Native Gardening

[tbendl]

Love the spiderwort.

 

[budgenator]

Love the spiderwort.

The cillia (hairs) on the stamen change from blue to pink when exposed to radiation

 

[addy1]

I have a bunch of it growing, the bees love it! It blooms best with moisture in the air.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

My native garden is becoming more and more colorful.

Lanceleaf Tickseed.

Blue Flag Iris and Spiderwort

Spiderwort with Metallic Green Sweat Bee

and my Wild Lupine.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Last month, I bought Indian Pink. It's native to a good portion of the U.S., but not Wisconsin. It's right on the edge of being able to survive our winters, so we'll see if it does. I sure hope it does. It's shockingly bright! It's a natural hummingbird feeder and on the top 10 native hummingbird plants list. I'll definitely have to move it though. It's a smaller plant that needs to be more up front and easy to see. If it does survive, I wouldn't mind establishing a nice population of them. I can definitely see that these would be amazing in large groups.

My Lanceleaf Tickseed is busy with pollinators.

One of my favorite beetles, Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle, appeared in the garden today. Despite its name, it's attracted to any milkweed. Here it is on Butterflyweed.

Lastly is my Penstemon digitalis.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

My habitat is very active today. Butterflies, dragonflies, bees, beetles, even hummingbirds. Plus, the rabbits that are destroying all of my seedlings.

Cabbage White. Non-native and invasive.

Bee, not sure of the specie. I don't really know too many bee species.

Dragonfly... don't know what specie, either.

Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle

and another Dragonfly. Looks similar to the first one but without blue. Maybe a female. There were quite a few of them in the garden today.

 

[Lisak1]

I've never heard of Indian Pink! Where did you find it?

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I've never heard of Indian Pink! Where did you find it?

I first learned about it on a site that lists the top ten native plants to attract Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and I ended up finding it at a garden center in southeastern Wisconsin by pure coincidence. It's actually even better than it looks in a photo.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

With tomorrow being the start of National Pollinator Week, I decided to do something for pollinators. Yesterday, I added about 50 sq. ft. of native garden around my shed. It will be a shade garden. I don't have many shade plants but I moved some violets over there for now.

I decided that wasn't enough, so I'm adding even more. The areas in green below are part of my new additions, which will total around 130 sq. ft. and bring the overall total to somewhere between 950-1000 sq. ft. It's absolutely amazing, considering I started with 64 sq. ft. I initially thought it would be enough, but it wasn't.

This will likely be my final addition to my main native garden, but never say never.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Here's the outline of my addition. A pretty good chunk of space there for native plants. As you can see, my original native garden section was very squared off. Thankfully, this addition gives it a more natural rounded look.

The worst part will be waiting a couple years for it to fill in and blend with the rest of the garden.

Meanwhile, Bush's Coneflower and Orange Milkweed have started blooming.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

First Monarch in the garden!

 

[addy1]

Walking the pup, saw this little native bee eating on a "weed" that I don't pull. Legs covered with pollen. Pretty green back.

 

[tbendl]

Wow I've never seen a green one. Pretty.

 

[addy1]

Wow I've never seen a green one. Pretty.

Here is a blow up of it, there where a bunch feeding from those flowers.

 

[tbendl]

Is that normal? The green color? I didn't even know such a thing existed before. Such a bright green too!