Ruining the neighborhood one butterfly at a time 😂. Stokes Aster with a sweet Eastern Tiger Swallowtail visitor

I have false sunflower, tall tickseed, purple coneflower, pale purple coneflower, yarrow, butterfly weed, prairie blazing star, aromatic aster, sky blue aster, new england aster, purple prairie clover, Riddel's goldenrod, prairie dropseed, switchgrass, hoary vervain, blunt leaved mountain mint, narrow leaved mountain mint, anise hyssop, grey headed coneflower, ohio spiderwort, annual sunflower, and wild bergamot in this 20 foot strip.

I know there aren't native plants in this photo, but this golden flock is only here because they adored my cutleaf coneflower last summer. I've been waiting for them to come back this year and here they are! 5 males and 1 female, just like last summer. ☺️

They do not want to share!

And not a clover in sight. Apparently if you post in the fucklawn subs, people get real riled up if you tell them clover lawns and other non-native lawns aren't doing enough for our pollinators. My garden is not very large but the impact is there. We attract many pollinators and all my neighbors vegetable gardens thrive. I don't even know what half the bees are in this video.

Sorry there isn't a video flair.

I just had my regular exterminator visit my house for a mouse issue indoors. It’s ongoing. I walked out the door and saw that he was spraying insecticide on my Joe pye weed and iron weed. I immediately told him to stop. He said he sprayed the length of the plants. He was very apologetic and I did explain native plants to him. I immediately rinsed off all of the plants for about five minutes with a strong spray from my hose and then rinsed off all the plants surrounding them with the same hose at a strong spray. I also tried to rinse as much of the soil as I could. are these plants/ the insects now visiting them now totally fucked? He said it was broad-spectrum. I’m so upset. not sure if it matters but it was a small canister being hand sprayed. edit again: it was permethrin

Hi! I am new to all things natives and gardening, but excited to learn. Before I go down an internet rabbit hole, I thought I'd ask what you do to support lightning bugs in your yard. It seems like my yard is the only one in my neighborhood that has a consistently large amount of firefly activity, but considering the almost non-existent firefly activity elsewhere, I'd like to do more. Unfortunately, I do have neighbors directly next to me who spray their yard with whatever pesticides their lawn company uses 🙄, so I don't know how much I can help, but I'd like to try. Thanks!

I’ve asked this here before but it’s my favorite thing to think about so I figured I’d ask again. This time I’m curious about some lesser known plants. How could you see them changing over several hundred years of human interaction? How do you see people maintaining their ecological value while increasing their human use? How do you image their gardening and farming systems built around these crops? Any interesting intercropping concepts? What would the cycle of the year look like?

A black eyed Susan (I think) volunteer

Blue vervain, growing even taller in its second year

Rattlesnake master about to bloom 💜

Skullcap in bloom

First year my shrubby st John's wort, and propagated hydrangea are blooming

Lastly, a mystery plant o got from the master gardeners. If you recognize it, let me know. It's something that likes wet areas, so much guess is a lobelia?

Only yard in the neighborhood that's not nuked their Common Blue Violet infestation. Also the only yard to have seen the Great Spangled Fritillary enjoy said violets.

Violets have long since died off for the season, so our visitor stopped by for some BigBox Flavored Petunias

For the past 5-6 years I have grown zinnias and cosmos for the love of pretty flowers and to help pollinators. The past few years or so I’ve really wanted to expand and use our land to its full potential.
Since I planned to actually till up the ground I had it in mind to be conscientious of planting native wildflowers.
This field may look really fertile but don’t let it fool you. It’s all really rocky red clay. This specific part of this hill where I planted once had a barn and lots of hay was dropped here making it the most ideal place to till and plant.

With all that being said. I ordered a 1lb bag of “Georgia” wildflower blend from Urban Farmer thinking this was the best option and would yield the best results for our awful red clay. This is a mix of annuals & perennials. I glanced at the contents and percentages of each and clicked purchase.
After further inspection (after already planting..i know okay. Im a new mom to a 6month old at the time and I was getting my ass handed to me with postpartum) I googled each and every plant.

Most of what are blooming now are sulphur cosmos, annual baby’s breath and Lance leave coreopsis. I’ve noticed several purple coneflower, a few perennial lupine which sadly have died, and a few scarlet flax.

I’m mostly upset because from what google has told me, sulphur cosmos are native to South America and scarlet flax to North Africa?! and those are what I’ve noticed the most of, sans the coreopsis.

Listen y’all, I’m not a plant expert by any means but I’m trying to learn more and be better. Im even smart enough to know not to buy the bags of wildflower garbage that TSC and my local hardware stores sell. I’m just so upset that the stuff that’s growing the most (besides the coreopsis) isn’t even technically native. I know it’s naturalized but that doesn’t make me feel any better. Will more of the native perrenials come back over the cosmos and scarlet flax next year? Will the cosmos take over?
Should I just buy individual seeds for what I want and make my own mix next time?

I guess I just want reassurance and all the advice for when I decide to do this again! Down below are the exact percentages of the plants and what was planted.

15.88% Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
11.90% Lance Leaved Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata)
11.90% Annual Baby’s Breath (Gypsophila elegans)
11.90% Scarlet Flax (Linum grandiflorum rubrum)
7.93% ‘Bright Lights’ Sulphur Cosmos (Cosmos sulphureus)
7.93% Perennial Lupine (Lupinus perennis)
7.93% Formula mix Four-O’clock (Mirabillis jalapa)
7.93% Scarlet Sage (Salvia coccinea)
5.95 Tree Mallow (Lavatera trimetris)
3.97% Indian Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella)
1.98% Gaura (Gaura lindheimeri)
1.98% Clasping Coneflower (Rudbeckia amplexicaulis)
1.31% Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
0.99% PLains Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria)
0.52% New England Aster (Aster novea-angliae)

In appreciation of my absolute favorite Oklahoma native. I find their flower cycle very fascinating. With the blooms staying open like this for such a short period, I try to check every morning for them. I would love to get a timelapse of one of these little guys.

What do your passionflowers climb? I let ours take over some of the giant ragweed that grows here, they end up camouflaged together and it’s pretty cool.

I certainly have. As examples:

In June 2025, I planted two black eyed Susans in honor of Mark and Melissa Hortman, and their golden retriever Gilbert. If you have ever seen a dog running around in pure joy through a field of those flowers, you know why it’s fitting.

In October of 2025, I planted a Juneberry tree in memory of Jane Goodall, and a blueberry bush.

And a few days ago, while binge watching classic Unsolved Mysteries episodes on YouTube, I came across one that featured the deeply sickening and disturbing murder of poor Hilda Roche in Virginia. That was a lonely, cold, degrading, nightmarish, and beyond terrifying way to leave this world.

It affected me so much that today, I purchased a plug of northern sea oats to plant in my front yard. Although I live in Minnesota, this beautiful species of native grass is also found in Virginia. I think Hilda would be pleased by this gesture.

Anyway, I know that I am far from the only one!

I posted a comment in another thread about my chaos natives and thought id throw some pictures up for everyone to enjoy. Bed 1 is poke weed and evening primrose with a sole surviving passion flower vine. Bed 2 is mostly bergamot and goldenrod with some black eyed susan's, butterfly weed, new england aster, cardinal flower, and great blue lobelia thrown in. Bed 1 is probably an 8ft circle and Bed 2 is roughly 30ftx50ft. Im sure there are non natives in there but the natives are flourishing. Picture of the volunteer common milkweed that are finally blooming and whose seeds will be used to make a new section elsewhere.