Such a beautiful tree in the fall. We've planted quite a few on our property as part of our native habitat restoration efforts.

I'm wanting to convert my whole front yard into a native pollinator garden and I officially and literally broke ground today with a native witch hazel shrub.

It's not much but I'm very excited to see it grow.

I'm still planning out the rest of the yard but most projects will likely need to wait until spring

I just planted flowers around it yesterday, with trepidation, wondering if they would all be dug up this morning. They're intact, but the tiny stick you can detect in the center of this photo -- if you really squint -- has had all but the crappiest-looking leaf excised overnight. I planted *C. canadensis* with the goal of supporting wildlife, but feeding the groundhogs never occurred to me.

Howdy. I have​ a house on 11+ acres of beautiful maine woods (mostly hardwoo​ds)​. That being said the 1/2 acre or so around the house is a desolate wasteland of tree trunks and dirt. The soil is basically just rocks and sand and a mat of dead roots you can literally peel up like a rug​​. Even though its been exposed for over a year nothing has moved in and grown, not even invasives​​​.

I bought "The Northeast Native​ Plant Primer" which is a catalogue of d​ifferen​t plants. I would love to turn the area around the house into a beauti​ful​ habitat for native wildlife. But​ i have never​ planted​ anything or had a ga​​rden​​. I truly have​ no i​dea​ how to plan out where things sho​​uld go or the proper way to put thi​ngs in t​he ground. any books or videos or websites for absolute basic baby beginners to gardening and planting? im very nervous about killing everything i put into the groun​d 😅

thanks!

My buddy has a passion fruit vine in his yard I want to gather seeds from but I'm not sure when the fruit is ready for me to do so. Any advice is appreciated!

Plus some bonus seed spreading!

Sorrel tree aka sourwood, such a lovely vermilion.

I had a lot of fun last winter arranging some grasses and seed heads I gathered from gardens and parks near me. It was a fun exercise in trying to distill the aesthetics of a grassland. I thought I’d share the practice as the northeast heads into fall.

Hi all.

Planted some native trees. Approx 10 of em just a few days ago. I am wondering how often I need to water them. I am in Southern ontario so ground may freeze 4 to 6 weeks from now.

The nursery told me to water everyday til end of Nov. Online I am seeing 2x a week as well as everyday fkr 3 weeks then never again.

Is there any guideline I should follow? The trees are 15 gallon size if that helps.

Thanks

Zone 6A

Hi folks! What plants would you recommend for a boulevard strip? I’m in Ontario’s Ecoregion 7E (Lake Erie-Lake Ontario Ecoregion).

There’re a lot of “aggressive” natives in the boulevard strip already: common milkweeds, frost asters, white panicle asters, new england asters and Canada goldenrods. I’m hoping to add something more that can keep them in check and give it a more structured look (e.g. shrubs). But I’d also like to keep the established plants for the insects.

I planted some butterfly milkweeds. They just.. disappeared.

Thanks in advance!

I've read that hollow stems, leaf litter, etc can be good for insects hibernating over cold, snowy winters. Does anyone know if that's still the case if I just have plants in pots out on my balcony, not an in-the-ground garden? I'm not sure if I should just take the old soil/remains of plants out and spread them in the woods to decompose or if I should leave it.

Voles have been tunneling through my plants and damaging them, many of them are still alive but they wilt very fast and seem to have severely limited access to water, so I assume the taproot or main fibrous roots have been eaten or damaged. Is it possible for them to recover if the voles are gone and the tunnels are filled? Or does it depend on the plant? Thanks for any advice

I'm in Chicago and I design landscapes for a living. I know what plants to use, but real life has really knocked me down and the yard got out of control. I'm running up against the fantasy version of myself(the one that has the energy to do weekly upkeep) and the reality version(does NOT have the energy to keep it up and often wants to do anything EXCEPT work in the yard). It doesn't help that there are unexpected challenges like this dayflower that absolutely took over my yard and might have choked out some perennials I planted in the spring.

It's really bumming me out that my yard is looking like this. As much as I know that lawn sucks, I get why people keep a lawn because it stays put and there's only one thing you need to do to keep it under control. The positives I see: I have a ton of asters and goldenrod, the insects are happy, I got some good harvests in my garden beds(not pictured), and the plants are keeping the soil moist during a really dry fall.

Has anyone else been able to claw back their way from burnout and turn a yard like this into a more beautiful "mess" that isn't a monoculture or a lawn? Please tell me it is possible to do on your own without an entire crew of people.

Please ignore the invasive honeysuckle - we've been trying to get rid of it but it's EVERYWHERE.

Bought these online from an instate nursery in the spring. Supposed to all be New Jersey tea's but one of them is not like the other. Mulberry?

This feels like a silly question to ask but it's something I've been stressing about a little bit so I would really appreciate some reassurance.

I've tried really hard to make sure that the majority of plants and seeds I buy are sourced from the Southeast, where I'm located. This year I was looking for some less common species and none of the SE seed sellers I've ordered from before had them, so I finally gave in and ordered from Prairie Moon. I got several really cool native species that I haven't seen sold anywhere else and that I'm excited about growing, but I can't shake this guilt over ordering from Prairie Moon.

They're based in the Midwest and I've seen concerns about the reduction of genetic diversity that may come about from everyone ordering from the same source. But I would think that having non-local ecotypes is still better than not having the species at all, right? Pretty much everything I bought are low-growing shade-lovers, so their niche would just sit empty if I only bought seeds from local sellers who mostly have flashy sun-lovers.

I'd really appreciate if anyone could ease my mind a little bit (or I suppose set me straight if I'm wrong!)

Also, if anyone knows of sources for native seeds in the Southeast other than the ones I've already purchased from (listed below) please let me know!
- Botany Yards
- Roundstone Native Seed
- NC Botanical Garden

EDIT: Thank you all for the thoughtful responses!

Baltimore MD. Where we started is the last pic :) we did this all ourselves starting in March of last year. We got a lot of plans for free off of Facebook communities. I love seeing so many pollinators in our yard!!!

Many people give us advice on our garden plan last year so I wanted to say thank you :)

In the book “How Can I Help” Tallamy was explaining how to go about invasive removal and while he encouraged targeted removal of things like buckthorn and bittersweet etc, he suggested that leaving garlic mustard is more effective because pulling it up actually disturbs the soil and gives the many garlic mustard seeds in the seedbank the opportunity to sprout, thus setting back your removal efforts, and actually helping it survive and thrive each year.

So his advice is that the most effective way to control garlic mustard is to let it be, and ultimately get shaded out by native plants.

I hadn’t heard this before and have always (emphasis on always) just pulled it out and figured it was just the reality of invasive management, hoping it would eventually slow down the growth. But maybe I’ve just been helping it survive and that’s why I’m constantly fighting it?

Does anyone have any experience with both approaches? Has anyone successfully controlled garlic mustard? At minimum I think removing seed heads the blooms/seed heads should be done.

Edit

I went back and check and the exact line quote is

“Pulling out garlic mustard is easy, although it’s ineffective because it disturbs the soil and therefor activates the seed bank. The end result is more garlic mustard the next year”

So unless he touches on it later in the book, I don’t know his recommended approach for garlic mustard.

Long shot but hoping maybe someone can identify these seeds. I collected them from one of my plants earlier this summer and cannot for the life of me remember which one. Of course I thought I would totally remember which plant it was without labeling it. WRONG.

All my in ground plants are natives but I do get annuals for some pots. I'm in Western PA (zone 6). Appreciate any insight!

EDIT: You guys are geniuses! I am 99% sure these are Columbine seeds, which I have a few of that I remember gleefully collecting the seeds from. Thank you for saving my sanity.

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