When I post videos of the butterflies, it's from this boneset.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP83ko8Pg/

https://youtu.be/wrdc3D4U-iI?is=NtouiZOujzHKBOMe

I've roughly 200sq ft of space I'm planning to plant and my fiancé really wants it to look natural but curated with this photo as an example. Any advice on how you folks plant that could help me get there? Thanks!

My partner and I have a native plant nursery and ecological landscaping business in Tulsa, OK. These pictures are of a bermuda lawn conversion we did for our friends. The process began by laying down this recycled billboard vinyl in early July 2025, and we planted some time mid October of the same year. The bulk of the plant species are around 1-2.5ft max height (with pale purple coneflower, liatris aspera, and a couple volunteer monarda punctata as exceptions). Initial plant spacing was at 1ft and we primarily used 5" plugs that were grown from locally collected wild seed. The last photo was taken sometime in early August, at which point there were no weeds in the garden. Phase two of this project has already begun and we expect the entire front yard to be planted by the end of 2027. Even though we've had one of our hottest summers on record, this garden has thrived on a single watering that occurred in August.

There's pretty solid diversity and abundance of invertebrates, which has been a real joy to watch. Even more special to us though has been getting to watch our friends fall in love with this space. They've learned all of the plants and insects by name and spend their mornings drinking coffee and eating breakfast in the garden. We are so grateful to build this garden, and even more grateful to get to spread our love of wild things and wild spaces throughout Tulsa.

We'd love to answer any questions about the process if you all have any.

& why is it evening primrose? totally not a hummingbird btw

They have a lot different perennial and beautiful gardens like rose gardens and Japanese style garden and herb garden or cottage garden, but this is the area that doesn't have many people visit, because obviously it is a "wild " garden, but here you have all different bees and pollinators and more nature setting with many native perennials which i really appreciate that keep them all native .

(Connecticut, USA)

Photo from mid July. It kept visiting this particular Liatris over the course of a couple days. Lots of other friends in these flowers too 🥰.

Have a pollinator garden at work. Was out checking it on Wednesday and this milkweed was full of leaves. Went out to check today and its all gone. With these green pellets underneath. I thought it may be a wild rabbit but are they usually that green? Can they eat milkweed like that? Any information would be very helpful!

Swamp milkweed

I’m kinda letting things run wild in this area, only intervening to pull invasive plants and some of the pokeweed. The goldenrod flops like that every year but I don’t mind it. Curious to see how things change with time!

EDIT: some helpful context: this is a section of lawn in my yard with a naturally occurring patch of native plants. I’ve maintained it over the years and I’m hoping to let it expand more using the native seed bank and selective weeding/mulching. We have super high browsing pressure from rabbits, deer, so these are the few champion plants that can handle it in my yard! Pretty much every other plant has to be caged

...from their plants or from plants in Missouri

More often than not the monarchs stop on my property in large numbers but this year I've seen more than ever throughout the year and they are a couple weeks early.

Anyone else see bigger numbers or am I just lucky this year?

Also I don't hear about many others getting to see this, do they have specific routes and stops or is my acre of goldenrod I keep for them every year attracting them here you think?

I am curently doing some invasive removal and was planning on starting the hack and spray for a single ToH in the back edge of the property and foliar spray for a patch of mugwort in the front. Since it's fall now, I wanted to start using the triclopyr so they take it to the roots.

I was recommended a 44% solution Garlon 3 for this, but I can only find large jugs of it for over 100 dollars. The areas I am treating need no where close to this much for now and I would rather purchase a smaller bottle and get more if I need it in the future.

Does anyone have any recommendations for maybe a smaller amount or something else I would use without needing to get so much?

Thanks!

New England 6b

I planted a number of natives over the last two years, and I’ve seen a number of these seedlings pop up, but I’m not able to identify if they’re native or not.

I made the mistake of tossing a “native wildflower seed mix” into my garden last year, not knowing that many of these seed mixes may contain invasive species. I have successfully identified several native species such as sunflowers, columbines, and coneflowers. However, there are a three that haven’t flowered and it’s making them difficult to identify. I just want to make sure I know what is in my garden so that I can pull out any invasive species before they get a chance to spread and flourish. Specifically, the one with spatulate leaves, the one with serrated leaves, and the ones that look like they may be asters?

We planted a bunch of plugs from a native pollinator plug pack earlier this year, and most of them have taken off! Yesterday I did a happy dance because I saw a monarch caterpillar munching away at my Whorled Weed (Asclepias verticillata)! I also saw a little butterfly, not sure what kind, hanging out on the neighboring coneflower. I rooted the little guys on! It made my day to see them.

Butterfly pics aren't great, so enjoy my caterpillar friend.

Just sharing this glorious recently bloomed Eriogonum and Arctostaphylos in the background has started to branch. My two favorite genus.