At the very bad influence of my 5yo, I added a bunch of plants yesterday. My county native sale is wonderful, and there are only a relative few of what they offer that I don’t have at this point. My gardens are pretty packed, and I didn’t have a massive list to buy for other people, so we were able to wander a little and look at the ones I’m not familiar with. My son was going up to each plant he didn’t recognize and saying, “mom what about this one?” And while I tried to look it up, he would say, “too late! We’re getting it!” And ran it off to our stash. Too funny. Added these. Lots are spring ephemerals, so I won’t really get to appreciate them until next year.
Purple laceleaf loosestrife
Viola palmata
Elephant opus carolinianus
Thalictrum dioicum
Sanguinaria canadensis
Cardamime angustata
Dicentra canadensis
Cunila origanoides
Arisaema triphyllum
Uvularia perfoliata
Eupatorium hyssopifolium
And a few more full sun ones that I can’t remember the name of. Everything found a spot and got planted yesterday. Fun times.
P. hirsutus: this one was planted last fall. My established one was eaten by voles, and I thought gone but a tiny bit of roots remained and about 25% regrew, which is exciting.
Red husker that seeded itself last year from my original patch and I decided to leave. These seed EVERYWHERE and I pull thousands. Along with a host of other good seeders…at some point I’m going to give up and let this turn into a meadow and not a meadowscape…not this year
Battle of the beast in this garden. This is what happens when you don’t respect “aggressive spreading” warnings. Physostegia virginiana, Zizia aurea and helianthus divaricatus. The physostegia and woodland sunflower are really going at it. I pulled maybe 20% of the first and 40% of the second this spring. Interestingly, I also have H. decapentalus in here and another garden and that doesn’t spread. At least Zizia spreads by seeding so that’s relatively easy to control. There’s a lot of other things in here that I’m interested in maintaining, so this isn’t going to last long. I plan to remove 95-100% of the woodland sunflower this winter and maybe 50% the obedient, divide the decapetalus, boneset and other things to fill in. I have been mostly throwing out the sunflower, but it’s really beneficial and there’s virtually nothing of value in the wooded park across my street so…
Spigelia marilandica about to open. I really love this plant and have quite a few of them, but man they have taken 3+ growing seasons to look decent at both my property and a family one where I used a lot of them. I stopped including them in garden schemes for friends because it’s a relatively slow wait for a nice looking plant.
I’m really happy with the back line of my street garden as it wasn’t touched by the voles. Less thrilled about the big areas of the body that i had to replant, but things are coming along and it’s nice to see some of the echinaceas starting to bloom and yarrow cultivators start to color. Here are the hikes from the voles filling in slowly some have microscopic things I started from seed, others are new plantings 2 weeks ago or transplanted volunteers
When I first started planting this garden, I thought it would all go in and that was that- so funny as that’s the furthest from what it had been! I tweak and move and add every spring and fall and it keeps evolving.
Neither, got it from plantbuying collective. Highly rec though they did give me non-native lupine. That is not unique to them though lol, lots of mislabeled plants in the trade
this year’s patch is twice the size and there is a second and third area starting up from seed i spread out. it’s all around under my peach tree and stuff out front now too in little babies.
also staghorn sumac and the other big sage patch with a nottka rose out there. my native yarrow is up all over, wish that would get thick like the sage does. love that stuff it’s frilly
This is Year 2 of some native prairie and wildflower seed I spread. I am noticing native species rather than unwanted “weeds”, but the exact species I am uncertain.
I purposely over-seeded this space and there’s still some bare spots. I see some the more organized and intentional pictures in this thread and really like the looks of them. What are some ways I can be more intentional and organized about this space?
What if you gave the area more structure by adding some distinct plants to frame it? It looks like the left side has a gap by a wall that is perfect for something taller. Depending on what is there extending to the right of the picture and the amount of sun there, I would frame the whole area with taller plants. I’m not sure if these plants are suitable for you location, but assuming this is a part-full sun area, I would consider little bluestem grasses, Monarda didyma, Swamp milkweed (A. incarnata) and echinaceas. All are super easy to grow. The bluestem, monarda and swamp milkweed do really well in the back of gardens like this where you just see the top half or so. The echinacea could be right side front corner. Could even put a corner of 3 little bluestems in back right and 2 on the house side left and do nothing else and that would bring it together.
Oh wow that’s much bigger than the first picture seemed. Great space and clearly important/highly visible to the hang area. I wouldn’t actually do quite what I first said. This really is meadow and it might look weird to half landscape and half wild it. I would still buy some little bluestems to plant in the bigger gaps. Without the competition, they’ll grow bigger and more full than the meadow plants that will be competing. I like them in the back, on sides or behind something more leggy to make it look full. That alone will give it more interesting height and some structure while still being free form. I would put maybe 2 diervilla in there as well. Amsonia would be beautiful in here in a gap, if you’re OK with something not native to your area (says Google). The diervilla (orange is my personal favorite), amsonia and little bluestems will also add a lot of fall interest while the meadow plants are beautiful some still flowering and some as seed heads but usually not popping with color.
Lastly, I would get a bag of liatris bulbs and plant those in the fall in gaps.
Just some ideas. I’m just so impressed at your success with the native mix. Those can really take a while to grow in.
Editing adding a few more thoughts
little bluestems are my favorite, but don’t self seed that much, at least for me. If you want a neat medium/taller grass that self seeds, also plant an elymus hystrix. That seeds like crazy. Neat seed heads just not nearly as beautiful as little bluestems and their amazing color that changes to blue purple red in fall.
Purple lovegrass is native to your area! Absolutely get 2-3 of those and put them in gaps. They’re gorgeous in summer when thet bloom and work so well with the meadow look.
Check your seed mixes and make sure there are some aster and solidagos for fall blooms. Make sure some spring ones too.
The self-seeded Indian Blankets are starting to bloom. The mutants like this are my favorite. I highly recommend this plant- it is so easy to grow from seeds you scatter and then it will reseed annually filling every niche of your garden. Blooms profusely until frost, is beloved by the bees of all kinds, and is usually everyone’s favorite flower. Happy to send anyone seeds late summer.
A part of the Street garden. Scutellaria (I think what you see is integrifolia) is blooming and pretty. Monarda didyma is just starting, feels late this year. It’s nice that echinacea pallida blooms early an I’m loving my yarrow cultivars this year. They were mostly crap, little and I actually thought fully died, but have come back nicely. Yesterday, I ripped out two patches of rudbeckia that had such bad fungal issues. I’ll move my white yarrow from the street to one this fall. I can’t remember which rudbeckia I planted in here…I think fulgida fulgida. My rudbeckias in the back that are goldstrum and something else I lost track of are always healthy.
Shrubby at John’s wort is in here still small, will take off soon and fill the space in the foreground
Another sunflower mistake: Helianthus giganteus. Planted 2 years ago and did terrible last year, So I forgot about it. Probably because I don’t water my flower beds. Drought this year, yet it shot up and reminded me it’s there. So, I looked it up (because obviously I didn’t when I grabbed it on a whim,) and apparently it’s an aggressive rhizome spreader like the H. divaricata I’m removing in the fall. Ugh. It has zero room to be aggressive here, so it’ll get moved to the park as well in October! I’ll stick with just my H. decapetalus and the Heliopsis helianthoides for now. The later self seeds like crazy, but I’m OK ripping them out. Maybe I’ll put annual sunflower in this spot until the Nanking in front of it get bigger. I seeded a whole bunch of different annual sunflowers this year, but barely any have come up. Hoping to see some soon from recent rain.
What’s typical success of starting natives from seed? Granted there’s a range of stratification requirements among other things that will impact overall success in seed starting for natives, but I’m still curious and interested in starting my own seeds.
