Native Plants (load warning)

Well, nobody ever said they had to be aquatic, right?

Since my gardens indirectly help native fish through 1) stormwater attenuation 2) no fertilizer and 3) no water, I thought I might indulge you all in some possibilities to branch out your native fish hobbies into the yard. A big question always comes up at the end of any fish or mussel program that I do: "What can I do?" The first answer, is of course, know they're there. And the second... Well, here it is.

Right now my dune garden is in one of it's most active bloom sequences, which was kicked off two weeks ago with the Ohio spiderwort (not pictured) and comes to a quick crescendo with all this butterfly milkweed, which is one of our most spectacular plants. I created these particular gardens by dragging in 8 tons of sand, because my soil is clay, and I want it all.

I'm a little sad with these pictures, as I had to use my point n click. I shorted out the body of the D70 the other night. So hopefully you get the idea what 300 heads of butterfly milkweed looks sorta like. My mom came over and actually agreed that I wasn't over exaggerating when I said it was "insane"

In the next three weeks, the rainwater garden behind it will come to life, which is where I dug out a pit to store all the water that comes off the upper part of the driveway and out of the front gutter, thus preventing it from going down the storm drain. It fails over into the yard, so I've even contained 7-inch-in-an-hour rainstorms, without a drop going out. And in the wintertime, it gives water routes into the soil along stems, even when the ground is frozen.

So here's what you actually wanted to see

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Our house is the one behind it.

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Looking up the driveway, a little closer.

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Down the driveway.

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And the side of the house.

Some of the dune garden species:

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Common thimbleweed (grows in moist clay too)

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Fruits of cylindrical thimbleweed (sand specific - bloomed a couple weeks ago)

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Early goldenrod (grows in moist clay)

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Woodland sunflower (grows in dry clay)

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Butterfly milkweed (grows in dry clay)

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A little bit closer...

And then some of the stuff that's starting in the raingarden:

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American germander

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Blackeyed susan (this is the wild type, not the cultivar you get at the garden store)

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Wild bergamont

So that's what's probably interesting without getting too over-done with the pics. The one noteworthy exception was the common milkweed, I didn't get a picture that I was satisfied with. That is blooming huge right now as well, and wow is it an amazing smell.

What will be really fun is when I move this whole thing around back this fall. It was a nice idea, but it's really in the way and I could be capturing all the rainwater down the length of the driveways too. So I've got places for everything as we're remodeling the back, and I'll put a nice short plant raingarden in its place next spring. The current one is kind of unruly, and people who see think that it has to be unruly, which just isn't true. I'll saturate the new one with Iris, Lobelia (both blue and cardinal flower) and blazingstar. That'll be insane late July Might try a mow-less grass around the outside of that.

Todd

Todd, your yard is totally awesome. It's a great example of what people can do with native plants and environmentally sensitive yard maintenance. What I like is that your photos demonstrate that such a garden doesn't have to look weedy and unkempt - it can still have the "granny lives here" look.

Would you be willing to take a photo series of your rain garden this summer? I sometimes give talks for which I need photos. Maybe a plhoto every 2 weeks?

Thanks so much Laura

I definitely will, but this year isn't the best because I ripped it all up. It was getting choked with greenheaded coneflower and ironweed, and I wanted to tame it down a bit. Still should have a great bloom of Lobelia and Liatris, although they'll be out of sync. Maybe it'll still look alright. I can round up past photos from the wild side last year. It was so insane, I even thought it was out of control

Todd

Butterfly milkweed thats the name.thanks, for years i have seen this plan in the late spring early summer on my way the jackson ohio
on ST.RT.35 I love wild flowers.good job!

Gorgeous! I love that butterfly milkweed. Some dork mowed off most of my black-eyed susans today. I'll have to get a sign since I can't afford a fence. Why won't those dang neighbors and their mowers stay off my property!!?!! Not everything needs to be paved over and manicured!

Here's some of my flowers, they aren't all neat like Todd's. I don't coddle mine.

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I got munchies, too. Yummy!

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Edited by schambers, 06 July 2009 - 07:54 PM.

Todd, do you have any late winter/early spring natives like virginia bluebells or toothwort? I know those are more typical of the southern highlands, I'm not sure what local variants you might have growing on glacial junk in O-hi-o.

Sue,
That's a lovely Turk's cap you have. I hope to have some someday.

Tony, thanks! Glad to solve that one for you! It's a great plant, and yeah, Route 35 goes through some awesome area. Have you ever stopped at the Lynx prairie in Adams County? If you can get out there right now, you'll see some seriously awesome plants. Really, the whole rest of the year. But right now the short green milkweed and pale purple coneflower is blooming. That reminds me, I need to get that gallery on my website. It's been 2 years lol.

Susan, that blue flower might be atlantic blue-eyed grass. It's state endangered and is also a high quality indicator. You may be able to get into some kind of conservation easement for your property, that may be some level of jurisdictional wetland back there. I can't wait to come out!

And in all actuality... Those dorks might be what's maintaining prairie back there. It's counter-intuitive, but prairies are, esp after we've been trained to coddle plants our whole lives.

Do you have a copy of Living in the Oak Openings? Did I ever give you one of those?

Bruce, sure do... I'll try and round up some pictures. They're in the "Back 40" which the woodland garden looks like hell now as everything seneces, and the high competition garden is gearing up for it's late July EXPLOSION. I didn't do a June cut on the high comp garden this year (to be a dork and mow it, or to root around like a buffalo ), so it should be absolutely out of control this summer.

Todd

Sue,
That's a lovely Turk's cap you have. I hope to have some someday.

Thanks! I can't take much credit for it. All I did was stand back to see what grew.

Susan, that blue flower might be atlantic blue-eyed grass. It's state endangered and is also a high quality indicator. You may be able to get into some kind of conservation easement for your property, that may be some level of jurisdictional wetland back there. I can't wait to come out!

Ooooo! You'll have to explain that to me. Our school district ran into that looking for a spot to put a new elementary school. Most of the properties not already developed are wetlands or park lands.

And in all actuality... Those dorks might be what's maintaining prairie back there. It's counter-intuitive, but prairies are, esp after we've been trained to coddle plants our whole lives.

My Dad told me to mow it once a year (or every other year, I forget) to keep it a meadow. But not during bloom season!

Do you have a copy of Living in the Oak Openings? Did I ever give you one of those?

Todd

Yes, you did, thanks! I'll have to read it again.

Edited by schambers, 06 July 2009 - 09:25 PM.

FWIW, but kind of a cool thing to think about, since we're in the "intergrade zone"... If anyone wants to get into H-time on this one, man, I think you deserve a flogging from Bruce

What Susan has is a Michigan lily, Lilium michiganese. It only grows on wet sand in Lucas county. Her picture is, of course, at Susan's house.

Turks cap lily, Lilium superbum, also occurs in Lucas county, but only on rich, moist clay. This picture is from behind Susan's son's Jr. Hi. School.

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The biggest difference is in the arrangement of the petals. On superbum, they wrap and touch. On michiganese, they're kinda just hanging in space.

Welcome to one of the most heterogeneous flat lands you'll ever encounter due to the mixture of this sand ridge sitting on clay and glacial till.

If we just hadn't messed up the clay, wow, this county would be something to see! As Susan said, there's no land left in their township or city that ISN'T wetland... And they'll fight to develop that yet.

Todd

Some spring blooms... These are from 2008. Most of these were rescue plants from a development site in Sylvania, where we had landowner permission, and development was imminent. But I will say it really helped to get the soil microbes with it because this area was all honeysuckle, buckthorn and garlic mustard when we moved in. Sometimes with rescues, I have to wonder what's more valuable... The plants or the soil. I'm going to say it's the soil that can't be replaced. I'd be quite content if I never did another rescue again in my life. There's plenty of trashed placed to redevelop.

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Woodland garden in April

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Twinleaf, usually first up in the spring

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Bloodroot

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White flowered trillium

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Jack-in-the-pulpit

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Wild geranium

And then out front in the sand garden...
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Wild blue lupine & sweet fern

I grew the lupine from seed and inoculated it with cores of sand taken from an existing lupine patch; it has a symbiosis with a bacteria, and it's tough to inoculate. I even managed to move it.

I did the same inoculation trick with New Jersey tea and some of the weird tick-trefiols and other legumes. So yeah, I'd rather take cores of soil and start from seed than move whole prairies. Esp when you come home with so many inadvertent hitch hikers... We started naming the tick-trefoil seed "Desmodium trouserensis" I got a mess of them to germinate this year. Prolly time to go look and see what they actually are lol.

Todd

I forgot that twinleaf goes that far north. It's a dominant species in the creek bottoms at both the Walls of Jericho and Sipsey Wilderness in AL. But anyway, your garden looks good across seasons, always the challenge.

Tony, thanks! Glad to solve that one for you! It's a great plant, and yeah, Route 35 goes through some awesome area. Have you ever stopped at the Lynx prairie in Adams County? If you can get out there right now, you'll see some seriously awesome plants. Really, the whole rest of the year. But right now the short green milkweed and pale purple coneflower is blooming. That reminds me, I need to get that gallery on my website. It's been 2 years lol.


Todd

No Todd, i have not been to Lynx prairie in Adams County.i may have to put that on my list of things to do.
Todd you and my paternal father need to hook up one day and do a photo shoot for others to see.

Awesome stuff guys! Todd, your milkweed gardens got me jealous. I have a herd of swamp milkweed taking over the entire yard....it's cool just not as cool as butterfly weed.
Susan that blue eyed grass is a neat little flower. The blue is almost electric in prime with that yellow center. I'm infatuated with those lilies since I first saw a group of them this year - such a neat native.



Spotted Knapweed & Yellow Sulphur


Shooting Star

Wow, Todd, all, those are some really neat photos! I'm sort-of a native plant buff, too, though I live in an apartment and don't have too many plants.

Todd, there was some Sweet Fern in one of your photos. Is that Comptonia asplenifolia? Do you ever get any seeds?

Brian

FWIW, but kind of a cool thing to think about, since we're in the "intergrade zone"... If anyone wants to get into H-time on this one, man, I think you deserve a flogging from Bruce

What Susan has is a Michigan lily, Lilium michiganese. It only grows on wet sand in Lucas county. Her picture is, of course, at Susan's house.

Turks cap lily, Lilium superbum, also occurs in Lucas county, but only on rich, moist clay. This picture is from behind Susan's son's Jr. Hi. School.

Sorry... I think the only one we have around here that looks like that is the Turk's cap. And I've been drooling over them recently. Flog away...

Gorgeous pictures! I'm enjoying all of them. I've been wondering how hard it would be to get some wild lupines going, it would be sweet to attract some karner blues. I hope the fritillaries will come back. There were dozens of them back of my house, but we had a really hard rain and they disappeared.

Cool shots Lance. Have you seen any wood lily this year then? I'm jealous about the shooting star. They didn't make it in our little remnant over here.

Where was the spotted k-weed? I don't get too fussy about exotics, but that one is evil incarnate.

Brian, yep, that's Comptonia. I get seeds, but I'm a real nazi about genotype, if that's what you're asking Susan, on the other hand...

Susan, you won't attract Karners, they're horrible fliers, so you'd have to be within 400 meters of an established population. That's not to say there's no reason to pass over lupine tho!

Yeah, of all the things, I had a great spangled fritillary in my yard the other day. I couldn't belive it. I guess we have enough violets now that many folks in my neighborhood are stopping spraying. And here I just ripped a bunch out lol.

And please don't sweat it Laura, I didn't bring it up for those reasons

Todd

Edited by farmertodd, 07 July 2009 - 01:43 PM.

Todd, your garden looks great. I bet the 'urban insects' like stopping at your place for a good buffet.

When I buy my own house, I will be contacting you for some seed!

Blake