are on location.

This is the first time ever that we've been out of the studio.

They let us out, like at the woods of Muhammad, and it's a gorgeous location, beautiful, surrounded by beautiful wildflowers, native flowers to the Midwest.

What a great place to be on a beautiful, beautiful morning, gorgeous.

I'm so happy to be out here.

Yeah, I gotta remember this too.

That's like, come out here and go hiking or something.

This is, like a gorgeous area.

So happy to be here.

It was so cool.

We just heard from rusty, yeah, Tanisha.

I mean, these flowers are gorgeous.

I really want to pick some for my home kitchen, but I won't.

We'll play it cool.

I always say, I'd always say this every, every time we're on a fun drive for Mid American gardener, I'm going to plant a native garden now, but I really mean it this time.

Yeah, definitely going to do it.

I feel very motivated today.

We'll see how that turns out.

We often joke we have, yeah, not green thumb, right?

So, you know, maybe one of these days, yeah, it's getting greener as we go, and we're learning so much here with Tanisha and rusty on location at Lake of the Woods and W i ll and PBS has such a long history of educational programming.

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And now we have a very special treat for you.

I am joined by Alan Branhagen.

You may not know him, but you know of his books because we have them on the show all the time.

We've got this one today.

He trying to get out of the glare the native plants of the Midwest book.

We talk about the primer as well.

So this is the man behind the book.

So tell us a little bit about you.

Introduce yourself and how did you become a plant person?

Hi, Tinisha, thank you for having me today.

Yeah, I'm the executive director of the natural land institute up in Rockford, Illinois.

And if you didn't know, the natural land institute was the first land trust in Illinois, and our founder was also one of the founders of the natural land, or, excuse me, of the Nature Conservancy, which is, you know, really well known.

Yeah.

How did I get interested in plants?

I think it goes back to my childhood.

My mom took us kids.

I'm, you know, from a family of four, on hikes in local parks.

I grew up in decor Iowa, and I remember hiking in this one wooded Park, will Baker Park, and seeing Dutchman's breeches and her showing me that flower.

And, you know, each flower is like a little pants and hanging upside down, and it's just little things like that.

Made me really interested in plants, though.

I also love butterflies and birds.

I have to add that butterflies, birds and botany, the three B's.

The 3b absolutely so that's when he got bit by the bug, right?

That's when I got bit by the botany bug.

Yes, the botany bug.

Now professionally, tell us a little bit about where your career has taken you.

Yeah, I went to undergraduate school in Ames, Iowa, at Iowa State University, and got a degree in landscape architecture and had an amazing professor there, Bob Dyess, who really promoted native plants.

After that, I went to get my master's degree at Louisiana State University down in Baton Rouge.

I took a detour, really.

I got an amazing assistantship there that covered my cost of living and tuition.

So that was really helpful.

And it's one of the top four schools in landscape architecture.

And while at LSU, I knew I wanted to come back to the Midwest.

I just love you.

Know grew up here.

I don't know my my inner being is tied to what goes on in the Midwest.

And so I was looking at job opportunities.

And here's this job opportunity in Rockford, Illinois, working for the Winnebago County Forest Preserve District.

And it was doing, you know, preserve development and land management, and, you know, all the types of things that I really loved and I applied from, well, actually, first of all, it's like, well, where the heck is Winnebago County, Illinois.

And I went into the library at LSU.

I hope this isn't too long of a story, but it's okay.

Here in the in the library is the book, the flora of Winnebago County, Illinois, by Egbert fell and I read that book, and I'm like, wow, that county has a really diverse flora and really unique river systems and all this history of land protection.

I want to go and interview, and I did, and I got the job, and I accepted it.

I moved back to the Midwest, to Rockford.

The rest is history, yeah.

And then I left for 27 years, and now I'm back.

It just keeps calling you back, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about your books.

Because this, this is a book.

This isn't, this isn't, you know, a coffee table paperback.

This is a comprehensive what is it?

500 500 species.

How does one go from having this passion about something to creating a giant book, because this hadn't been a labor, right?

I mean, you really, this is a lot of work.

So how did you What moved you to want to put this out there for people to understand and to know more about native plants?

Well, again, I, I have that passion for the Midwest, and I think, you know, we're kind of fly over country, and we, we don't know the beauty that's in our own backyard.

And, you know, I've been gardening ever since I was a wee one, so in Iowa, and, you know, a little bit in Louisiana, though, as a grad student, and, of course, in Rockford, and then Kansas City, and then the Twin Cities and back to Rockford.

So I've been all over the Midwest and always visiting different natural areas, and just inspired by all those things.

And I thought I want to just share all my experiences with gardening to hopefully inspire people to grow more native plants and understand the importance of growing more native plants.

Now we hear a lot of people say, I I don't really look for natives, or I'm not drawn to natives because they're not as showy, or they're, you know, they're not as bright colored or interesting to look at.

And I'm sure you disagree with that.

So what do you say to people who come up and say, you know, I don't know natives, you know, they're just uninteresting.

I completely hear that a lot.

I think a lot of it also relates back to the Midwest has the smallest amount of natural areas remaining.

Most people have never even been to a high quality remnant prairie to see the spectacle that is there right now, with all the sunflowers and blazing stars and all these things blooming, I mean, they can be spectacular.

So a lot of people just miss what what they're about.

And I hope I brought that back to them.

I think the quote in my book is from Eloise Butler, who was actually one of the first Native Plant people.

In fact, the oldest native plant garden in the whole United States is in Minneapolis, and she was way ahead of her time, and she had traveled even to the tropics, but when she saw the prairies outside Minneapolis, said they are more colorful and beautiful than anything she'd seen in the tropics.

So if people just got out there and saw that, I think they'd be inspired to put these plants interesting.

That's a very, very unique perspective.

And you talk about designing with natives in here as well.

We've had some folks on our show that the last few years, that has really been a hot topic is, let's introduce some of these.

Some of these back into our landscape.

Talk a little bit about that.

Well, yeah, some, you know, I wrote this from a gardener's perspective.

And, yeah, some of these native plants are, you know, they they kind of run, or we don't know how to use them.

We don't know how to, you know, some of them are more aggressive, or seed in because they're meant to be here.

That's, you know, and gardeners like things to just stay put, you know, where I planted it.

I want to stay there and and, you know, so, yeah, design is learning how to put these together.

And for each section of the book, you know, like the trees, the you know, understory trees, the perennials and so on.

I have at the beginning a little a.

A little piece that talks about maybe the best dozen that are the most garden worthy for our traditional landscape, so that people can know where to start with the ones that are really, really well behaved and act like the traditional perennials, so that they kind of can build off that.

Very nice.

So you even give us the blueprint of where to start?

Yeah, I hope so.

Like that, like that.

And I can't, we can't, not talk about native plants and pollinators without talking about the greater issue of pollinators, the our monarchs, and some of those things that are unique to to Illinois and things that we enjoy.

Um, did you come at this with a environmental sort of perspective as well.

Yeah, I hope, I hope people got that.

I think that's because, you know, I said it's not just botany for me, it's butterflies and birds, and even as a boy making those connections, I mean, I was writing down the plants that attracted butterflies way before any books really published that.

And, you know, and that's really the, the part that really inspired me to to get this out there, is because these are all the building blocks of nature, you know, these things have co evolved with each other.

They need each other.

And then, of course, we ultimately need them if we want clean air and clean water and and even the, a lot of the plants we grow, you know, need pollinators.

Luckily, we don't have to hire someone to pollinate apple trees in the Midwest, for example.

So just hope, hopefully, people make that connection.

And I really try to write about that if there are specific insects or birds tied to a plant, really try to make those connections, excellent.

Can we expect any future works?

Do you have anything in the pipeline?

Not that, you know, this isn't part of me wants to do the rest of the story.

You know, 500 is a lot, right?

And, you know, it was hard for me to whittle it down.

And sometime I it might be kind of fun to do.

You know, here's, here's some other really good ones that didn't make the first cut.

And then, of course, you know, we did the the second book was really because the 500 is intimidating for a lot of people.

And we did it so that, you know, the Midwest native plant primer just to really more address the average homeowner.

And so it wasn't quite as intimidating.

So Gotcha.

Excellent last question, and then I'll let you go.

What is your favorite native plant?

You would do that, besides the one I saved the best one for last.

Yeah, probably, you know, trees are the most important of all the plants, because they have the biggest biomass and can make the biggest in impact on your local environment.

So I would pick Illinois State tree, the white oak.

It just becomes a magnificent, long lived tree.

Everyone should plant one somewhere, because it just really is one of the building blocks of nature.

In the Midwest, has more diversity of insects feeding on it than anything else.

And of course, the acorns, the mast crop in the fall that it produces, feeds so much that it is and of course, it sequesters carbon for a long time, because it can live for 400 years.

So long answer, white oak.

White Oak.

Thank you so much for your time.

I could sit here on this zoom with you for hours because we're speaking the same language.

Thank you so much for your passion and for turning that into these lovely books.

We can't keep them here.

Every time we offer them, they sell out immediately.

So you are doing good work here in central Illinois, and we really thank you so Alan, we appreciate it.

You are very welcome.

Hey, we're back.

That was so amazing hearing from Alan branhagen, I have to tell you, I took a shot emailing him.

I thought there's no way this guy is going to email back, not because he's not a nice guy, just, you know, who does that?

And he wrote back immediately.

I was thrilled.

We cannot keep these books on our shelves for you true fans.

You know, we had an earlier version that he was an author of as well.

Had that for years.

We thought we'd mix it up for our loyal fans, give him something new, and now these are flying off the shelf.

So that was so great.

I think, what a what a wealth of knowledge.

Yes, nice guy.

I wish we could have met him in person, but, you know, zooms feel very personal these days.

I love the story of how he got in, and I referenced this earlier, how he got interested, like, going on hikes of his mom, and that just reminded me of spending time with my grandparents, majoring going camping.

So that was, like, really brought back.

We all can never use a relatable story, like little pants flower.

So cute, very cute.

Yeah.

I just thought he was so great.

He made me even think about, like the white oak, you know.

So I'm not.

Super into plants or anything, as much as I should be, but wow, like now I'm going to look at these trees in a different way, just everything that they provide.

I hadn't even thought about, yes, I mean, whole ecosystem in one tree, the books, it helps the carbon it produces.

I mean, notice everything it is three bees, birds, bot me, butterflies.

I love butterflies, too.

So you like bees, I feel like you could have be because you like the pollinators.

Yeah, flies are part of that system, but yeah, the bees are too.

So what a great guy.

Thank you enough.

Alan branhagen for doing this for us, and I feel like they had a nice connection that we might be able to see him more in the future.

That would be cool.

He's not Northern Illinois, so maybe.

Anyway, yeah, it's great.

It's a great interview.

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we talk a lot about plants on this show, but not a lot about plant waste, unless we're talking about compost.

That's until we met some really fascinating people who take agricultural waste and turn it into art.

Take a look.

You Hi, my name is Eric Benson.

I'm an associate professor of graphic design here at the School of Art and Design University of Illinois, and fresh press is a studio I started 12 years ago, and here we make paper by hand out of agricultural waste from the local area.

We don't use trees.

That's the big thing.

And instead, we kind of went back in time, right in terms of how people made paper back in the day.

So we're using agriculture.

So we work with the student farm here, and we're getting things like corn, rye, hemp, prairie grass, and we follow very similar process to commercial paper, making right interesting.

And it's on the back wall.

Here you can see the whole way it's done.

It's just as we do it by hand.

You we get the stuff from the field, the harvest, you might want to call it, and we have to chip it down.

Once we chip it, we can cook it, and that makes it, you know, more malleable.

And we can put it in our beater here.

And then we go through the pulling and pressing and drying process.

Okay, so now we're at the third step, which is beating pulp de fibers, and we're here with Meredith and E both studio managers, here.

So tell us a little bit about this step and what we're going to be doing and why it's important in the process.

Okay, so we've already chipped and cooked this miscanthus, which is a prairie grass and we're going to use a Hollander beater, which macerates the pulp.

Well, it macerates the fiber and turns it into a pulp.

By using this, it's like a water wheel of blades.

It'll spin around and move the Miscanthus through the machine for about, I think, two hours, gets us a really nice paper.

So what it's doing is opening up the fibers they've already been cooked for three hours.

So that opens up the cellulose fibers and allows the papers to adhere to each other.

And this is going to beat them to a pulp.

Literally, yes, literally, that's what's happening here.

Now it's my turn.

I put on my boots, gloves and apron, and gave it a shot.

Let's make some paper.

You okay, so we just finished the beading, and now this we're gonna actually pull sheets of paper from this.

Yes, so you're gonna take a mold and deckle.

You might have heard like fancy paper has a deckled edge.

This is the tool that gives you that deckled edge.

So you'll hold these in your hand and dunk them into the VAT at a 45 degree angle, and then pull it straight up, and you do the little shimmy, kind of like you're planning for yes, but first you want to hog the VAT, so you spread your fingers wide and bring them down to the bottom and shake everything up so that the fibers are evenly suspended.

Now let's see if I can get this one so we're gonna scoop toward me.

Yeah, all right, and just dunk it in and pull it right up and give it a little shake as the water drains.

That was good, nice.

Yeah.

All right, after twisting their arms just a little, Taylor and DJ agreed to step in front of the camera to try their hand at paper.

Making nice, I don't know, Tanisha nice, that looks really good.

Rock.

Looks really good.

Once you pull your sheet of paper, you can really get creative and make it your own, adding flowers dyed pulp and even a pattern to give it some edge.

Are people surprised with all that you can do?

I think so.

I think so.

Yeah, there's always gasps of joy that happen in workshops, because I think that we're missing a lot of this analog being in touch with making and slowing down.

So, yeah, this is a moment that can bring us back in touch with that.

I also think that it's a very accessible art making technique, because you could do it at home with a dumpy blender from Goodwill, or you could do it here with this Hollander beater, but also you can approach it and never have done it before and succeed in doing something in just one workshop, or you can add a lot more chemistry and do something very specific.

You.

And now we press.

So Eric, you join us again for the final step.

So after you press all the water out, you bring them back here and then tell us what happens.

So we will take the wet sheets and we will layer them on these blotters and stack them up, and we'll end up putting them into the dry box where there's some fans and that that air, and these cotton blotters will soak the water out, and then you can have finished and that's the finished sheet.

Now, how long does that take once it's in the drying box?

How long does it have to stay in there?

I would say a good average would be like, 12 hours.

How did you What made you want to get into this?

What brought in the farm waste, the agricultural waste?

How did these two ideas come together for you?

Well, I think it was just living in Illinois, right?

I moved here from Austin, Texas, and how do I adjust to living in the Midwest?

And so driving down the highway, I 57 up to Chicago, where you see corn and soybeans and prairie grass, right?

So I just started to embrace the land and that that led me here.

Okay, so this is your studio, right?

E, and I'm looking here at all the paper here.

This looks familiar.

Looks like kind of what we just did.

It is the pulp painting.

And you were talking earlier about how you incorporate a lot of this paper, a lot of these elements, into your own art.

So tell us a little bit more about that.

Yeah.

So this is the pulp painting technique that you were doing earlier, just with a larger grid, and then I bring it into these sculptural collages, and I also incorporate so this is handmade paper and a little bit of pigmented paper from printmaking.

And these scraps that I find, these are like pieces of graffiti I've peeled off of a building other found objects, like rocks.

So I'm really interested in including the found objects with the paper that's also made of all of these other materials.

What is your long term hope for this?

You know?

What do you what's the dream here?

I'd love to replace tree fiber paper with the type of paper that we're making.

That's a big goal.

But in the meantime, I feel like I'm a community engaged scholar, where I invite the community to the studio and I teach them about land stewardship and paper making music.

Guys, we had so much fun at the studio.

So here is the finished product.

We made this farm so impressive, and it's just like when you slow down and you make this, and it's like your sheet of paper, you take better care of it.

And that conservation sort of comes in absolutely fun.

Thanks to E and Meredith and Eric for letting us stop by fresh press, some beautiful makes me want to, like, get back into stationery.

When I was a kid obsessed, I had pen pals.

I love stationary.

Like, if I made it myself, I feel like I'd probably more mindful if you were getting my very important letters.

Yeah, I would love to go to, yes, we're all about now getting out of the studio, right?

Yes, location, we got a feel for it.

Yeah, we're gonna always so much fun.

Yeah, yeah, that.

But again, these are the types of things that you can learn about on our W, I, L, T, V station with Mid American gardener and with Tanisha and her team and the crew behind the camera that you maybe don't get a chance to see too often.

But your donation tonight supports all of this, supports all of the programming on w i ll across the Illinois public media family of stations and websites and digital platforms, and we hope you give us a call tonight.

217-244-9455, or online at will give.org All right.

Well, thank you guys so much for braving This is our wheelhouse.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

Good night.

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