Green. Sustainable. New.

On a sunny, windswept day in March — the kind of day Charles Dickens once described as summer in the sunlight and winter in the shade — the dry brown stalks on the fields of JFNew’s native plant nursery in Walkerton bear little resemblance to the luscious greenery pictured on the company’s website. 

But just wait a few weeks, says Chris Kline, central region director. It won’t be long before dormant plants burst to life in the fields. Stepping inside a greenhouse, its air heady with the clean smell of earth, he gestures to endless flats of young shoots awaiting transplant outdoors.

Come back in April, he promises, and the nursery will be transformed.

Still, it’s not your typical nursery. Beyond the obvious features it has in common with commercial nurseries, this one is dedicated to cultivating native plants that are used across the Midwest in restoration and native landscaping projects. JFNew’s nursery uses a comprehensive approach that includes:

• Site assessment and native landscape design
• Bioengineering materials
• Native plant and seed supply
• Custom growing of plants and native seed mixes
• Installation and maintenance

Storm water solutions

Will Ditzler, JFNew's CEO and president

Since 2009, JFNew has worked with the City of South Bend to help the City implement green infrastructure solutions to address its combined sewer overflow (CSO) issues, while at the same time improving the community’s overall environment and bottom line.

“The traditional design from the 1940s on was to combine the runoff from sanitary systems and storm water together,” Kline says. “It flushed everything directly into the river. There are now laws that frown upon that kind of thing, and the City needed a plan to separate the CSO systems.

“Part of the way of doing that is by physically separating the storm and sanitary systems,” he continues. “Another is lowering the amount of storm water that gets into pipes. We do that by creating a green infrastructure that uses swales — low-lying, marshy strips of land — or rain gardens to allow the water to filter down.”

From a functional standpoint, native plants make the most sense for this purpose because their deep roots fix carbon into the soil. The roots are also channels that allow storm water to seep into the ground.

“It doesn’t work in every situation,” Kline says. “It’s not a cure-all. You still need engineered systems to manage some events, and people aren’t going away. But increasingly, cities like South Bend are seeing the economic value of natural vs. engineered counterparts. South Bend is finding that there’s a cost benefit that you can calculate.”

The projects that have been done in South Bend could be replicated and customized for other communities, says Will Ditzler, JFNew’s CEO and president.

“I think it shows that South Bend is taking a leadership position on sustainability initiatives for communities their size,” he says. “The recognition of the river as an asset to the community has made these planning efforts very significant.”

Forward thinking

As part of its contract with JFNew, the City of South Bend is receiving:

• Training for engineers, planners, maintenance staff and others in low-impact development to help officials understand how to design infrastructure that has a reduced environmental impact (with performance equal to or better than “standard” projects), as well as how to properly maintain those projects.

• Review of all incoming projects, whether by city staff or third-party engineers, to ensure design standards are in line with the City of South Bend’s desire for green infrastructure and low-impact development.

• Examination of City codes and ordinances to identify potential concerns for future implementation of low-impact development practices.

“It takes some forward thinking to do this,” Ditzler says, “because it’s not a regulatory requirement. Much of what we do isn’t driven by regulations. It’s proactive planning on the part of South Bend, and the education process involved requires somebody to make that a priority.”