Green Horizons

John Marlin has watched a family business bloom, literally, from his own yard.

When Marlin, associate director of the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center at the University of Illinois, heard his then-8-year-old daughter ponder selling Kool-Aid or something from a sidewalk stand nearly 20 years ago (like many children do), he had a better idea. Why not sell instead plants propagated from their own yard-full of native spring wildflowers? Neighbors and others had always admired the plants.

John E. Marlin offers a Solomon’s Seal at a Grand Prairie Friends sale.

“I’ve always been interested in nature,” Marlin said. “My wife and I in 1976 bought a house in an older part of Urbana (Illinois); it had been owned by the same couple for close to 40 years. They had allergies to pesticides and liked birds so they let the yard grow partly wild.

“They had huge Jack-in-the-Pulpits; thousands of dogtooth violets, bluebells, red trilliums, toothwort and numerous other wildflowers in the yard. I augmented plants already in the yard with seeds and plants from farmer friends. Although our yard was wild, it was very pretty.”

That first year, Marlin, his wife, Diane, and children, Kate and John E., potted up some plants and placed signs around the neighborhood advertising their sale.

“In an hour the kids had $400 and no plants left,” Marlin said. “A lightbulb went off in my head.”

Propagation bed of mayapples, bluebells.

The annual sale “ramped up” from there. Marlin’s children (and soon their friends too) collected seeds and cuttings in the fall from established flowers. Then they would pot, tag and sell the flowers each spring, sending out information to a list of past customers and creating posters and newspaper ads for the sale. The first few sales were out of the Marlins’ drive way, much like a garage sale. They then brought the customers to the backyard instead to eliminate moving all of the pots beforehand. Soon the Marlins moved their sale to the local mall, coordinating with annual plants sales among a prairie group, a businesswomen club selling ornamentals and an herb society.

“On sale day it was almost a riot,” Marlin said. “It was not at all difficult to sell a few thousand dollars-worth of plants.”

Wholesaling was the next step in the family enterprise, as the University of Illinois came calling for plantings, as did local developers wishing to use native plants.

Kate Marlin (third from right) and friends are ready for the annual sale.

“It was a really good experience,” Marlin said. “The kids got to experience a lot about the business world. And make a little bit of money.” Marlin also likes that this enterprise puts native flowers back into the ground.

Although the sales “ramped down” a bit when the kids entered high school and college, John E. still today helps the neighborhood kids make a little money with the scaledback enterprise.

“There’s a great market there that isn’t being tapped,” John E. Marlin said of spring wildflowers. “They’re easy to maintain, beautiful and come back every year.”

Although Marlin began his family’s spring wildflower business from his own yard, any tree-filled land typically will have native wildflowers growing under the canopy. Marlin recommends forest landowners follow these steps if they too would like to begin selling the seeds of their own forest:

ONE: Make sure you have a good customer base in your area. Marlin sees customers as two types: first are the customers with large trees in their yards who can’t grow grass underneath but would like some foliage in their yard. Second are the customers who remember going to their grandparents’ farm and seeing these plants; they buy them for sentimental value. In addition, wholesale markets could be found among commercial greenhouses, landscape businesses, ecological restoration groups, park districts, schools, etc. Growers could even contract with youth or other organizations to sell the plants as a fundraiser. (Growers don’t have to sell whole plants either, Marlin reminds. Bulbs or roots are also a way to go.) Do you have a spot for a roadside stand? A “garage” sale?

Marlin recommends experimenting with the following native spring wildflowers in your woods: celandine poppy trillium Solomon’s Seal Virginia bluebells mayapples bloodroot Columbine Jacob’s Ladder

TWO: Walk around your woods in early spring. Find areas where wildflowers are already growing to help determine where they might grow best. Mark where those wild plants are so in the fall seeds can be harvested. Harvest small plants under larger ones and move to a raised bed (these plants would die if left intact due to competition).

THREE: Pick your growing spot close to an access road that is “edgy” or has some openness to it. Dappled sunlight is best. Marlin recommends a number of small patches. Access to water is good although it doesn’t take a lot of water to keep these plants “happy.” Create beds framed with wood.

The Marlin backyard on sale day.

FOUR: Harvest seeds or cuttings in the fall when plants are dormant and plant in the designated beds. (Squeeze seed pods to see if they are “ripe” – if they break open, they are ready for harvest.) Harvest cuttings, seeds from different plants; go for genetic variety. Use colored straws to mark where different seeds are planted. (Blue for bluebell, etc.) Put window screen or chicken wire over the beds to keep the squirrels out. (Deer aren’t a huge concern for most plants, but trillium is enticing.) Put a light layer of leaf mulch over the beds in winter. (You will move some plants to pots for sale when they get larger – some species can overwinter in pots, some cannot.) Remove the chicken wire in the spring.

FIVE: Let nature take its course!!

“If you want to start doing this, experiment like we did,” Marlin said. “I had a botany course in college and that’s it. The rest I learned by reading and playing.

“These plants for the most part take care of themselves. It gives you a lot of flexibility if one year you’re too busy to deal with it. And besides, they are pretty!”

Check out these additional references about spring wildflowers:

• “Growing and Propagating Wildflowers.” Harry R. Phillips. 1985. University of North Carolina Press.
• http://www.plants.usda.gov

See more about the Marlins – and other agroforestry practices – on the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry Five Practices DVD. For ordering information, go to http://www.centerforagroforestry.org/pubs/dvdorderform.asp

It is illegal to harvest wildflowers from public lands. Missouri law considers plants the property of the landowner, so the practice of propagating woodland wildflowers from your own forested land as Marlin describes, is ethical. Check with the Missouri Department of Conservation (http://www.mdc.mo.gov/) or Grow Native! (http://www.grownative.org) with any questions.