Native Gardening

[addy1]

Love my asters, they are growing everywhere, white, purple, pink, cream. I let them reseed as much as they want to

Great fall food for the bugs.

 

[Mmathis]

I planted something in the spring — sort of like a wildflower mix. Flowering season is over for them, but there was SOMETHING that came up in multiple spots in the bed. It must have been a volunteer from last year, because I planted short-to-tall, and this SOMETHING is huge and everywhere! And it won’t stop growing….and growing….and falling over and growing some more. These plants are in excess of 7’ tall. No flowers, just shrubbery. My app said it was something in the “aster or cosmos” family. Hubby thought it looked like ragweed, so wanted me to pull it up — I didn’t. It started blooming this past week — bees everywhere! Yellow cosmos! (I even got a bee to pose for me)

 

[JBtheExplorer]

While camping in the Point Beach State Forest, I got to see their fairly new pollinator garden. I don't really understand the limestone path - seems like it would just make sense to have left it mowed grass.

Otherwise, the garden looked great! Lots of seedheads and fall colors.

They built a wooden structure here and mounted three nest boxes on it.

Half of the garden was fenced off, likely to prevent deer from destroying it all. I noticed one of the fences was opened up. Then I realized there was an animal den in the garden. If I had to guess I'd probably say badger, but I'm not 100% sure. Funny how there's an entire forest in the area but it chose the native garden.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

My redtwig dogwoods are putting on a great show this year!

They also left me with about a dozen seedlings this year. I collected them and just planted them in a row along the back edge of my yard.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Here's my new row of shrubs. Two Kalms St. John's Worts have been there a few years. The rest are redtwig dogwoods just planted. Probably around 50 feet long. The dogwoods will be about 6 to 8 feet wide. So around 300-400 square feet of additional habitat in the making.

It all started with one single dogwood I found while weeding the side of my driveway four-ish years ago. I was able to divide it (its stems were rooting and making new plants) and I planted two of them in my front yard. Those two gave me a dozen seedlings this year. It's fun turning one native plant into a bunch.

 

[Hound Heaven]

I had some of those dogwoods in Arizona, they were really nice. Great colors through the year.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Still enjoying fall color, although just about everything has thinned out significantly.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I planted four more dogwoods. All were divisions from the original plant along my driveway. I don't know at what point I have too many, but I feel like I'm getting close to that point.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Been planning this for a while but finally started digging today. Hard to see but there's a strip of native plants along the nest box. I'm expanding it into a larger prairie garden. Native grass species will be the priority, we'll see how they do. Indian grass, big bluestem, little bluestem, side oats grama, and canada wild rye. Other species will be rattlesnake master, pale purple coneflower, and a few others. I'd like this garden to best represent a native tallgrass prairie habitat but only time will tell. My neighbor's small woods, and my birch tree will be a nice backdrop for it.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

The lawn is completely removed from my new garden space now. Now I'll just have to seed it this winter and then have the fun of weeding it in spring. I wanted to go a bit bigger but I always try to give myself the amount of garden space I can handle without feeling overwhelmed. The other gardens mostly take care of themselves now so I can put some effort into this one now.

I still have to figure out the square footage of it. On google maps I was able to estimate it to be somewhere between 85 - 120 sq. ft.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Just the right amount of snow. Enough to cover the grass, but not enough to shovel.