If there might be monarchs, you might want some milk weed. But it is weedy.
Mint is surprisingly attractive to butterflies. (Also weedy.) I once found a praying mantis because i saw a pile of butterfly wings on the ground, and looked up into the mint plant advice them…
But if you want something that looks more garden-like, i have no specific suggestions.
I’m not skilled at ornamentals, and the only specific advice I can offer is, if you’re in the USA, to talk to your county Cooperative Extension office; they should be able to make recommendations for your particular area.
But may I add a note of praise for both your mother and her daughters?
(There are a lot of pollinators, mostly not butterflies; but you probably know that.)
Two new redbuds (Cercis canadensis) planted this week.
One is ‘The Rising Sun’, another features red-purple foliage in spring (‘Flamethrower’), both with pink flowers.
That sounds like a good start. I’d use a plant database to check the growth habits and soil/light/moisture needs for each plant and then place them accordingly.
I have never had success with aquilegia (columbine) but the flowers are so pretty, imma try again.
I also got a new-to-me blue flower called eryngium (blue sea holly) so we’ll see what happens.
Gardening is an exercise in optimism, is it not?
I also soaked & planted seeds for both sweet peas & dwarf sugar peas, and placed some uneeded metal trellis over the pot to hopefully discourage digging squirrels.
Next up, in the upcoming seeds:
I don’t particularly enjoy eating chard, or radishes. But for some reason, I like growing them.
After that, once it warms up more, I have seeds for zinnia, cosmos, and sunflowers.
Oh, and 4 o’clocks!
And moonflowers. I hope those make it; I’ve never had 'em in a pot before.
I’ve grown them successfully in-ground, but that was in TX and I know moonflowers - unlike me - like things very warm.
The morning glory by my front door should have reseeded themselves.
They came back last year - a striped variety, forgot the name, pink and violet and occasionally blue.
Meanwhile, the grape hyacinth that came with the house are doing their groovy thang:
Perhaps my favorite flower. We’ve had clumps naturalizing in 2 or our last 3 homes. COuldn’t find a place they were happy in the middle one.
Ours around the gingko tree are especially strong this year. Sometimes in the golden early morning or evening light they glow almost flourescently!
I have been ripping mine out. Been here 20+ years and I still have them.
Too much leaves for the flowers.
No luck finding Teddy Bear sunflower seeds, buy I got these:
And cornflower seeds.
If I’m lucky I’ll get home before the next round of bouncy rain (hail).
Those look pretty similar! (I suspect “Teddy Bear” is an older varietal, and there’s new fancy cool kidz on the market.)
Harvested Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) yesterday. I pinch off the top, smallest leaves. It grows all over a few spots in our woods.
I like to make a pesto with it.
We are getting the plants from the next county over (15 miles away) - The county’s Soil & Water Conservation Board holds an annual native plants sale.
The county has all sorts of how-to info. So I’ll be doing some reading!
Looks like a good start!
They do the annual native plants sales here too. Maybe they do that nationwide (though presumably with different plants in different locations.)
I’m surprised. I never heard of anyone using it for anything useful, or describing it as anything other than something to be eradicated. In fact, on this morning’s bike ride, my sister described pulling some around her son’s new house.
I’m about to go seed my 2nd big pot (I have 3 set up for this year - the 3rd is reserved for the warmer weather things) and decided that since some onions have sprouted in my pantry, imma chuck those in, too. They make a pretty flowerhead.
“Flying Saucer.” It’s been bugging the crap outta me.
I knew it had something to do with aliens … ?
Anyway, I like that no two blossoms look the same. Some have just a single tiny fleck of color on an almost-all-white flower, others have dense coloring.
We finished our planting yesterday.
Click thumbnails for bigger pics.
Yesterday we added 6 more tulips, some Phlox, 12 Lilies, a boxwood for the end of the hedge, and some marigolds for the back deck’s flower boxes.
Do hollyhocks do well in the shade, or are they best in sun?
We had a new back fence installed in the fall, on a north-facing alley, and I’m wondering what to plant on the alley side.
Which reminded me that I had bought seeds for French breakfast radishes last year. I just pulled them out from their hidey hole. Guess I should have planted them already. Something for the weekend.
You can plant radishes about every 2 to 4 weeks through the season until early September (at least around here.) If the soil’s too hot, especially if it’s hot and dry, they won’t come up and/or won’t do well; but the weather’s been so erratic around here that sometimes they do well even in midsummer.
My first planting went in April 1st, and is up, though still quite small. Second planting’s probably going in sometime in the next couple of days. I grow both French Breakfast and Cherry Belle; I find the French Breakfast a little more reliable but they both usually do well enough to be worth planting.
I don’t much like radish. But some of my customers do.
– if you’re seeding carrots (somewhat later than your first date to plant radish), seed radish with them: mix the seed in the planter if you’re using one, or seed one right on top of the other in the row if you’re seeding by hand. The radish will come up faster, and keep the soil surface open so the carrot seed can grow, as well as the row visible if you’re trying to cultivate before the carrots come up. The radish will be ready a lot sooner; pull any of them that get past good eating stage while you’re weeding the carrots, and then the carrots will have more room to grow. Or leave a few to bloom to attract beneficials and discourage unwanted insects.
Looks nice. Very ordered.
What did you put down for weed control under the gravel? I could imagine that being a bit of an issue.
Also, everything looks really nice and organized, but what are your plans for when half of one species decides to give up the ghost, or displays different growth habits? Just saying, we tend to aim towards much more loosely formed and ordered “drifts” and “clumps.” But if you can maintain that, i looks nice.
In my locale on the Gulf coast they need partial shade to survive the summer, but in your location they should have full sun. I do know they are freeze tolerant.
