This happens to a "lawn" if you let grass develop friendships with wild herbs. After a meadow of snowdrops now the change to white and purple scented violets, Ficaria verna and much more. Daisies, buttercups, and dandelions will follow later in April. A paradise for wild bees and insects. Naturepark #VosgesDuNord in eastern France.
@mikeswimm The native plant germination and starts process is great for mental health. There are some slow varieties. We started scarlet globe mallow from seed of 2023. One plant made it. It is a very small mallow. The plant was expanding fall 2024. Perhaps propagating from a rhizome will be successful. #nativeplants, #minnesota, #Zone4b.
Blue skies today so I retook the daffodils pic with the willow oak (Quercus phellos) in the background. 
Which pic is better? https://mastodon.world/@jblue/114179925692540009
A Tiger Swallowtail has recently emerged at a time when there are few preferred #wildflowers for it to feed on. Luckily, a #NativePlants gardener planted Carolina Jessamine years ago and it already has cascades of yellow flowers.
So the gardener gets to enjoy the flowers and the #butterfly.
The neighbors, however, must treat traditional lawns with chemicals to kill weeds.
#FoodSecurity #gardening #inflation #foraging #NativePlants #DOGE #uspol #usda #food
If you need help gardening/foraging, please feel free to reach out. Tag me with any questions.
We are in this together. 
“‘Absolute chaos’ at Department of Agriculture could skyrocket rural grocery prices.”
https://www.rawstory.com/usda-layoffs-doge/
Interested in converting some of your yard to native plants?
https://www.myhomepark.com/hnp-custom-native-garden-design?utm_source=Start+a+new+HABITAT
New California poppy leaves holding onto last raindrop
Eschscholzia californica
Rather than plant into plug trays and suffer with non-ideal germination rates, this year I germinated in seed trays before pricking out the seedlings. It worked much better.
I moved half my seedlings into plug trays, and half into Aerogardens with seed starters. The results were impressive. The purple coneflowers were 2-3x bigger in hydro, the big bluestems were more like 3-5x larger.
Now to see if going back into dirt shocks the advantage out of the hydro plants or not.
For the last seven weeks, the only way I've found peace, solace, or hope is to get outside and get my hands in the dirt. I've specifically been working on starting and propagating native perennials.
Today, I divided up a clump of Rudbeckia hirta (black-eyed Susan) my friend Colin gave me last week. I got 13 solid plants and 5 optimistic stragglers out of it. They are on the right and in the small pots in front. The woody cuttings are elderberry plants.
Please enjoy this video of Atlides halesus, great purple hairstreak on Aralia spinosa, devil’s walking stick.
Turn up the volume so you can hear all the bees! This is a plant #pollinators really love.
Besides being mildly toxic, it also forms colonies from underground roots so many people don’t like them bc they can take over.
It is climate change resilient though bc it flowers in the summer / fruits in the fall, tolerates summer heat of south eastern North America and is drought resistant. It’s dioecious so if you want to propagate one, you need to sprout enough seeds to have both male and female plants.
Devils walking stick has the largest leaves in North America but doesn’t actually have very many of them.
I use the leaves of spinosa as an aromatic. Either used fresh in broth or tea or chopped up and very lightly sautéed (1-2’) in oil and used as a topping. It’s great as a tarka for Indian curries.
#cooking #plants #NativePlants #gardening
It might be a little confusing but there are two Aralia species in Japanese cuisine that have two similar edible relatives in North America.
Aralia cordata (udo) - Aralia racemosa
Aralia elata (taranome) - Aralia spinosa
Unlike cordata, the stalks of racemosa are too thin and fibrous while young but the leaves are edible.
Aralia spinosa, devil’s walking stick 
Please don’t flame me for growing this plant. The #pollinators love it and the leaves taste nice (slightly minty asafoetida).
Bark, roots and unripe berries can cause contact dermatitis and/or allergies. Ripe berries are mildly toxic in large quantities besides not tasting very good.
This is really bleak. Know I’m just singing back to the choir here but what are you guys planting for the pollinators this year?
This one is new for me, sneezeweed, Helenium amarum. They’ve already sprouted in their outdoor cold-strat containers.
Also transplanted year old loebelia siphilitica seedlings to the ground yesterday.
Another new one is lyre leaf sage but seeds haven’t sprouted yet. Pic is from summer last year.
Hemaris diffinis, snowberry clearwing on lyreleaf sage, Salvia lyrata.
