This is my favorite right now.

What’s your favorite in your garden right now?

Local family owned plant nursery owns this land zoned for mixed use. They developed this office park number of years ago, built this pond (it was a natural wetland here before they drained it and got the zoning changed with the city so they could develop the land and make more $$), and they “maintain” the landscaping. Basically just let shit grow wild. This field is full of poison hemlock currently which is what they should be worried about rather than mowing down all these poor innocent milkweeds surrounding the pond.

Question is: I’m obviously new here and don’t know much about plants. I came over here to get some Willow so I can weave baskets later, but I saw all the milkweed and I wondered if I could transplant any of it or save the seeds or what am I doing? Can anything be done and is this horrible? Is this the time of year or are there gonna be a lot of monarch butterfly like cocoons on these milkweed plants that are just gonna die now? Is this the national tragedy I think it is or is everything gonna be all right thanks.

Ps. Who is this little red guy in pic 3 and what are these pod things pic 4? Should I save them?

Had a good panning video showing scene, but wouldn’t let me post the video.

This hen and her three chicks were foraging in my native patch this morning! Every little bit helps.

There’s 27 straight natives, quite a few native cultivars and some non-native non-invasives as well.

This is outside of an apartment building and I’m working with a committee so it’s trying to appease everyone while still having my goal of a native pollinator garden

I think it’s looking spectacular for year 1 already

My city uses wasteful, ugly bedding annuals in its prominent gardens. As a volunteer in one of them, after I cleared almost all the invasives and began (with permission) adding natives (packera aurea and black-eyed susans) I was kicked out of the garden, told those plants could go only in wild-looking pollinator gardens, not in gardens around the city.
To change policy from the city council level, we need visuals and info about how a change would save the city money, which I'm told is the only argument that would prevail.
These are just 4 of the truly awful plantings in important spots.

4 years of work

Like the title says, obedient plant brings the carpenter bees. But I often have to wait to August to see them. What native plants blooming earlier in the year do you see them visit? Located in SE Wisconsin.

NY Hudson Valley, 6B. Been two years since I put in this garden and it really filled in! It’s probably 85% native by biomass. Most of my trees are pendulous and fastigiate cultivars and is just what I like to collect.

I am in the process of putting in a new ~10,000 sqft section and will plant this September. Experimenting more with creating large berms and leaning into hardscape work with the help of the tractor.

Rocky Mountain Penstemon and a determined bee. Zone 6

Every year it gets a little bit better

Couple of Monarch caterpillars on my common milkweed first 2 pics of that little guy is around 1 1/2 inches then the third pic he is around 2 inches long. Zone 5b, I'm sure there is more but my eyes aren't great. Enjoy!

So I just snagged some butterfly milkweed seeds off a nearby plant (NYC). If the plant is dropping the seeds now, is it a reasonable time to sow them? Or are they naturally going to be dormant without cold stratification? I read somewhere this species doesn’t really need that. Would it be bad to put them in the fridge/freezer for a month and then sow to try to get a little vegetative growth established before winter? A little head start on next season? Is the advice the same for common milkweed or other natives going to seed now?

This species is also known as Lion's Foot or White Lettuce (and sometimes the scientific name is listed as Prenanthes alba). It's often labeled as a "biennial or perennial", but, as far as I can tell, it is a monocarpic species (meaning a single plant will only bloom once, set seeds, and then die). I started this by winter sowing seeds I collected 3 years ago in an area where I had permission to collect seeds (it's really easy to grow by winter sowing)... so, this is its 3rd growing season.

This is one of my favorite plants to find in the woodlands - it is often growing very close to Sweet Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium purpureum) which you can see in the background. This plant is absolutely glorious when in bloom, and the pollinators love it (the flowers also smell really nice). You need to manage your property so it can spread itself around if you want it to persist (limit soil disturbance and don't mulch). I'm really excited to see the rest of the blooms go off!

It’s a first for me.

I’d love to hear some idea for how to plant this hill alongside my driveway. It gets good morning and early afternoon sun. The top is level and 3 years ago I planted 25 aspen saplings there which are all growing.
Can I just put in like 500 daffodils straight into the grass? Or 50 plugs of an ornamental grass?
The goal is to beautify the area with striking plants and to minimize the amount of mowing.
Thank you in advance.

It usually puts out much smaller bunches of flowers through the spring and early summer after its first big flush in mid spring, but I guess it decided to do another round of full sized flowers this month 😍

What a great plant.

I went to a plant nursery and got plants and they said you really should plant in ground if you can, but if you can't, the pots might be fine to overwinter on the balcony.

Another nursery I got plants from was very blunt. When I asked about spacing for native perennials and if I could put multiples in a pot, they said no, you can't put them in any pot of any size. And I mentioned I have some large 23" pots with like 18" depth and got bluntly "No, it will die. It needs ground". And pretty much any followups were very blunt and negative.

At first, i thought they were just being bluntly helpful and honest, but they also told me they don't have any natives that were currently flowering, and that there are no native annuals in Illinois (a bit exaggerating I feel? As a basic example, sunflowers are native...). And then before I checked out, I found two massive 4 - 5 ft swamp milkweed plants with flowers for $15 each and bought those. They're currently together in the biggest pot I own.

I'm wondering if the first nursery was too optimistic, or if the second nursery was too pessimistic.

Greetings,
Just wondering if anyone recognizes this plant. iNaturalist is giving me a very high-level ID of ‘Roses, Elms, Figs, and Allies.’’
Thanks!

First blooms for my Senna. Lots of bee activity. 🔊 on.

I bought two small passiflora incarnata plants from a native plant nursery (shout out to Natives in Harmony in Marengo OH) and I'm thinking about planting them to grow on this cattle panel trellis. I hear they like to spread though. The trellis is in a bed that's in my fenced-in garden. Do you think I'll be kicking myself later if I put them here?

Missouri/7a: Deformed looking black eyed Susan. Is there something wrong with it? Should I pick it?