Natives and Nativars

One of the first plants that I planted in my new yard back in 2023 was common milkweed. I started the seeds but they didn't do very well in pots and then I decided I should just plant them in the ground and hope for the best. They did much better the following year and this year they looked great. This was also the first year that the Monarchs actually found them- which, honestly worked out pretty well as by this point I had 10+ large plants in 3 separate clumps. Even though I really wanted to see the caterpillers in year one, this probably worked out a lot better as I didn't have to panic and try to find more plants while the caterpillers ate them down to nothing. I don't know how many actually made it to butterflies as they did seem to attract a lot of bird attention- but it felt like nice progress anyways.  

 A monarch caterpiller, photo from a couple weeks ago.

The below variety took a bit longer to get started- which was probably my own fault as I was waiting for the plant to look more vigorous before planting it in the ground while the plant was waiting for me to plant it in the ground before it would grow. It was such a good learning experience though - from now on I'll just get the native seedlings in the ground in early spring because they are more likely to thrive like that than if I wait for them to look like real plants. This was a pretty variety- makes me want to collect more different varieties.

A swamp milkweed variety called Soulmate.

I bought several quart sized elderberry plants last year when proven winners direct had them on sale. They were very tiny and definitely took some time to get their bearings. The Lemony Lace really did well as soon as it started to warm up. My black lace ones did not do as well- but I'm thinking I may have had them too close to the driveway and more than likely the previous owner of our home salted the driveway in winter. I just moved them to another bed, so hopefully next year will be their year to shine. I had planned to make a goth garden with them as that sounded like such a fun idea- but, they are taking their sweet time turning into anything large enough to build a themed garden around. 

Lemony Lace elderberry

It's almost time to start seed shopping for next year- whenever things calm down I need to figure out what I will be prioritizing in terms of natives for next years. I would really like to add a lot of butterfly/moth host plants but it is really challenging to make a list of host plants, make sure those insects are in my area, then find a place to buy the right locality seeds. Hopefully I will get time this winter to really put together a useful pile of seeds to get me more pollinator variety.