If I crash I crash 🫡

Maximillian Sunflowers are goated

Just want to vent about living in an HOA. I proposed turning 20’ of tree lawn into an edged and mulched flower bed with little blue stem, purple love grass, wild ginger and blue violets and this is what I got. I should mention that it would only be an addition of about 16’ because it would end with a tree that is already mulched. It doesn’t seem like they’re open to discussion a bout me making it smaller or giving me feedback on why the plants were unfavorable for that location based on the fact that they haven’t replied to my request to do so. This is the same HOA that sent me a letter because chipmunks planted a single sunflower in the front flower bed of my house. I’m trying to convert as much lawn as I can and I’m trying not to get discouraged, but it’s so frustrating.

**EDIT TO ADD

In comments is the new design I sent. “Hostas” are wild ginger lol

The Georgia Native Plant Society is hosting a native plant sale at the Fernbank Science Center tomorrow. I’m not affiliated, I’ve just attended this sale several times over the past few years and thought others might be interested. They always have a great selection and people that would LOVE to talk to you about native plants. I got my first native plants here and now I have 26 different natives in my yard and more to come.

Plant list:
http://www.fernbank.edu/plant-sale-preview.html
(From experience, they start running out of things by the afternoon)

I have a shrubby St John’s Wort, two native grasses (little blue stem I think?), and a pawpaw plant. All are in 1-2 gallon pots. I finally have the yard space and time to plant these, but we just got a severe freeze alert for Saturday evening.

Although they’re natives, I know a cold snap could kill them. Should I plant them and hope for the best/cover them with cloches/milk jugs, or put them back in my garage and wait for the thaw?

Usually it doesn’t start snowing up here until Halloween, so I bet it would warm up, but I just want to get these babies freaking planted already!

Zone 4b NY State

Hi all, got these seeds from an event and there's no info on the packet. This is a red flag to me as a native plant gardener.

Does anyone know what they are? I see flax...it it literally just Panch Phoron with flax added and fenugreek removed?? Was this a scam on the event organizers?

Planted these little blue stems a couple weeks ago. Is this natural dying back or are these things toast? Root systems were pretty strong when planting.

So happy to welcome goldenrod to my yard this year.

I saw some bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) at a local plant sale earlier this week, and got excited and grabbed some. Unfortunately, when I got home and did more research, I realized that it's a pretty poor fit for my conditions – clay, moist soil and part-shade to full shade. If I put it in a container, though, I would be able to put it in a place with more sun and sandy/well-draining soil. Has anyone grown bearberry in a container, and how did it go? Any other advice for giving this plant what it needs?

I've got a ton of native grasses and think it might be fun to use some for fall season decorations. My Mom had some beautiful straw art like this: https://ltfai.org/straw-art/?v=05c7c5a71e52 but I think a lot of that is way over my head for a quick holiday decoration. I braided some broomsedge into a mailbox decoration, but I have tons more that needs to be cut back from where it is.

Has anyone done anything neat with their overabundance of grasses?

And don't worry, there's a ton for overwintering, still.

Has anyone had success with Phlox bifida as a ground cover in a "regular" garden bed (with medium-dry to dry conditions), i.e. non-sand, not on limestone walls, etc? It's supposed to do well in "dry prairie" or "thin soils on Limestone glades or rocky slopes."

Commonly known as Cleft Phlox or Sand Phlox.

Or in what settings/soils/beds have you had success (or failure) with it? Does it form a groundcover? Bloom time?

I'm going to try my first native plant patch this year and have some questions about growing plants from seeds. I have a patch (16'x28') that I am looking to fill. I've been collecting a bunch of seeds from my area (milkweed, lobelias, joe pye weed, purple coneflowers, asters, black eyed susans, blazing star, tickseed, black eyed Susans, and a few types of goldenrod). Is direct sowing these in December (right before snow) going to be successful enough to fill an area this big? Or is it worth my time and effort to either do milk jugs and ziploc bags outside, or refrigerate seeds and try to start them in seed trays?

What seed starting method have you all had the best luck with? I've never grown any of these plants, nor tried to fill an area this big so I'm not quite sure the best path here. Thanks in advance for any advice!

Zone 6b (Eastern Mass)

Located in Blakeney Park, 45 minutes west of Ottawa, Canada.

This all started this spring when my local Fish & Game Association, who owns and maintains this quaint riverside park with only a handful of volunteers, had made mention of wanting to have some garden beds put into this recently-reclaimed space that was used as a construction yard for the past three years.

From the Association volunteers’ perspective, they wanted to not have to get off their riding lawn mower to use a smaller mower or a weedwhacker around tighter spots, which is the problem I was able to promise to solve with these gardens. This saves them serious time and headache when they’re doing this with their own equipment and after their workday.

From my perspective, I wanted to create a spot that can draw in pollinators and is very low-maintenance, which naturally is what many of these beautiful wildflowers that we have available are able to accomplish. I chose flowers and grasses which are known for thriving in full-sun poor-soil conditions without too much moisture, dug them up from donors’ yards and took from my sown seedling supply.

Using donated wood chips, loaned machinery to move things around, and a student earning volunteer hours, we still haven’t spent a cent on the project and I expect our only cost ever may be a plaque explaining the project 🤩

We’ll be able to add much more density and also diversify the flowers to have blooms all spring through the fall next year since we’ll be starting seedlings with this project specifically in mind. From the get-go, the expectation I set was that it’d be beautiful by year 3, unless we wanted to spend money to buy mature plants. For the first year to be so many flowering heads has been a huge bonus.

The most exciting part about this pilot is that because it was a success, we’re now moving beyond the most fickle location for mowing, and have just spread another 35 cubic yards of wood chips in the next two spots that are also a pain for them. This brings our total wood chip usage from 8 yards to 43 yards..just a bit more garden space to tackle. I’m very excited by the momentum, and really want this to become a destination wildflower garden that can show success with minimal upkeep.

Hello all, zone 6B Southwest Pennsylvania here. If I were to order a dwarf Chinkapin Oak seedling online (delivered by next week) could I still plant it or is it too late?

This would be a seedling from a tree farm in Georgia so I’m assuming it will not be dormant yet, does that matter?

Thanks for your feedback.

Today is my birthday and my husband called me out to our garbage cans because he spotted this entity. They were moved because my dogs had become too interested, to our bioswale where the tree frog was found last month.

My INaturalist is not working, but it might be a blue spotted salamander of some kind I can't verify? Ive never seen a salamander in the wild in my life, but my fenced in backyard with chiweenies prowling was very unsafe. I would assume.

No human contact in the transferring, we used what we could find. The little critter was moving but only a little, it seemed pretty frozen...I know nothing about them except dont touch with my hands. Very very very cute.

Kind of a odd question but I have a house I'm hoping to sell that has fairly substantial native garden beds. Is there a place that I could post it to reach others who would be interested? I figure it would be a win win for me and someone looking to buy something like that.

I'd post it here but I'm not sure if the mods are cool with that sort of thing?

Reading some of the horror stories of people selling and having everything ripped out makes me anxious!

Hello there, I'm participating in a plant salvage in the next few weeks and my main goal as a propagator is to create a seed bank from the area. I want to preserve these genetics for the future, and possibly provide plants for restoration projects.

I'm really concerned with doing this correctly and getting as many genetically distinct individuals as possible. I've listened to a few in defense of plants episodes that focus on a few different seed banks in the USA but I'm unable to find more information that isn't geared towards vegetables or cultivars online.

Does anybody have any suggestions on how I should go about this? In the episodes they talked about collecting from many different mother plants in an area, all spread out in location, which to be frank, I'm not understanding how they use that terminology. Like do they mean specifically female plants if they are dioecious? Does it just mean a single individual plant?

I'm quite stressed about this because I want to do it right, so my idea is to get paper bags and a lot of smaller 4x6 envelopes. Each bag will be a specific species of plant ( these are grasslands being turned into a pipeline, so rare plants will be present ) and each envelope will be seed collected from a different individual, all properly labeled with location and relevant information. Does this sound like a good way to preserve genetic diversity?

The ID shouldn't be an issue as there will be experts on site so I'm not worried about labeling really.

From Native American Seeds, purchased this month but tested almost 2 years ago.

I know that you can find bugs in the most random of places, but the number of new-to-me kinds I’ve seen on my own property since I started planting natives is wild (heh). And then I look them up and learn some new facts and it’s really cool.

This morning I was about to get on my bike to go somewhere when this guy in my driveway stopped me (1st photo). It wasn’t moving but I had to get to my appointment. When I came back 30 mins later, it was in the same exact position so I was worried it might be a goner.

Looked up some info and found out it might be getting ready to overwinter? Well the driveway is not an ideal spot for that. I read that it wants leaf litter so I moved it into one of my beds. Immediately curled up in defense (2nd photo). Definitely alive. Check out those red bands!

Came back in and read some more. It’s a generalist and one of the things they like to eat is plantain. Well I know I have some of that growing in my lawn, so I ran out to grab a leaf for it. When I returned to it, I saw that it was making its way under some leaves (3rd photo)! Yay! I was worried maybe I traumatized it.

Maybe this is a boring post, but I’m pretty excited about my find. I’ve never seen a giant leopard moth but it looks sick!!

Sleep well, little buddy!

We moved in 4 years ago and we're still getting the landscaping up to snuff.

I have plans for all natives in a particular bed in the front, and I need advice/wisdom about when to plant either seeds or plants.

My goal is to have growth above ground as quickly as possible. I want to protect them, and have strong root growth so they have the best chance of making it.

My most pressing need is a ground cover for Epson control in many spots on my land.

Should I sow SEEDS this fall/winter?

~If yes, should I put a seed mat on top to protect from wind, rain, animals until they get established?

~How long DOES it take to get some little roots that'll secure it?

~or, should I sow into containers then transplant them outside in the spring?

OR, should I plant little plugs or small plants?

~If yes, when? Now (fall/ early winter), or spring?

I'm obviously new at this and did NOT inherit anyone's green thumb, I'll tell ya.

Thank you for your advice!!

Two new items added this week! Heliopsis helianthoides, Early Sunflower, and Phlox divaricata, Wild Blue Phlox.

Wild Blue Phlox is found in the mountains and Piedmont of NC in moist shady conditions. Only growing to be about a foot tall, it makes a great border or ground cover for your shade garden.

https://www.knottybynaturetrees.com/product-page/phlox-divaricata-wild-blue-phlox

Early Sunflower is also found in the Piedmont and mountains of NC but in drier, sunnier spots. It typically only grows to be 3-4' tall and just as wide, but will spread by seed and rhizome to fill in an area or compete in your grassland.

https://www.knottybynaturetrees.com/product-page/heliopsis-helianthoides-early-sunflowe

We will be open this Saturday 9-4 at 5911 Mount Hermon Church Rd. in Durham. If Saturdays don't work for you, you can place an order online and schedule a time to pick up at a time that is more convenient.

Many trees are and all annuals are currently discounted 20-50% off at this time. The annuals are basically being sold as seed for next years plants as of now, but they will all easily germinate without any help.

We planted a lot of new shrubs in September and the fringe tree in the photo in May. How do you tell what’s normal the first Fall?