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1·4 months agoThe local cottontail raised her litter in my yard and the family didn’t care for them, other than using them as a hangout spot. They did eat all the Virginia spiderwort and there’s a bunch of violet stems around with no leaves, but mostly they stick to the plantains (Plantago sp.) in the lawn.
I had no idea deer lived in the city until I started doing this. Sometimes I’ll catch one sleeping in my backyard which is a surreal sight. They munched the sunchokes, hazelnut, and chokeberry to the ground, but all are bouncing back.
Most of the flowers are divisions of plants, some volunteers and others I got as plugs in summer 2022. I decided to start small and expand over time. The coneflower was four plants last spring which I divided into 12, then into about 30 this spring. Rose milkweed and late boneset are just as prolific.
I have spread some seeds around and others have blown in. The groundcover in the second photo is all volunteer.
The mulch was leftover from a chipdrop. I used it to make the beds look “intentional” when everything was sparse and muddy back in February :) The plan is for everything to grow so dense that I won’t need to mulch it again.
They don’t want most of the crap people plant trying to be Eco friendly anyways or so the landscape architect told me.
The research of entomologist, Dr. Doug Tallamy, and his team at the University of Delaware have identified 14% of native plants (the keystones) support 90% of butterfly and moth lepidoptera species. The research of horticulturist Jarrod Fowler has shown that 15% to 60% of North American native bee species are pollen specialists who only eat pollen from 40% of native plants.
Dense plantings help keep it at bay. For flowers and grasses, cut in half the recommended plant spacing that you’ll find on gardening sites.
I have orange coneflower bordering a pocket prairie, planted one foot apart (center of plant to center of plant). Bermuda grass grows around the edge, but rarely enters it.
Places like Maryland did away with that nonsense. It is possible if neighbors are willing to come together and fight for it.
You’ve convinced me 👩🌾 the bees were all over them so there’s dozens of future fruits growing. I think these are at least two different species/hybrids given the variance in flower form and coloration. I’ll be neat if they taste different, too!
The pads are what I really want to try… the new growth looked so yummy lol. I read they taste like a mix of green beans and okra. Sounds delish.
Watching them flutter around the milkweed, over to my neighbor’s flowers, across the street and back again was beautiful. It was amazing to see one in person. They’re much larger than I imagined and very graceful.
Update! Today’s blooms:
All of my neighbors have grass on these narrow strips, maybe these cheery yellows will inspire them to plant some flowers instead.
I want to, but I’m too nervous about removing the glochids myself 😅 so not yet. Those fuzzy orange spots on the pads are no joke.
I never took care of the lawn other than mowing it, so much of this stuff was already here in small amounts. Two years ago, I started dividing up the violets and planting them into the grass. They launch seeds up to 4 feet so they quickly spread, clump and bully the grass. Ants move the seeds around too. Last year, I started dividing and transplanting the nimblewill. Panicled aster and late boneset volunteered which pushed out some more.
There’s still plenty of grass closer to my neighbor who treats their lawn. Some I buried in woodchips, the rest I’d like to shade out with edibles and dig out for another rain garden.
They’re looking for ecoregion photos if you’re into photography!
If you want to learn more about your local plants and animals, I recommend iNaturalist or their Seek app.
The link in the post body has some tips on how to do so responsibly. Might be worth sharing with your neighbors!