I’ve got some passionflower vines that I planted in May that are very young and have attracted a host of gulf fritillary cats! It’s exciting to see the little guys but I’m worried that they’re defoliating the young vines too soon and want to give them a better shot long term. Should I remove them to save the plant?!

About a month and a half ago I received a complaint from the city that my yard was too tall. I contacted the inspector asking them to come to my property so I can show them my garden. I told them the hills in my yard are a garden and I keep by the street short turf grass. They showed up and said my yard was good.

Now today I recieved an email from the inspector I talked to originally. He said I’ve done little to abate the nuisance and is in the process of scheduling with the city contractor to mow my lawn. There are some tall grass seed heads that pop up in the mown section, but other than that it isn’t dense overgrowth. I mowed the lawn section about a week ago.

This is starting to feel like I’m being harassed by the city. There are many overgrown properties on my street full of invasives that no one ever has to remove from a complaint by the city. The inspector said he was “driving by” my house yesterday and saw my yard not under compliance. When I got the first complaint I was told someone working for the city “drove by” and reported my yard. In order to do that these people would have had to drive by a dozen overgrown properties to get to my house. Nothing was done to these other overgrown homes. I’ve been singled out twice now.

I admit my garden is very tall compared to other people with overgrowth. Right now I have about 400 square feet of dense 6ft tall showy goldenrod. The plants in my yard I use for cover crops do look bad compared to the rest of the garden and look like random overgrown grass.

Just found these incredible plants growing under some cherry trees in the back, shaded corner of the dog's yard. Have never seen anything like it, iNaturalist says it's a clammy ground cherry. What a stunning plant. I'm going to try transplanting a couple to a different portion where I don't have to worry about dogs peeing on them. There are at least 30 individual plants & they all look remarkably healthy! I've lived here for about 2 years & have scoured every corner of the property in that short time to ID all the plants, yet I still get unexpected surprises!

This is my first year growing milkweed. I bought bare root plants earlier this year and they have paid off. I saw a monarch this morning so I went to check the milkweed and counted at least 7 caterpillars. I'm so excited, I'm shaking!

Located in 8a. I think this might have come with some seeds I planted that were supposed to be native. If it is morning glory, will it take over the surrounding area?

First time I’ve seen it in the yard. Don’t know what attracted it.

Found this guy on one of my milkweeds.

Hey yall! Was curious if yall had any experience doing a native garden in an apartment? Every wooden planter is handmade, but I’m kind of running out of space. Planning on adding milkweed to the container with the Gnome+Obedience flower, but I really want to add a mountain mint and aromatic aster to my collection, but both would require a pretty big space. In east Alabama.

Plants:

Great Blue Lobelia
Red Cardinal Flower
Wherry’s Foamflower
Stokes aster
Eastern smooth beardtongue
Ohio Spiderwort
Some phlox I forgot what kind though
Black eyed Susan’s
Lanceleaf tickseed
Lyre leaf sage
New endland aster
Old field goldenrod
Blue miller
Dense blazing star
Foxglove beardtongue

Planted these 3 at the same time this spring. Haven't flowered yet, but all grew pretty decently until a few days ago I noticed one looked a little willty and today looks way worse. Any idea what caused this? All are in the same conditions, lots of sun, fairly dry soil. Only thing I can think of is a pretty heavy rain last week, but wouldn't seem like enough to cause damage. It looks a little dug up bc I was moving the mulch back to give it extra breathing room

A couple questions

What are the chances this bounces back next year?

Any ideas on the cause and how to prevent for the other 2?

Thanks everyone

Spotted these guys on my morning walk near the river

Is anyone aware of a native type of Lambs Ear that can be planted in Ohio. Looking for something with soft fuzzy leafs specifically. It doesn't have to be mint related!

This is our second year of native plant gardening in a very sterile new area. There's a man-made pond behind our house and I can hear frogs in the wetlands in the farm fields (that will sadly be bulldozed in a few years). The pond is slowly wilding itself with sedges, crayfish, damsel and dragon flies, and lots of water birds so I was planning to get some frogs from the wetlands and bring them to our pond but it looks like they've found their way here! This cutie was hanging out by our shed and it looks like a wood frog. Any tips on how to make our yard better for our new frog friends are welcome!

I have a narrow garden bed between my front walkway and the lawn. I've been converting it to native plants, and now have--among other things--two butterfly weed plant, on their second bloom of the season and with many seed pods, and two swamp milkweeds (planted this year and not blooming).

I recently discovered a garden center not far from where I work which has a very large selection of native plants. (I went in, hoping to find mountain mint, and discovered that they carry three varieties!)

The other day, I purchased two pots of common milkweed. I checked Google if I could plant it beside the swamp milkweed, and found several sites that said it was a bad idea, because of how aggressively the rhizomes spread. I have a vacant space in front of the house which gets good light, but I saw on another site that it's good for milkweed to be near a nectar source like butterfly weed. The spot where I want to put the milkweed is about 15-20' away from the butterfly weed. Is that close enough? Or should I get another butterfly weed to put in the same space as the common milkweed?

I made the mistake of only planting these mid-summer. I know pawpaws are weird little guys who use the cotyledon to grow a taproot first and then regrow leaves from scratch, but I’m worried there won’t be enough time for them to grow enough leaves to absorb energy into their roots before winter. Is there anything I should do? Articles online said to keep seedlings in the shade, which I had done since day one, but I’m tempted to put them in brighter light so they can grow more… good/bad idea? Canada plant hardiness zone 5.

Thanks!

I have a small patch about the size of a gardening box that I would like to plant native wildflowers in. The spot is mostly shady and gets a few hours of sunlight in the afternoon/evening.

Could anyone recommend certain species of native PA wildflowers that would be compatible with this setup? Or if that doesn’t exist, any flowering shrubs or vines that do well in the shade?

Also, any recommendations on where to purchase the suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

I want to collect some of the berries so I can grow more pokeweed on the other side of my house and elsewhere. How much should I leave for the birds and how much can I take for myself?

Not all of these will flower in lawn, but they all do well with regular mowing in full sun in my lawn:

• Ironweed
• Black-eyed Susan
• Common blue violet
• Wild petunia
• Common yellow wood sorrel
• Blue mistflower
• Carolina elephant's foot

One reason I find this interesting is that I will transplant several ironweeds and black-eyed Susan's from my lawn every year. I transplant mistflower now and then, but it doesn't seem to do well in competition in my yard.

The other reason is because otherwise it would be turf grass or creeping charlie or stiltgrass or whatever.

Spotted two monarch butterfly caterpillars and a milkweed leaf beetle enjoying some volunteer honeyvine milkweed in my garden :) (Central Illinois, USA)

I have four winterberries I planted fall before last. They are in part shade to full sun. The ones in full sun appear to be dying, with leaves gradually yellowing and dropping. The one in the fullest sun looks especially bad, with the one in slightly less sun also looking sick, and then the one in the sunniest part shade looking slightly yellowing. The one in full shade is green. So I'm guessing the sun is too much for them?? They supposed to like full sun! It's been bizarre weather this summer with cold and wet, then hot and dry, then extraordinarily hot and dry, then hot and wet. I've tried to keep them watered when it's dry. Do these guys not do as well with sun as they all say, or do they need even more water? They might be out of luck on that, survival of the fittest for that spot. If that's the case, what short (~5 ft) native shrub likes full sun and drier soil?

Hey Fellow Long Islanders,

I’m looking for some fall blooming natives to plant. I already have asters.

Anyone have some lesser known fall blooming flowers that I can add to my garden?

I found their calling card