#planting native wildflowers: to love and be loved

[cloudgremlin]

Truly the point of existence in this world is to love and be loved in all its shapes and forms

[reasonsforhope]

"Next Monday [6/17/24] is the start of National Pollinator Awareness Week, and one Colorado advocacy group is hosting a flower planting drive to rewild Colorado’s meadows, gardens, and just maybe, its children too.

Created by constitutional amendment in 1992, Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) is a state-funded independent board that invests a portion of Colorado Lottery proceeds to help preserve and enhance the state’s parks, trails, wildlife, rivers, and open spaces.

This year, GOCO’s offshoot Generation Wild is distributing over 100,000 free packets of wildflower seeds to collection points at museums, Denver Parks and Rec. offices, and libraries all over the state to encourage kids and families to plant the seeds in their backyards.

The Save the Bees! initiative aims to make the state more beautiful, more ecologically diverse, and more friendly to pollinators.

According to a new report from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, 20% of Colorado’s bumblebees are now at risk of extinction. Even in a small area like a backyard, planting wildflowers can make a positive impact on the local ecosystem and provide native bees with a healthy place to live.

“The Western Bumblebee population has declined in Colorado by 72%, and we’re calling on kids across Colorado to ‘bee’ the change,” said GOCO Executive Director Jackie Miller.

Named after Generation Wild’s official mascot “Wilder,” the Wilderflower Seed Mix was developed in partnership with Applewood Seed Co. and packets are now available for pickup at designated partner sites including more than 80 Little Free Library boxes.

By distributing 100,000 Wilderflower packets, Generation Wild is providing more than 56 million seeds for planting in every nook and cranny of the state. All seeds are regionally-native to Colorado, which is important for sustaining the living landscape of bees, birds, and other animals.

Additionally, by using flower species adapted to the Mile High climate, landscapers and gardeners need to use less water than if they were tending non-native plants.

“Applewood Seed Co. was excited to jump in and help Generation Wild identify a seed mix that is native to the Colorado region and the American West, containing a diversity of flower species to attract and support Colorado’s pollinator populations,” stated Norm Poppe, CEO of Applewood Seed Co. “We hope efforts like this continue to educate the public on pollinator conservation and the need to protect our native bees and butterflies.”

Concluding her statement Miller firmly stated that children grow up better outside, and if you or a parent you know agree with her, all the information on how to participate in Save the Bees! can be found here on their website, including a map showing all the local pickup points for the Wilderflower Seed Packets."

-via Good News Network, June 13, 2024

[summerwages]

daisy knows..

[los-plantalones]

Red milkweed beetle on common milkweed.

[clove-pinks]

Suddenly, the drainage ditches near my work in an industrial area are filled with exquisitely lovely pink flowers—huge, showy blooms on vigorous bushy plants that sprang from the ditch water.

It was very difficult to approach the flowers, with no shoulder on the road, train tracks everywhere, and few businesses open to the public. My phone pictures are not impressive, but I made positive ID as swamp rose mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)!!

It is a native wildflower! Up close it's more obviously a type of Hibiscus. I can't believe that something so beautiful and exotic grows wild here and that it makes the drainage ditch its home.

[thelethalsilence]

[landwriter]

Lilium columbianum, June 2024

[fandom-blackhole]

On a side note, its probably because I'm on my period and I always get sentimental when I am, but Kansas truly is beautiful in it's own right. Like sure we don't have rolling hills, beautiful forests, or towering mountains, but we we have prairies where you can see for miles, we have a beautiful patchwork quilt of land broken into squares of golden wheat and grasses and lush greens of corn and soybean and vibrant purples of alfalfa sewn together with lines of trees and silver dirt roads. All gently decorated by pastures loveable and sweet cattle and calves, or the occasional regal horses.

Maybe she's boring to most, long and an eye sore, but the older I get the more love for my home. The more I wish she was loved and respected for all she offers just like the more tourist-y states.

I guess maybe you just have had to grow up here to see her for what she is.

[vandaliatraveler]

This past January, I made a resolution to get my garden beds to 70 - 75% native plants. My, oh my, that was an ambitious goal. I probably need another year or two to reach that level of coverage. On the other hand, the native wildflower seeds I purchased in January have germinated and produced healthy, vigorous shoots (above). Today, I planted the spreading Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium reptans) in four different beds. I have spots prepared for the rest also, including hairy beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus), blue-stemmed goldenrod (Solidago caesia), yellow pimpernel (Taenidia integerrima), and wild geranium (Geranium maculatum). The project is at least moving ahead; this coming September, I’ll buy or collect more seeds to plant before the first frost.

[cerbreus]

In the process of making the terrible horrible literal trash heap section of our back yard into an actual nice hangout spot for this summer

[nuytsia]

Donkey orchid, Diuris spp.

[herbalnature]

Check out the fiery beauty of Platanthera ciliaris, with its vibrant orange blossoms reaching out like little flames. These charming orchids add a burst of color to the green tapestry of their native U.S. habitats.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Becoming a gardener has made me discover so many different types of bugs that I never knew about. I had no idea that my area had so many native bees (there's a species of North American bee that only visits squash plants!! there are bright green metallic bees!!). I've seen bugs behave in ways that I've never found anyone talk about irl or online (a garden near me has a catnip plant that is ALWAYS covered in blue mud dauber wasps, why?). I've learned that there's many, many bugs and other creepy crawlies that are impossible to find information about online for whatever reason, and there's many spiders specifically that I've never been able to find the names of.

It's also made me terrifyingly, devastatingly aware of how few bugs there are compared to when I was a kid and that those numbers are visibly dropping every year. Butterflies are still a rare sight, no matter how hard I try. I'm getting more bees visiting my squash and bean plants, but less in the flowers. The wasp nest that was built near my window like it is every year is considerably smaller than previous years, even with more material to build with and a consistent source of water nearby. There's fewer grass spiders and the huge orb weavers I loved so much have disappeared completely in the last couple years.

We've stopped raking the leaves. We've planted more things, even started a wildflower garden. I've set out bug baths and a bee house. I'm planning on planting more next year, but will that even help? How can my little yard even begin to undo just a fraction of a fraction of the damage done by climate change and massive loss of habitats?

This isn't meant to be a doomer post, so please don't lecture at me like it's one. I'm just tired and sad and I miss my spiders.

[rederiswrites]

You can train your tastes. You can choose what you see beauty in.

Lemme go further, actually. You are constantly doing so--or letting others do it for you.

Nearly two decades ago, when we were planning our wedding, I made a very firm decision not to look at any wedding planning magazines or anything with marketing material for wedding products. I wanted our wedding to be uniquely us, and I also wanted not to be bombarded by product advertisement and beautiful photo shoots of very expensive weddings. Consequently, maybe we wasted a little bit of time reinventing the wheel, but we had a wedding we were very happy with that only cost perhaps four thousand dollars at most, probably not that much, spread out over our finances and those of both our families. Our guests went home with live potted plants that we'd paid pennies for at end of season, our florist had a great time getting to design a bouquet that tested her skills because I didn't have any preconceived ideas, my dress was utterly unique--and I really do feel that those magazines would have had a corrosive effect on all that.

When we moved to this property three years ago, I spent a LOT of time looking at images online, trying to form a coherent vision for a property that was at the time a fairly blank slate. I found myself scrolling through a lot of Russian dacha Instagrams, of all things, and they unlocked something for me. Seeing the same homey make-do decorations and techniques I grew up around a continent away, the same plywood cutout old ladies and tractor tire flower planters, somehow chewed through that last binding cord of classism, and suddenly I saw the art in it. The expression of a desire to embellish and beautify, even when you have very little, even when all you can afford is things the more well-to-do consider trash. I saw the exuberance of human love for beauty in a brilliant flower bed planted next to a collapsing shed--it didn't need to be perfect to be worthwhile. They didn't wait til everything was pristine to start enjoying things. And now I earnestly and unironically covet my own version of the tractor-tire Christmas tree at the farm down the road.

We've spent centuries now idolizing the manicured estates and quaint country retreats of the European wealthy elites. We've turned thousands of miles of living ecosystem into grass deserts in service of this vision. We need to start deliberately retraining our tastes. Seek out images of a different idea of beauty and peace. I'm not telling you what it'll be. I'm telling you this is not involuntary. You can participate. You can look at the many beautiful examples of native xeriscaping for arid climates, or photos of chaotic tangles of wildflowers, tamed by narrow paths, a bench under an arbor overwhelmed with wisteria. Maybe instead of trying to get lawn to grown under your mature trees, you'd actually get far more joy out of a patch of dirt. A hammock. A firepit ringed with log sections for seats.

You can free yourself from harmful conventions of taste and beauty, and you do it through imagining something better.

[thelethalsilence]

[flowerishness]

Lotus corniculatus (bird's-foot trefoil)

If I was more interested in social media approval I would never make an invasive weed like bird's-foot trefoil the star of the show. Generally, I get the most likes/hearts/ticks for pretty garden flowers, followed by interesting native plants. Unfortunately 'weeds' usually come in a distant third. Bird's-foot trefoil is a wildflower, originally from the grasslands of Eurasia and North Africa, but is now a common invasive plant throughout the lawns and roadsides of the temperate world.

'Weeds' often bring advantages to the struggle for existence and bird's-foot trefoil is no exception. As a legume it can fix it's own nitrogen and it does well in poor soil. Farmers like it as a non-bloating forage crop for livestock and it's often used to stabilize sloping land for erosion control. It's even included in some wildflower mixes because bumble bees love it's abundant nectar.

However, these advantages belong to a plant that easily enters native environments and regularly outcompetes local species. Like it or not, it is now a permanent member of plant communities around the world. Although this 'weed' may be driving many native species to the edge of extinction, I have a feeling that the bird's-foot trefoil's long-term survival is guaranteed. Thanks largely to our help.