You may remember this post from my discussion of pollinators. I said it was a native pollinator garden, no planting required–and that’s absolutely true.
These native plants “planted” themselves and they are now blooming, providing late season nectar for butterflies and other pollinators.
But last week, the Spoiler says, “Hey, what’s happening down there by the road. We never had all those weeds. Do we have to have it looking like that?” Sigh.
So I explained–again–as I do every time he has our helper come over, why he can’t “weed” all this stuff out, that these are native plants and that they are providing food for our butterflies.
“But we never had them before, ” he groused.
“We did, ” I reminded him. “They have just migrated from the edge of our lot to under this tree to get more sun.”
And then we had an interesting discussion of “which” edge, since technically our lot has 4 edges (although if he were paying attention to my statement, and what we had done in the yard, he would know that there is only 1 place they could have come from–but that’s another whole story that I’m not going to bore you with!)
Back in the pollinator post, I put in an offhand reference to Larry Weaner and his idea of succession habitats. One of these plants, the white snakeroot (or tall boneset, if you prefer) is a short lived native that does migrate around. Its botanical is eupatorium altissimum for those who like to know these things.
It may stay here, under my magnolia for a few seasons and then be gone–but chances are, it will crop up across the street in my neighbor’s tree line. That’s what it does. Still, I am grateful to have it when I do. Once it’s gone, I hope the wood asters (another native) will fill in, as they are doing on the edges of my woods.
I am fighting off the pokeweed, which would also like to fill in. That I would prefer not to fill in!
Gardendaze 