Natives need their own spotlight. Post pictures of your native plants! I could put up 500, but will just start with 2 of my native street garden. There are 40+ different varieties of natives packed into this space (not all visible in these pictures). Last I counted, over 120 different natives on my 1/6 acre lot. I strive for diversity.
Spotlight: Echinacea purpura. It’s really standard and could easily seem mundane, but it is so beloved by all insects and birds, the color change is lovely, the seed heads shine with contrasting color and offer food and interest even in winter, it does well in virtually all sun/shade…it’s hard to find a better all around and easy to grow plant.
I quite like the look of western coneflower (Rudbeckia occidentalis) which is native here in Washington state. It lacks the yellow ray flowers of other Rudbeckia species, but the cone shaped inflorescences of disc flowers are nice to look at and popular with a range of pollinators. The seeds that come later are food for finches too.
I love Echinacea. We plant them all the time, but they never come back from seed. It fact, we have a really hard time with all those self-seed type plants.
a friends aunt gave me a elecampe root to grow. i didnt even check what it was until recently thru plant net. its in the sunflower family and is 6ft. and still going right now. its beautiful and hasnt even flowered yet. sorry no pics. ive got tons of wildflowers and herbs planted amongst my trees and bushes and along my roadside ditch. most are native. not all completely grown in yet so not as pretty as pics above.
I haven’t been able to get echinacea to grow from seed. I got some fresh seed this spring, and it said to stratify a bit, (which I had not seen that instruction before) tried that but maybe not long enough. No takers from that try either. I left that pack of seeds in the fridge and I will try again.
I have not successfully seeded them intentionally (putting out in late fall to cold stratify), but they have started to self seed. In the areas they are growing. I did not intentionally start any of my natives from seed- I purchased them cheap from local native sales and then divided them after a year.
Thanks for sharing this! Very cool. I love nontraditional flowers. I’m not familiar with your natives that don’t extend to the east coast. Please post more.
me neither. was even given root rhizomes and they still didnt come up. most of mine are from wildflower mixes or packets of discounted seed i just spread in between my other plantings, made the mistake of putting some crown vetch along the road bank. they keep over whelming my other flowers in there. i may need to kill off the whole bank and start from scratch. no vetch in between my fruit plantings, thank God!
Hopefully you already know this, but I’ll say it in case anyone doesn’t- be soooo careful with “wildflower” seed mixes. They almost always have invasives in them if not specifically listed as native mix. The invasives are usually the majority of what comes up and then they take over.
lupines arent native here but have naturalized in old fields and open spaces. i have some growing in my ditch bank from seed i collected . they like the gravel on the side of the road. the bumbles and hummingbirds flock to them.
the package said eastern wildflower mix so at least it should be native to somewhere along the east coast U.S/ Canada. i recognize what’s come up so far. lupines are the only one i know isnt native but they were established here 40+ years ago and even the plant ecologist consider them native now. they are very intolerant to wet feet and shade so it limits where they can grow. when they bloom folks come up here to take pics of them. its just as popular as our sunflower fields.
Also be careful with the word “native”. For example, some of the flowering plants I’m growing are non-landrace species from the eastern hemisphere. They are definitely natives, but not from my region of the planet.
Absolutely. I choose to plant only native to my region. But, I’m sure there are good arguments to be made for planting outside and naturalized especially as the climate changes.
I’m debating on buying a 20lb bag of wildflowers and just dumping it in the area between my future fence and the road that’s still technically my property…
I did this in Colorado and it worked out great but then i realized i really like some flowers more than others lol…
Maybe i should just get seed packs and make a nice patch of everything instead of throwing them all together at once.
You can’t say this too much! We have something I call “Fennel” that isn’t the culinary fennel and while it looks pretty enough -feathery leaves and attractive flowers- it spreads in a choking mat of roots and just crowds out everything. Too successful!
I planted in a tiny plug from a 4x4 pot in 2017 or 2018 and now half of my front yard is prairie sage. I love this stuff- needs no water, takes the sun and drought, pretty silver leaves and it smells wonderful. it seeds itself and also seems to spread by the roots. the patch is big and I have cut out and put more chunks from it all about the front yard to try to fill the whole space with it.
